UPDATED MONDAY, MAY 30, 2005 5:52 AM ET | New York Cloudy 61°F
How Did House Bands Become a Filipino Export?

By JOHN BOWE
Published: May 29, 2005

In the heart of the colonial Intramuros district of Manila, there is a six-and-a-half-story building with a broken elevator that houses a firm you've never heard of called JS Contractor Inc. For more than 25 years the company has recruited and supplied Filipino shipbuilders, nurses and hotel employees, as well as construction, manufacturing and tech workers, to more than 200 companies around the globe. It is less well known for its role in supplying the world with  Filipino musical talent.
      

Jackson Gan is director of marketing for JS Contractor. He is also head of the firm's music division. Throughout the 60 or so percent of the globe that spans from, say, Riyadh to Thai Town in Los Angeles, Filipino house bands are an inescapable fact of life. From backwater regional subhubs to metropolises like Shanghai, Delhi and Tokyo, odds are that a visit to any self-respecting hotel, convention center, bar or restaurant aspiring to be ''classy'' will include live music. Even more likely is that the musicians will not come from any other country except the Philippines. Gan, offhandedly, puts the number of Filipino musicians working overseas at 120,000. A few admittedly unscientific calculations -- assuming an average of 4 members per band, 3 sets per night, 6 nights per week, 52 weeks per year -- justify the following estimate: this Filipino diaspora is responsible for satisfying an appetite for some 388 million songs a year. It is to assuage this hunger that Jackson Gan founded First Class Professionals. ''Five years ago, when I first go into business,'' Gan said, leaning across his desk, exhaling a hit of his Parliament Light and tapping my hand for emphasis -- ''I never want to be second string. I only want to be No. 1.'' Many of the bands in the roster of First Class Professionals reflect a similar striving for excellence. As Gan proudly pointed to a large wall covered with glossies of First Class's entertainers, I took in the band names: Celestial, Shades N Shadows, Center Stage and Fourplay, followed by Perfect Match, Perfect Jam, Perfect Blend, Perfect Fire and Perfect Storm. When I asked about the frequent recurrence of the word ''perfect,'' Gan, who is usually the one to name his bands, mused: ''Why is 'perfect' such a good word? I thought it was a lucky name. I don't want to break the charm.'' Again, the hand tap, this time with a sly smile. ''I invent the image that any band that is perfect has to belong to me.''
Gan has a kind of casual preppy look -- polo shirt, khakis and loafers -- and the utterly exhausted, ashen mien of an ethnic Chinese workaholic, which is, in fact, what he is. He is 51, married, stands 5-foot-6, has a degree in philosophy and three kids. He is extremely earnest, and yet as he simultaneously takes calls, sends and receives text messages concerning his 40 or so bands and deals with his 30 employees, he wears a look of almost constant bemusement, as if aware that his notion of perfection might seem a little funny to an American reader.
While there are certainly Filipino musicians who play their own music for Filipino audiences (Freddie Aguilar comes to mind, and you mustn't forget last year's runaway hit, ''Spageti Song,'' by the SexBomb Girls), the vast majority of Filipino bands, both within the Philippines and worldwide, tend not to play original music but songs written by other artists. Critics discussing cover bands accordingly use different criteria from those they do with bands playing ''original music.'' One Filipino combo is lauded for ''playing Zeppelin and Stones tunes with precision''; another, for its ''tight versions of John Cougar and the Police.''

''Filipinos are very talented musicians,'' Gan insisted, this time tapping not just my hand but his chest and the table between us. ''Jasmine Trias, who was a finalist in 'American Idol' last year? She was a Filipina from Hawaii. Anthony Castelo, who sang at George W. Bush's inaugural just last January? Filipino.'' But the main talent of Filipino musicians is not originality. Filipino musicians, Gan explained, ''have something called the wido. It means 'the ear.' By listening to a song once on the radio, they can play it. They can copy anything. This is their real talent. It's inborn.''
For most Asian and Middle Eastern audiences, Gan went on to say, music per se is not the focus of the evening. It is an amenity. ''They don't care about the music. They care about the faces of the beautiful girls that get them excited all night. They don't want to listen to Aretha Franklin. They want to watch girls dance like Britney.''
So, for Gan, the definition of perfection is more a matter of logistics than aesthetics. Do the musicians show up on time? Do they get their costumes dirty? Will they get too homesick to endure a 3- to 12-month overseas contract? Will they avoid becoming pregnant or getting drunk? Do they have a wide ''résumé,'' or repertory -- are they capable of handling any request? As for talent, Gan admitted with a shrug: ''If I told you, 'Oh, I make the best bands,' that would be untrue. If I make one or two good bands, that's terrific.''