Sabah band happy to perform again
KOTA KINABALU: Covid-19, which affected numerous businesses, also hit the entertainment industry hard.
Two years later, as Malaysia moves into the endemic phase, the band Jesseltone Project is heaving a sigh of relief at being able to perform in public.
The Movement Control Order, it said, while necessary, led to massive financial problems for many band members.
The band’s spokesman, Nik Mazrun Munap, a guitarist, said four members were full-time musicians and he was a busker.
“It’s getting better now. We have gigs coming up as there are more events requiring musical performances.”
He said this after performing at a harvest festival organised by a brewery at Riverson, The Walk, here, on Saturday night.
Jesseltone Project, originally known as Cahaya D’folk when it began in 2010, incorporates fusion folk music concepts in its performances.
During that time, they had included Kulintangan, Malay and Brunei drums, as well as violin elements in their music.
Nik Mazrun said they did so with the aim of showing the people that traditional musical instruments could blend well with contemporary music.
They rebranded themselves three years ago as Jesseltone Project after merging with Sarawakians to showcase performances with more Bornean musical instruments.
Daniel Felix James, a Sarawakian member of the band who plays the sakafi, a Sabahan instrument, said it was a traditional instrument of the Lundayeh people in Sipitang.
“The instrument is ‘dying’, as the number of people familiar with it is dwindling each passing day.
“The same goes for the sundatang (a traditional string instrument).
“Through our performances, we hope more people will know that there are such instruments similar to those in Sarawak,” he said, adding that both the sape and sakafi had differences in the way they are played.
Felix James hopes to be able to showcase more traditional musical instruments in Sabah in festivals.