Bobby Ba got bored. He grew up in Bangkok listening to commercial pop, the usual same-old same-old. One day he decided he had just had enough of it. He walked into a record store and asked the shopkeeper to recommend something new and exciting. He walked out with his first ever jazz CD. The music hit him like a revelation. Having trained to be a chef, he suddenly realised that he just had to devote his life to jazz. He now runs Sweets Jazz Club, which has become the venue of choice for thoroughbred jazz musicians. At Sweets, the jazz comes first. Listeners pay a cover charge (200-300 Baht) to make sure they are there to listen to the music, and the musicians have total musical freedom. The jazz artists enjoy the fact that they can play real jazz, instead of jazzed-up pop, and like that they don't have to compete with chatter and mobile phones. Sweets' current regular venue is Bad Motel at 8pm on Sundays, but they treated us to two stomping jazz sets at the Farmers' Market in K-Village last weekend. Bobby brought some of the many jazz CDs he has in his eclectic catalogue. For more information, you'll find Sweets on Facebook at /sweetsjazzclub.
