Duo makes Jakarta hotbed for jazz
Duo makes Jakarta hotbed for jazz
By Nicolas Colombant
JAKARTA (JP): Is Jakarta becoming a hotbed for jazz? The
arrival of Acoustic Mania seems to indicate so, at least until
the end of the month.
Italian Antonio Forcione and Londoner Neil Stacey, who make up
the guitar duo, are the latest in a long line of international
jazz artists who have entertained Jakartans during November.
The hot club-Latin jazz band will be performing three times
here: Nov. 18 at the Yamaha Music Center, Jl. Gatot Subroto,
South Jakarta; Nov. 20 at the Balemang cafe, Jl. Wijaya I, South
Jakarta; and Nov. 21 at Universitas Indonesia, Depok.
The duo is planning to release its second album in conjunction
with the Indonesian tour.
The British Council, which is coordinating the tour, wants to
take the show straight to university campuses.
The band will take their gig outside the capital for
performances at the Institute of Technology in Bandung on Nov.
19, Gadjah Mada University in Yogyakarta on Nov. 22, and Institut
Teknologi Sepuluh Nopember in Surabaya on Nov. 24.
The last leg of the tour will be at Sekolah Tinggi Seni
Indonesia in Denpasar, Bali, on Nov. 26.
A workshop open to the public will be held at Yayasan Musik
Jakarta on Nov. 17 to kickoff what promises to be a whirlwind of
music and entertainment in their first trip to Indonesia.
"We are very excited to have invited these two gifted
musicians, who know how to put on a show and who have the music
to back it up," said Dina Sebastian, assistant to the Arts and
Publicity Officer at the British Council here.
Their performances throughout Europe and more recently
Australia, have been known to mingle virtuosity with comedy, with
much musical dialog and meshing, and every part of the instrument
employed, every technical wizardry experimented, to keep the
crowd entertained.
Both are reputable solo guitarists who came together by chance
for the 1993 Edinburgh Festival. Both were fast learners.
Forcione, 37, from a small village on Italy's Adriatic coast,
began playing the guitar and drums at age 11, leading an adult
band by 14.
Stacey, who comes from a strumming family in London, started
doing gigs with his father by the age of 9.
Both were strongly influenced by the music and playing of the
legendary Django Reinhardt.
But here, their paths diverged. In the mid-1980s, Stacey took
up the hot club style and formed the Kimbara Brothers. He
produced five albums for the Blue Note label.
Forcione, who arrived in London in 1983 at first simply to
learn English, found success by joining forces with Eduardo
Niebla to play flamenco guitar, including the Celebration album
which was recorded on the Virgin label. He then started his own
Antonio Forcione trio.
The virtuosos came together five years ago to mix hot club
with flamenco.
Along the way, they have added Mediterranean flavoring, gypsy
and Brazilian colorings, classical jazz and free-form
improvisation to their self-described "mad-dog" style.
As a duo, they have recorded only one album, Live at the
Edinburgh Festival/K-Tel International, 1993, focusing more on
the quality and ingenuity of their live performances.
They have achieved international recognition as masters of the
unexpected with numerous gigs on the European circuit, as well as
appearances at major jazz festivals, from Aberdeen, Scotland, to
Adelaide, Australia. They were recently filmed in Geneva,
Switzerland, by MCM Euromusique, the European satellite music
channel.
Forcione, on nylon-strung guitar, is the melodramatic romantic
who plays the hardy and the lead.
Stacey, on steel-strung acoustic, is the fool, whose look is
dazed, as if confused by the music.
Forcione feeds the audience with a svelte intro, and then taps
the body of his guitar for percussion.
Stacey responds by launching into a free-for-all, stopping to
hammer on, and then crunching chords again, taking the listener
to a Hungarian market or to a Spanish fiesta, all in a matter of
moods or seconds.
The Italian musician says it is important to put body and soul
into the show. "I like the natural, physical feeling of having an
acoustic guitar close to my body, because I feel it vibrating
against my bones," Forcione told the Adelaide Advertiser during a
tour of Australia last year.
"The thing I enjoy about our performance is that together,
we're constantly searching for the perfect tune to fit the mood
of the moment."
A music critic for the Independent daily in England wrote that
"Forcione and Stacey's blend of Latin jazz and hot club styles is
mostly plucked at the speed of light, with demon synchronicity
and such finger-breaking discipline it could pass as a martial
art."
Forcione uses electronic splitters, pedals, every fret and
strikeable parts of his guitar to extract all possible sounds to
go along with Stacey's furious melody line.
Their sets include songs as diverse as the soothing Italian
ballad Summertime, the macho heat of Super Latino, the shrill
thrill of High Tempo and the cold tones of Snow.
It is jazz, theater and showboating all wrapped in one. For
local guitarists and jazz music lovers, the inside is most
definitely a year-end bonus.