Brass Keys Duo & Dallas Asia Pacific Connections

Brass Keys Duo and Dallas Asia Pacific Connection which will feature professional music artists namely :

Tyrone Block - Trombone
Joel Griffin - Saxophone
Barry Bradley - Bass Guitar
Joel Thomas - Piano
Nathan Ziehm - Drums
Amanda Lee –Piano


Brass Keys Duo (Amanda Lee and Tyrone Block)

The first half of the concert will take the audiences on a musical journey that spans from the Romantic era to modern day. The pieces to be performed present an amalgamation of traditional western art forms and jazz idioms. The audience will experience the richness of jazz traditions in a classical performance setting.

Dallas Asia Pacific Connection

The second half of the concert features a jazz combo from Dallas, Texas that will fill the evening program with unforgettable mainstream jazz selections!

That was the advertisement handout ... to be truthful, I wasn't keen but it was a charity concert and we were given tickets afterall.  So we went for the concert slated for 7.30pm at Syuen Hotel.

We arrived on time, got the programme and door gifts (Sabah Tea) and found the ball room not filled.  The concert didn't start till 8.00pm (half an hour late) and the organisers did not announce anything.  I guess they thought since it was a charity concert afterall, there was no need for efficiency.

Well to be truthful, I was bored from the beginning.  The music school that was one of the sponsors, had 2 students play - an erhu and a violinist.  They were both not very good possibly because of stage fright.

Then Brass Keys Duo came on.  Before they started, Tyrone gave an introduction and said due to time constraints they would not play all the songs listed in the programme.  Well, I felt embarrassed!  Bad Malaysians late again!!!

Anyway Maria, a friend, told us that Amanda was her college mate before she went off to US to further her studies and Maria went to UK.  Amanda is an Ipoh girl and her music teacher is the mother of HJ's nephew's teacher ... small world Ipoh!

Anyway Tyrone is fantastic on the thrombone though I don't appreciate jazz, and Amanda did ok herself.  Unfortunately as it was purely classical, I got bored :(

That is until Dallas Asia Pacific Connection came on.  Joel gave the introduction this time, and mentioned that US invented jazz.  They played songs that were not in the list either but they were good.  I enjoyed some of the songs but some not.

However, you can't deny their skill and passion!

There were 2 encores after that too, by which time we finished at almost 11pm....talk about time constraints!

The Chinese in Town

In Indonesia, the people call themselves Indonesians; in US, Americans; in UK, British; in Australia, Australians.  Yet in this country Malaysia, most people call themselves by their race; Malays, Indians, Chinese etc.  Or sometimes, Malaysian Chinese.  They call themselves Malaysians most times when they have to fill in forms that request for 'country of origin'.

And why am I bringing this up?  Just to explain that here the title refers to the Chinese in China :)

These Chinese ladies are allegedly notorious for breaking up families here, for being GROs, for being grasping - any man who would provide them a better life than back in China.

Once, when we ran short of Indonesian maids, it was suggested that Chinese maids be brought in for several rather valid reasons:

• they spoke the local Chinese dialect
• the food was somewhat similar
• they didh't cost as much as maids from other countries

HOWEVER, the Malaysian Chinese ladies begged to defer for fear of losing their husbands.  And so the matter was shelved.

I digress though - my reason for this post is to talk about a Chinese lady that I met while walking Bernie in the field.  I had seen her a couple of times with her baby and another lady, but had not spoken to them.

I approached her once when she was alone with her baby and started chatting.  To my chagrin, she spoke in Mandarin, (I didn't know she was from China then) a language I had less than a smattering of :(  We managed though with signs and a bit of Cantonese that the lady understood.  If I didn't understand her I just nodded like a wise sage LOL.

I had thought she was married to a Malaysian and took her baby for an evening stroll as most mothers I see in the neighbourhood.

MIL however had something else to say from the gossip she garnered.  A lady told her the Chinese lived right next door to her and she wanted to move away because of the myriad number of cars with strange men dropping by, the noise, the loud chatter ... and MIL added have you ever seen her husband with her?  and don't tell her where you stay ... (Come to think of it, I very rarely see husbands out for evening stroll with wife and baby)

I added that since the lady is so upset with the Chinese, why move out why not call the police?  To which she replied these poor people come all the way to make a living,  how can you report them?

To-date I am still wonderng what to make of it.