On the 29th of November 2008, 2 things happened to me that never happened before.

Thing One – I stepped into Bangkok Jazz for the very first time.

Somehow, the place looked less jazzy and uppity than I thought. A real jazz bar with less apparent pretense than Alexis, I’d say.

I was there for Thing One (the band) with Zalina Lee. Yes that’s not a typo – she’s Zalila Lee‘s sister!

Zalina was simply a powerful soul singer with lots of range. She even did a cover of Alicia Keys & Jack White – Another Way To Die… doing both Alicia’s and Jack’s part!

Faz and Fook reflecting on the grand piano.

I asked Faz if they were going to play Edgar Winter Group – Frankenstein, since the last time I bumped into her, she said Giant Timeline (another band she is in) would play tonight, and that they’d play Frankenstein.

And so, she granted my request!

That was Thing Two. I have never seen Frankenstein covered. Now the only song I still want to hear a cover of is Lynyrd Skynyrd – Freebird.

Nisha on the keys. The expression knob on the far left made the psychedelic sounds of Edgar Winter’s crazy Keytar sound!

“Someday, I’ll be old enough to enter, and I’m going to sing!”

Besides alternating between instrumental funk jazz pieces and songs with Zalina Lee, they also called up Najwa (who was to play with Giant Timeline the next week).

And there, she is, posing for her brother, who is taking pictures of her.

All shots with the Sony A900 and Minolta 50mm F1.4 except the last, shot with my Vivitar 24mm F2.0 DIY Tilt-Shift lens. As you can see it’s still difficult to focus a tilt-shift in low light.