SINGAPORE – After 15 concerts in 20 years, concert series Jazzy Christmas will stage its final edition at the Esplanade Concert Hall on Dec 16.

Jazz veteran Jeremy Monteiro says organising the series has been fruitful, but he now wants to be able to take a break during the festive season.

Besides Monteiro, the last show will feature performances by acts such as Grammy-nominated American singer Carmen Bradford and Malaysian pianist Michael Veerapen. The concert – a collaboration between Monteiro’s company Showtime Productions and Esplanade, and supported by EFG and Creative Technology – is sold out.

The show, titled Jazzy Christmas One More Once!, will also include home-grown singer Melissa Tham and Stardust, a vocal group comprising music veterans Pat Chan, Gerry Rezel, Ann Hussein, Faridah Ali and Robert Fernando.

“I just want to claim December back for myself,” says Monteiro, 63. “The show takes me weeks of getting ready, and I have a lot of work to do. And by the time the show happens, I’m so stressed out.”

But this does not mean he is retiring. “A lot of people ask me, are you retiring? I’m far from retiring. I still work hard the rest of the year.”

The series comes full circle with Veerapen, 66, on the bill. The first edition of Jazzy Christmas at the Esplanade Concert Hall in 2003 featured him and Monteiro in a piano duo performance of Christmas classics and jazz favourites.

Says the pianist: “Jazzy Christmas is a Singapore institution, it is part of Singapore’s events, like putting up the Christmas lights on Orchard Road.”

Bradford, too, is a Jazzy Christmas alumna and sang in the second edition in 2004. That show also featured American jazz elder Ernie Watts, who introduced Bradford to Monteiro.

“Whenever Jeremy invites me for a show, I go, ‘When do you want me to come? I’m running,’” she says.

Bradford, 63, has high praise for Monteiro, crediting him for letting her experiment. It was he who encouraged her to try scatting, a style of improvised jazz singing.

“The biggest blessing was him being kind enough to let me work through the beginning of my improvisational road,” says Bradford, who also sang with the legendary Count Basie Orchestra. She will be singing a blues song for the first time at the concert.

Under Monteiro’s direction, the various iterations of Jazzy Christmas have embraced jazz in all its forms.

The 2005 edition paid tribute to the sounds of New Orleans, while the 2006 concert featured an amalgamation of Asian instruments and rhythms mixed with the jazz genre.

In 2008, the theme was samba and bossa nova, and in 2015, the set list focused on the songs of legendary American crooner Frank Sinatra.

Esteemed international musicians who have performed in the series include late Belgian musician Toots Thielemans, regarded as the greatest jazz harmonica player, who played in 2008.

Monteiro says he wants to leave the series on a high note.

“It’s been a wonderful run and a wonderful experience. I had a mission statement when I started the series, to have the audience leaving the concert hall with a smile on their faces and a glow in their hearts. And that’s how we planned this whole show.”

Jazzy Christmas One More Once! at the Esplanade Concert Hall on Dec 16 is sold out.