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.