Get on up to Java Jazz festival

The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

Tired of all that jazz about fuel price increases? Why not forget your worries and face the real music -- at the star-studded International Java Jazz festival that runs from Friday to Sunday.

Twenty-two international musicians, including the Godfather of Soul James Brown, Grammy-winning act Earth Wind & Fire, rhythm and blues crooner Eric Benet and singer-songwriter Angie Stone along with more than 80 Indonesian performers from a range of musical genres, including of course, jazz, will entertain during the three-day event.

Festival director Paul Danknmeyer said artists would perform on 11 stages inside Senayan's Jakarta Convention Center (JCC) in a musical event that would be largest in the country's recent history.

Along with more than 140 performances there would also be a series of interactive workshops and musical clinics where participants could play and discuss issues in ethnic music, jazz, pop and rock 'n roll.

Scores of musicians performing in the event have already descended on the capital, with Brown and his entourage arriving in the city on Wednesday.

Danknmeyer said all preparations for the festival had been completed and judging from the turnout at several pre-festival gigs, the response would be large.

"All preparations are going well and a number of the pre-event shows that we are doing received a lot of enthusiasm," Danknmeyer said.

Danknmeyer earlier managed the Rotterdam-based World Port Jazz festival and the North Sea Jazz festival in Den Haag, both in the Netherlands before joining Java Jazz.

Festival chairman and jazz afficionado Peter F. Gontha said many tickets had already been sold. The festival was part of efforts to put Indonesia back on the musical world map, after suffering in recent years from a lingering economic downturn, terror attacks and, most recently, the tsunami disaster.

"We cannot just mourn our losses. We have to get out of this hole ... I hope that this festival will show the world that Indonesia is a safe country," he said.

The country said goodbye to its last noteworthy jazz festival in 1997, when Jak Jazz was staged for the last time on the eve of the financial crisis. That event was also put together by Gontha.

Initially, Java Jazz was intended as merely the reincarnation of Jak Jazz, but Gontha decided to make it bigger. He said he hoped it would eventually become one of the world's major jazz festivals.

More information about the festival and ticket reservations is available at www.javajazzfestival.com.

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