Guitarist Dewa Budjana turns his hand to all that jazz

By Helly Minarti

JAKARTA (JP): In the remote Balinese village of Klungkung, a 10-year-old boy stole some money from his grandmother's pocket to buy a guitar.

"I confessed to her right after I bought the guitar," Dewa Budjana, 33, recalled of his experience more than 20 years ago. "It was bad, I knew that. But it seemed the only way to have that instrument."

Unfortunately, he lost the Rp 10,000 guitar. "I don't remember how I lost it," he said.

Dewa, who played his own compositions in the International Jakarta Jazz Festival 1997 last week, now owns 30 guitars of various types. Yet, he still mourns the loss of his first instrument.

Born in Sumba the sixth of nine children, Dewa's family moved to Surabaya when he was in the fourth grade of elementary school.

"They are simply 9-to-5 employees," he said of his parents.

For the next two years, Dewa lived with his grandparents in Klungkung, the place where his love of music began.

"My late grandfather and my grandmother, Jero Ketut Sidemen, now 93, taught me to hum the kidung (traditional singing similar to humming a chant) by reading it directly from lontar (palm) leaves."

Occasionally, his grandparents sang on the local unit of radio station RRI. None of his siblings shared his musical talent.

For his first CD, released earlier this year, he taped his grandmother's kidung and reworked it on one of his guitar-based compositions, Ruang Dialisis (Dialysis Room).

His interest in the guitar came about from hearing laborers relaxing by playing music.

"Everyday, I heard these coolies in the village playing guitar to amuse themselves between work, and they were so good."

Learning from the people around him, particularly those he admires, continues. "I learn from friends -- other guitarists -- or anybody whose playing charms me."

Dewa later moved to Surabaya to join his parents and siblings. In his junior high school years, jazz was popular among youngsters.

"Early in the 1980s, I heard that Indra Lesmana, the whiz kid of jazz musicians who had studied in Australia, threw a concert in Jakarta and Bali. So I chased him to Bali."

Jazz

Dewa also heard works of guitarist John McLouglin with his Mahavishnu Orchestra. "He is a true innovator, the first man to successfully found the jazz-rock genre. He blends jazz with India's musical instruments like the tabla, sitar. He's a guru."

When he was in senior high school, he founded his own band, Squirrel, along with Arie Ayunir, now drummer of jazz band Simak Dialog and the minimalist pop group, Potret.

Dewa composed his first jazz piece at that time, Nusa Damai, which won the Yamaha Light Music Contest. The song became the title of his first CD. "We played our own songs, contemporary jazz mixing it with traditional tunes like gamelan."

After graduating from high school, Budjana was set on studying music. His dream was to pursue his musical education in the U.S., although he had no idea how to make his dream come true.

"I set off to Jakarta for a weird reason, like to be a sailor," he giggled.

Fortunately, his parents were not against his plans. "They set me free to decide my future."

In 1984, he arrived in Jakarta with just enough money to cover his living expenses for a couple of months. He postponed enrollment in regular music schools because they only offered the classical music genre.

He turned instead to Farabi, a music course newly founded by Jack Lesmana, who had just returned from Australia with his family, including his talented son, Indra Lesmana.

Strapped for a cash, he could only pay for one month's lessons. "But then Om Jack gave the lesson for free afterwards."

Soon his fingerpicking skill improved and he immersed himself in playing the guitar. "I accepted the challenge to play in this senior jazz band -- Jazz Riders --in a star-rated hotel with all senior jazz musicians. It was a hell of experience."

He played for various artists, from mushy pop's Deddy Dores to virtuoso violinist Idris Sardi. "Playing various kinds of music also means learning colorful characters of the musicians."

His persistence and eagerness paid off financially. "But I always bounced back to Om Jack's school whenever I had time. That's when Om Jack asked me to play with Indra," he said.

He added he had hung out with Indra, but had never dreamed of sharing a stage or recording studio with him. "He's so young, talented and extraordinary. Our friendship is more based on our musical preference. I like what he likes, and vice versa."

He has been involved in all of Indra's albums since. In turn, Indra lent him his own music studio for his first CD. Indra also cowrote in Wanita (Woman) and played piano on Bunga Yang Hilang (The Lost Flower).

Jazz is Dewa's first love. "I love jazz because its improvisation makes me sensitive to react to others' playing."

But he is also known as a versatile guitarist who can play tunes from light pop to hard rock. Moving on with his career, he founded the band Spirit in the late 1980s with Eramono, and produced two albums before he formed GIGI, pop-rock group, in the mid-1990s. He has produced three albums with GIGI.

Outgoing in person, Dewa onstage is different. Pairing with his guitar -- usually using more than one from his range which also includes banjos, mandolins and sitars -- Dewa Budjana simply immerses himself in layers of chords. At these moments it seems he is oblivious to all everything else.

The venue can be a prestigious festival like JakJazz or a thumping pop-rock concert of his group, GIGI. The partner can be his longtime friend Arie on drums or the aggressive GIGI vocalist, Armand Maulana. Dewa simply gets on with his display of guitar prowess.

His second appearance at last week's JakJazz reflected his continued involvement in the Indonesian jazz music scene. Attended by a larger audience than other performances, Dewa's usual crew was Arie Ayunir on drum and Bintang Indrianto on bass, playing the same compositions taken from his CD. The lone exception was the presence of the Sa'Unine String Quartet from Yogyakarta on the string section.

His CD, Nusa Damai, is doing well. With a release of 1,000 copies, considerable for jazz music, half of them have already been sold in under a year to surpass sales targets.

"Yes, in music I feel I have achieved something, after all these years," said Dewa, who is Hindu. "But in the rest of my life, I still sometimes feel 'empty'. Things go wrong out of my hands and sometimes I'm not quite sure why they have to."

Does this include the break-up of his six-year romance with Mayang, a popular singer? "It's one of them," admitted Dewa.