KK Jazz Festival reaches Milestone

KK Jazz Festival (KKJF) 2016 Organising Chairman Jack Ong said the event has reached a musical milestone with its 10th anniversary this year. “Much has changed in the local music scene since then where the original idea of the festival was to create a musical event where Sabahans and tourists to the State would be able to enjoy some music.”

Ong said KKJF also appreciates the continuous support of main Sponsor Yayasan Sime Darby, Ministry of Tourism, Sabah Tourism Board and City Hall, Mah Sing, Carlsberg and many others. He said the festival has now become a tourism event in the city where it is a premier music event in the Sabah Tourism Calendar as well as a key component of the Kota Kinabalu Arts Festival.

“We also conduct the Sabah Jazz talent search every year to find Sabahan jazz talents and this year we will feature international and Malaysian talents such as Bobby Taylor, Juzzie Smith, Juwita Suwito, Shanghai Jazz Festival trio, WVC band, Borneo Big Band & Joan Jim , RTM Combo, 4B’s, Momain Blues, Sabahan talents such as Appy Tots including Elton Wong who will be playing jazz piano at the festival.”

Ong said this during a press conference on Friday at Sutera Harbour Marina theatre on the KKJF event on July 22-23 from 7pm to 11pm. KKJF 2016 Co- Organising Chairman Roger Wang said this year’s KK Jazz Festival would also see some performers coming back from the previous years’ KKJF.

“We have a long list of nine years of performers and selecting them wasn’t easy. Some bands were not available, some were just passing through as part of their world tour then and some don’t exist anymore and some of our past performers have sadly passed away. But in the end we just wanted to get back to our original format where we featured more than 50 per cent local Sabahan jazz talents. This is something we are proud of as it really made a difference to the local Kota Kinabalu music scene. Looking back after 10 years the music scene has changed so much and a lot of the local musicians and bands in the scene now grew up with the festival and I believe the festival became a standard and platform for them to look up to.”

KKJF Main Sponsor Yayasan Sime Darby Governing Council Member Datin Zaitoon Dato’ Othman said the foundation’s involvement with RCKK in 2012 during the KK Jazz Festival then and this year marks the fifth year of its support.