THE AMP (Asosasyon ng Musikong Pilipino) Band is really going places. From its home base in Balete@Kamias in Quezon City, the swinging jazz band—composed of the country’s top session musicians with musical director Mel Villena conducting—has been given the opportunity to play in other venues around the city, including a few special gigs in Malacañang.
In May 2013 we caught the AMP Big Band’s first few gigs at the then newly opened Balete@Kamias. A lot has happened since, with AMP gaining more exposure, playing in many other places—including Malacañang Palace as house band in April during the state dinner for US President Barack Obama.
What makes nightlife in Metro Manila interesting depends on one’s interest and taste, including, of course, the people that one goes out with.
It’s a Saturday night and the gambling crowd at Solaire Resort & Casino (1 Solaire Boulevard, Entertainment City, Metro Manila) are busy trying out their luck. We stifle a laugh as a woman shouts at her companions, “Walang pupunta ng ATM!” We keep walking until we reach Eclipse—the hotel’s club that features live band music nightly.
Jazz gigs—and we mean the exceptionally good ones—may be found in the most unlikely places around town. For a long time, the Manila Hotel had been getting bad press because its new owners seemed to have thrown its once glorious history out the window with the way it ran the place. And the prospect of watching live music, a jazz performance, for that matter, in the hotel was totally unheard of—until last year when management launched Jazz at the Tap Room featuring some of the country’s best musicians and singers performing nightly.
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