indra lesmana

 Background
He was introduced to jazz music by his father, Jack Lesmana, who is also a jazz musician. His musical career with keyboards instrument started at age 10. He first performed with his father in March 1976 in Bandung.

 In 1978, he went to Australia with his father to perform at cultural event of the ASEAN Trade Fair. During the stay his father encouraged Indra to take a qualification test at the Conservatorium of Music. He passed the test and was accepted at the school.

 Music career
In 1981, both he and his father formed a band called Jack and Indra Lesmana Quartet with Jack Lesmana, Karim Suweileh and James Morrison. They took a recording session during their visit in Indonesia in the same year and dealt with Queen Record to release the record called “Children of Fantasy“.

 

When he returned to Australia, he formed a Latin jazz fusion band with Jack Lesmana, Steve Brien, Dale Barlow, Tony Thijssen and Harry Rivers called “Children of Fantasy“. The band visited Indonesia in August 1982 to work on their tours. In 1982, Indra explored his fusion jazz styles of music and formed another band called Nebula with Steve Hunter, Andy Evans, Ken James, Vince Genova, Carlinhos Gonzalves. The band had recorded their session in No Standing that contained 4 compositions by Indra (No Standing, The First, Sleeping Beauty, ‘Tis time to part) and a Steve Hunter’s “Samba for ET“. The album released in Australia by Jasmine Records and also in Indonesia by Jackson Records.

 In 1983, he joined Sandy Evans, Tony Buck and Steve Elphick to form a modern jazz band called “ Women and Children First “ and recorded their first album in 1983. Zebra Records, an affiliate of MCA Records sent their interest to sign him as the solo artist and release the album “ No Standing “ as Indra Lesmana’ s solo album. The agreement met in 1984 and the album was remastered by Bernie Grundman before released in the US.

 Indra moved to California, US in 1985 and did the recording with Vinnie Colaiuta, Michael Landau, Jimmy Haslip, Airto Moreira, Charlie Haden, Bobby Shew, Tooty Heath for his album called “ For Earth and Heaven “. The album released in 1986 and happened to be his second internationally distributed album.

 

His two albums “ No Standing “ and “ For Earth and Heaven “ appeared to be his highlight debut in USA. His singles “ No Standing “ ( from No Standing album ) and “ Stephanie “ ( from For Earth and Heaven album ) became the hits and entered the Billboard Charts for Jazz in US and number one in radio charts.

 Besides his perform duties as an artist and record producer, Indra has deep interest in audio or sound recording technology. His album called Tragedi released in 1984 happened to be his first debut in becoming a sound designer. In 1998 Indra firstly produced the master quality sound of the Sabda Prana album by Java Jazz.

 In 1999 he decided to establish his independent mixing and mastering house specializing in jazz. He has personally mixed and mastered more than 20 albums of Indonesian distinguished artists, such as The Groove, Maliq & D'Essential, Andien, Donny Suhendra, Rika Roeslan, Delon, Simak Dialog, Chlorophyl, Dewa Budjana, Humania, Ermy Kulit and many more. He was also nominated for Best Mixing Engineer for album Rumah Ke Tujuh on AMI Awards 2003.

In 2000, his first single-instrumental jazz music video called Reborn was heavily aired on Indonesia's national television.

 

He formed his first 17-piece big band project in March 2002 in order to record his 17th solo album that also happened to be his first big band arrangement of original soundtrack album “ Rumah Ke Tujuh “ film produced by his sister, Mira Lesmana.