Can a jazz festival be fun and well informed on its selections? The recent Penang Island Jazz Festival was all that and more, reckons DARYL GOH. 

IT’S always been an irony in the local music scene that the jazz genre, renowned in principal for its community-based roots, has been sadly associated mostly with dinner show crowds, fading divas and aging ego-centric musicians here. Some of the major brand-driven jazz festivals in Kuala Lumpur over the past decade have been tragically sterile affairs and devoid of people-centric connection. It’s no wonder that most have been discontinued.