SINGAPORE — Jeremy Monteiro may be one of Singapore’s top jazz musicians. But that does not mean he shies away from opportunities to work with friends whom he feels are, in his own words, “better musicians”.

“I don’t need to be humble or proud at this stage of my career. I am just stating a fact,” he said with a laugh, over the phone.

Monteiro is referring specifically to his colleague and friend Eugene Pao, one of Hong Kong’s most respected jazz guitarists. After working and playing together for nearly two decades, Monteiro says they have learnt how to complement each other.

“I am the one who likes to organise everything, getting the music and charts ready. It’s a bit simplistic to use a soccer analogy, but I am like the team captain and Eugene is the striker,” said Monteiro. “I consider Eugene a much better musician than I am, but we can get together and create something where the sum total is much greater than the individual parts. We create something that he and I individually may not have been able to create. That’s what makes collaboration between musicians and artistes very worthwhile.”

Come next Friday (Oct 16), that “something” will come in the shape of a concert, as well as an album called To Paris With Love, dedicated to French musician Michel Legrand. The two men will perform classic standards associated with Legrand, including Autumn Leaves and La Vie En Rose, as well as De Paris A Segre (From Paris To Segre), a Legrand-inspired composition by Monteiro and Pao. The concert will also feature performances by vocalists Alemay Fernandes and Roberto Fernando, as well as the Oxley String Quartet led by Seah Huan Yuh, while the album version of To Paris With Love will be sold at the concert.

“I’ve been playing in France quite a bit the last few years ... after that the horrible (Charlie Hebdo) bombings and shootings happened. We had a feeling for France and Paris and our friends there who have supported us,” said Monteiro. “I have been a longtime fan of Michel Legrand — I started to follow his music in my teens. We wanted to do an album to express some solidarity to France, as well as to take the opportunity to put together many of his compositions, and perform (them) at the concert.”

In the meantime, Monteiro will be looking for new collaborators — in particular, people who will be able to support him in his musical pursuits.

“What I admire about people like Eugene is that they are lucky in that they can focus mostly on just making music, whereas I have to run a company, run a record label and its publishing arm. I think about business almost as much as I think about music, which is very tiring, because I wake up at 10.30am and sleep at 4am every day,” he said.

“My goal next year is to expand my company and productions to be able to hire a couple of high-level managers who will slowly, after a year or two, take away 30 to 40 per cent of the amount of time I have to put into running companies, and try to re-deploy the bandwidth into making music and dreaming up great shows and writing songs and practising the piano more.”

From Paris To Love will be held at 7.30pm, Friday, Oct 16 at the Victoria Concert Hall. Tickets from S$35 to S$75 available at SISTIC. Patrons who purchase Category 1 tickets will receive one free copy of the To Paris With Love CD, while concert-goers in Category 2 and 3 will receive a 50 per-cent and 25 per-cent discount on the purchase of the CD respectively.