RIFLE RANGE BOY

Malaysia’s Forgotten Music Man EDITOR'S PICKS ;  FEATURES    /    20   DECEMBER  2013 This hotel pianist once wrote songs for Sudirman and toured with P. Ramlee.  Jon Chew  hears his extraordinary story. 34 Ooi Eow Jin, pianist at the Hotel Majestic. Photo by Stacy Liu. At three o’clock,  Tuesdays to Sundays, underneath the gold-leaf dome roof of the grand five-star  Hotel Majestic  in Kuala Lumpur, a man hunches over a black Yamaha piano. He wears a bow tie, a white jacket, and a hearing aid on his left ear. Slowly, he takes out a small turquoise clock, and leaves it on the left-hand ledge. He places a file of loose sheet music next to him. He takes a pause. Then, he begins to play. He doesn’t smile. His fingers dance on a white ivory floor, born again like a young ballerina’s joy at touching the ground with the tip of her toes. He starts with “Moon River”, segues into “Top ...

The Day the Music Died On February 3, 1959, a small-plane crash near Clear Lake, Iowa killed three American rock and roll musicians: Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens, and J. P. "The Big Bopper" Richardson, as well as the pilot, Roger Peterson. The day was later called  The Day the Music Died  by Don McLean, in his song "American Pie". The day that music died - remembering Sudirman Loh Chan Hong Sep 16, 10 12:00pm As we celebrate Malaysia Day as a symbol of "freedom and fraternity", it is worth recalling that nearly two decades before the slogan 1Malaysia was coined, one national icon had already been crusading for a nation free from prejudices. The late Sudirman Arshad, showered then with accolades such as "Malaysia's singing ambassador", our "No 1 entertainer" and even our very own Michael Jackson, championed unity up to his very last public concert just before his untimely death in 1992. "This song is especially for all Ma...