Roy Ayers was the last performer of the night. Eight hours of jazz had preceded him on ten different stages. You would think that the audience may have been “jazzed out”. They were not. A slow hand clap preceded his slightly delayed appearance. When Ayers' irrepressibly smiling face appeared, the crowd cheered in approval.
The festival’s earlier performances suggested that Indonesian jazz fans were appreciative but not vocal. Polite clapping, as opposed to cheering, had greeted well-executed solos and performances. Roy Ayers, however, brought out the more base instincts from the well-heeled Jakarta crowd.
The reasons for this were clear. The jazz was hot and the show was great. The audience was engaged right from the start as the bass played the opening groove for an extremely fast paced and chaotic take on Dizzy Gillespie’s classic A night in Tunisia. Ayers’ version featured a screaming saxophone solo that at one point featured two saxophones from the one player. It concluded with a bass solo of such intensity that all the other band members were required to theatrically towel off the soloist as he completed his moment in the spotlight.
Ayers’ and his friends were excellent showmen. The towelling of the bassist set the tempo for the theatrical side of the show that featured many other crowd pleasers such as summarily choreographed dances by Ayers’ along with his back up vocalist. The awe-inspiring drum solo somewhere near the middle of the show combined musical prowess with the theatrical. At one point, the drummer’s hands energetically flailed his drums while his sticks remained perfectly balanced on his head. The crowd cheered.
Ayers' six piece ensemble, supplemented by two guests, was tight. Transitions between the inevitably frenzied solos back to the groove were smoothly executed and pleased the crowd, whose heads bobbed in time with the funk fuelled rhythms. The lack of a sufficiently large horn section was addressed with the judicious use of a synth horns to fill the gaps. Ayers’ was generous with his guests, a trumpeter and percussionist, giving them plenty of stage time to dazzle the crowd with their brilliance.
Ayers’ right hand man, who interchanged between a Rhodes piano and saxophones, was a star. His seamless shifts between rhythmic contributions on the keys to dynamic saxophone solos served provided excitement to each number.
Ayers’ own contributions on the vibes were not as frequent as one would have liked or expected. However, when they came they were smooth. His electrified vibes would sometimes produce strangely altered sounds that caused watchers to momentarily question the source (vibes or synth?) of the melody until they noticed his furious mallet work. The relative scarcity of Ayers’s soloing can be attributed to his role as the unquestioned band leader who was active in controlling the direction of each number. It was in this role that he directed such hits as Everybody loves the sunshine, Love will bring us back together, We live in Brooklyn baby and Hey uh, what you say come on over the course of the evening.The clearest thing to be taken from the night was Ayers’ infectious love of performance. Smiles, laughs, jokes, dancing and crowd involvement were the order of the evening. More than anything else, it was this that transformed the usually placid Jakarta crowd into a more vocal animal.
Ayers’s thanked the crowd, they cried for more and the lights came up far too quickly. This was the biggest disappointment of the night.
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