Jak Jazz '95 is over but the grumbling continues

Jak Jazz '95 is over but the grumbling continues

By Remy Sylado

JAKARTA (JP): Jak Jazz 95 is over, but the grumbling continues. The successful performers, who encountered no problems during the international jazz festival, said nothing. The less successful participants, however, blame the organizers.

The complaints mainly concerned the stages, which were divided into one main stage and several secondary stages. The main stage was reserved for guest musicians; those with a name.

The stage issue began a month before Jak Jazz started when the organizing committee invited noted musicians and journalists to a gathering at a restaurant. If the stages had been thoroughly discussed then, the numerous complaints from performers, first over the stages, and then over the unorganized rehearsals and the organizers' obvious preference for certain groups, may have been avoided.

Indonesian pianist Bubbi Chen was the most vocal. From the beginning he let it be known that he wasn't happy with the division of the stages. The rule was ignored anyway, with Japanese performers Jimsaku and Tekeshi Ito, who were not slated to perform on the main stage, making two unscheduled appearances.

Ben Pasaribu, a musician and a lecturer at a university owned by the Batak Christian Church in Medan, accused the organizing committee of lacking national pride.

"To honor a guest, we should offer him a chair, but don't let him have a seat while the host has to sit on a mat," Ben said.

The sound system, the "breath of musicians", also took a beating from the local musicians. Tan Deseng from Bandung was upset and played only one number before hastily leaving for his hometown. He felt victimized since he was denied the time to rehearse or do a sound check. He waited four hours on the first day to do a check but didn't get a chance.

"We played a mess," said Deseng. In a telephone conversation he also said that the agreed fee of Rp 3 million had been cut to Rp 2.5 million.

It was anticipated that musicians with ethnic orientation would present some alternatives to the international festival. The name of Tan Deseng, who had received acclaim during the "Magnificent Seven Guitarist" at the Jamz pub a month earlier, pitifully sank at the musical event.

In his place came Dwiki Dharmawan, who also married jazz with local beats. Dwiki earned honorable place at the music festival. His music gracefully united East with West, and he played on the main stage.

The domination of the main stage by the guest musicians created envy. Bill Saragih, the key figure at the festival, also voiced concern with the division of stages. He regretted the organizing committee did not book local musicians on the main stage. The main stage was reserved for performers like Earl Klugh, Arturo Sandoval & Latin Train, Surface band. They graced the stage three times each while Carol Kidd got one crack at it.

Jak Jazz chairman Ireng Maulana didn't even show up on the last day of the festival, or at least didn't answer a request to come up on stage.

During the closing program, veteran Bill Opung (grandpa) Saragih, proved he was still the best local entertainer. Hearing his jokes, the audience, who were exhausted and ready to go home, got excited.

His jazz style -- as he always says: "First play jazz properly" -- is a historical walk through jazz from old New Orleans to today. His years of overseas experience showed other Indonesian musicians how to entertain.

Jazz has a special audience, quite different from pop and rock lovers, not to mention dangdut enthusiasts. And even though Jak Jazz featured Otto Sidharta, Yazeed Djamin and Ben Pasaribu, jazz should be presented properly because the music, however universal it is, can not be torn from its American roots. That is why Bill Saragih looked more original in the American context during the closing program.

A Indonesian context for jazz has never been discussed, even though "culture with national context" was behind the International Marxism propaganda of the Old Order government. In those days - and its echo still reverberates -- the combination of anything local with anything from the West was baptized as a new perspective towards the national culture.

The idea resurfaced at this year's Jak Jazz; with questionable results.

If traditional jazz music is transferred directly without vision, creativity, imagination or acculturation then it can clearly be regarded as a foreign. Since Indonesians are being fed with mounds of nationalist, yet confusing slogans, like "Love Local Products", local musicians face a difficult problem.

It is easily forgotten that people will purchase the original before the imitation. It is much more exciting to listen to the real Louis Armstrong than a sound-alike. Indonesian musicians' habit of imitating foreign performers reveals that they remain stagnant and cannot acculturate.

If Indonesian musicians continue to imitate Miles Davis, George Shearing, Dizzy Gillespie, Barney Kessel, and so on, musical vision will not develop in Indonesia.