Guest jazz players fire first night of Jak Jazz '95
Guest jazz players fire first night of Jak Jazz '95
By Johannes Simbolon
JAKARTA (JP): It rained, but thanks to the top performance of
guest musicians, the first night of Jak Jazz '95 was a delight.
The organizers provided a lot of space for local jazz
musicians in an effort to bring more Indonesian color to the
country's biggest and proudest musical event. But, it is the
foreign musicians who continue to grab visitors' attention.
Among the local performers who managed an impressive
performance was the Dwiki Dharmawan Orchestra which played with
Novi Budianto's gamelan orchestra, Kyai Kanjeng Orchestra.
Dwiki was the only local team given the honor of playing on
the JVC main stage and simultaneously marked the opening of the
four-day festival. The group played two standards and four
numbers by Novi which are rich with ethnic rhythms.
Dwiki and Novi obviously strived to fulfill the festival's
grand ambition of marrying jazz with Indonesian ethnic music to
create Indonesian jazz.
"We want to show that even the melodies of Miles Davis can be
played with gamelan instruments," group leader Dwiki said after
their performance.
Once Dwiki and Novi left the stage, the show was dominated by
guest jazz musicians.
Earl Klugh and his six-member group, who hit the JVC stage
before midnight, gave a laudable performance. The group's one-
hour gig got big applause from the 300 spectators who came from
several towns in Java. When it began to drizzle, some in the
audience took refuge in the numerous umbrella-equipped drink
counters, but many loyally remained on their benches.
It was Klugh's first performance at the Jak Jazz forum but,
like Caesar, he conquered. The pop-jazz group had it all:
virtuosity, compactness, power and dazzle.
Klugh did not want to dominate the show with his guitar play.
He generously allowed his partners to exhibit their own musical
skills.
The group's percussionist, Lorenzo Brown, stunned spectators
when he left his drums for center stage and masterly played
various metal and wood drumsticks.
Rhythmical, strange sounds filled the air.
"It's like David Copperfield playing music," commented a young
spectator who was excited at seeing how Brown deftly hid his
collection of drumsticks in his trousers' pocket and picked them
up one by one during the amazing drumstick solo.
The spectators shouted for an encore, but Klugh and his group
simply left the stage, obviously to spare their other best
numbers for the following nights.
Benko Dixieland Band from Budapest, Hungary, also played
sweetly on the second-biggest Arena stage.
The band, led by Prof. Benko Sandor from the University of
Technology of Budapest, once performed at the Executive Club in
the Hilton ten years ago, but this was their first appearance at
Jak Jazz.
With their Dixieland style, the eight-member band, including
three professional engineers, succeeded in being completely
different than the other groups.
The group doesn't bother with fashionable innovations or
nationalizing jazz. Instead, they seek inspiration from the
history of jazz, and they do it very well.
"There is also a Dixieland style developed in Europe. But,
what we play is New Orleans's original style and we don't mix it
with any styles, including Hungarian ethnic," said banjo player
Nagy Jeno, who is also chief engineer at the CIB bank in
Budapest.
A regular Jak Jazz performer, Jimsaku from Japan, headed by
the duo Akira Jimbo and Tetsuo Sakurai, presented a full-beat
show. They were accompanied that night by top Japanese
saxophonist Takeshi Ito, who made a powerful debut.
Bassist Sakurai addressed his fans in Indonesian and also
played some Indonesian folk songs.
Carol Kidd from the UK who played on the JVC stage, and the
top Russian pianist Igor Brill and the New Generation (Igor's
children) who performed on the Gazebo stage, also drew crowds.
This is Kidd's first Jak Jazz appearance, but pianist Brill
performed at the first Jak Jazz festival in 1988.
With her distinctive voice Kidd sang a dozen songs, including
Beatles' songs, with the accompaniment of a hand-picked 10-member
group, who are mostly from Scotland.
Other performers included Indonesia-born violinist Luluk
Purwanto, who now lives in the Netherlands; the Helsdingen Trio;
the Sandy Evans Trio from Australia who teamed up with Indra
Lesmana; the Bujana Trio from Indonesia; the Jeffrey Tahalele
trio from Indonesia; the Emerald group from Indonesia; Embong
Raharjo; Idang Rasyidi; Bubi Chen from Indonesia who paired up
with Jeremy Monteiro from Singapore; the veteran pianist Nick
Mamahit from Indonesia; French trumpeter Illouz; and Tan Deseng
and his Sundanese-music group.
Deseng, who performed yesterday evening, could not hide his
disappointment with the technical problems faced by his group.
"We didn't have time to make a sound check. When we started to
play we realized the sound system was flawed," he said before
returning home to Bandung.