A Great Day in Singapore

Led by maestro Jeremy Monteiro, the Jazz Association Singapore brings together the luminaries, practitioners and enthusiasts of the city's jazz scene to recreate, with celebrity lensman Russel Wong, Art Kane's famous A Great Day in Harlem photograph

- Hashirin Nurin Hashimi

It is half past seven on a Monday evening—and the last museum visitor has left the building. But a buzz of excitement can be heard from the Singapore Courtyard, in the City Hall Wing of the National Gallery Singapore. In what is a night at the museum of sorts, members of Singapore's jazz community descended upon the space dressed in their Sunday best—and some armed with their musical instruments—for a very special occasion.

With a flurry of hellos, handshakes and hugs behind them, they take directions from the man at the centre of it all, Singapore's King of Swing, Jeremy Monteiro, executive director and music director of the Jazz Association Singapore (Jass). He has the monumental task of bringing together the luminaries, practitioners and enthusiasts of Singapore jazz, nearly 180 of them, for a family portrait—and taking reference from A Great Day in Harlem, the famous 1958 black-and-white photograph taken by Art Kane for Esquire magazine, in an issue dedicated to jazz.