Who: Jeremy Monteiro, 61, is Singapore’s most prominent jazz musician, with a career spanning 45 years.

Recently elected President of Compass (Composers and Authors Society of Singapore), the “King of Swing” of Singapore is also Executive Director and Music Director of the Jazz Association (Singapore).

His 46th album, Jazz-Blues Brothers, a collaboration with Italian jazz organist Alberto Marsico, was released worldwide on October 1.

“Weekends Saturdays and Sundays were a bit of a foreign concept to me until about four years ago when the Jazz Association started to establish itself.

From the time I started working at the age of 16 in 1976 until then, I only enjoyed normal weekends occasionally. The only exception was when I was in the military, when weekends were precious. I have discovered that many of my musician friends also follow this work regime.

I work when there is work to be done, I eat when I am hungry, and I sleep or rest when I am tired. I know I look like I belong to the animal kingdom. But because I live in a world that includes other humans, I sometimes take a Sunday to enjoy a family outing.

But my wife also prefers my previous schedule as she doesn’t like crowds on weekends so we used to take my weekday off days once or twice a week.

These days, because I often have to interact with my team members at Jazz Association during the week, I tend to have more weekends off.

On weekends, when I don’t have to work, I have dinner at home with my family on Friday nights, then chill out and watch TV until late.

I try not to set an alarm on Saturdays so that I can sleep until noon. I’m usually quite sleep deprived by the time the weekend rolls around, so this “sleep until I wake up” on Saturday – and sometimes Sunday – is so precious to me.

Then it’s a late lunch with the family. We usually order a good meal at one of my favorite restaurants, like Samy’s Curry or Quentin’s Eurasian restaurant.

If I don’t have any upcoming gigs, I do a light workout after lunch. Then I read a bit or listen to an audiobook. I like to switch between the two.

Before the pandemic, we sometimes went to watch a movie, usually on Sunday evenings. The Saturday nights before Covid-19 were often a concert night, or I was going to see someone’s show. It’s been 19 months since I did it and it’s been forever.

I work too much. And the problem is, a lot of my work is also my hobby and my passion.

I will be opening a new jazz club, Simply Jazz, next month in Chijmes with my good friend, Adrian Leong from Tinbox Group. The renovation begins in the middle of this month. The club will offer an eclectic menu and a selection of fine whiskeys and excellent cocktails.

When music is allowed in the clubs again, I’ll play there on a weekday and probably on a Friday night, so I can have some veggie at home on the weekends. Other great Singaporean jazz musicians will perform there on the other evenings.

As I wrote this I realized that I really need to work less and enjoy my weekends more.

Give me a year or two to figure out how I can do this. In the meantime, I’ll try to have as many normal weekends as possible. “