Jak-Jazz '95 revives debate over essence of jazz
Jak-Jazz '95 revives debate over essence of jazz
By Johannes Simbolon
JAKARTA (JP): The old debate over the essence of jazz and its
possibility to blend with ethnic music has resurfaced as the Jak-
Jazz festival nears.
To date, the Indonesian music community is still split into
two groups; those who argue that both types can't fuse because of
their essentially different characters and those who argue
otherwise.
On the part of the organizers, their intention to give a
stronger ethnic color to the festival this year is clear: They
want to make a trademark.
"We want to make Jak-Jazz different from all other jazz
festivals throughout the world, a jazz festival with a strong
Indonesian flavor," Ireng Maulana, chairman of the organizing
committee which initiated the festival, said.
Billed as the Red-White Jak-Jazz, this year's festival tries
to answer criticism which states that, so far, Jak-Jazz does not
mean much to Indonesia except as a venue. The soul of the music
remains in the West. It's an event where Western jazzers show off
their virtuosity and where local musicians display their
"cleverness" at imitating them.
According to its critics, that's what the Jak-Jazz festival is
all about.
Since it started in 1988, Indonesia's biggest and most
prestigious musical event has routinely brought on stage local
jazzers who use ethnic music in their gigs, like the Bandung-
based Krakatau and Karimata.
If anything, the festival has produced surprises by presenting
foreign participants who adroitly used ethnic elements in their
works.
During the 1991 Jak-Jazz, for example, the New Jungle
Orchestra from Denmark involved 12 gamelan players from Bali,
whom they had met several days before their appearance.
Yet, all the past festivals were undeniably dominated by
conventional jazzers.
Bill Saragih, a regular at Jak-Jazz, is one of the local
jazzers who dismisses the attempt to fuse jazz with ethnic music
as a failure.
"The use of modern instruments together with traditional ones
will only produce a synchronization or fake blend, one like water
and oil in the same container," Bill was once quoted by The
Jakarta Post.
As such, the audiences only hears two kinds of music played
simultaneously but independently of each other.
The fake blend, he said, is because both kinds of music are
essentially different, in that the modern instruments use the
diatonic scale, while the ethnic ones the pentatonic scale.
"I once tried, in the 1960s, to blend both types, but I later
quit because it didn't work," Bill said.
Although many musicians like Bill have given up, there are
still a lot of musicians here, especially the younger generation
of jazzers, who keep experimenting with indigenous music.
Ethnic jazz
The music critics coin the term "ethnic jazz" for this new
genre.
Bandung-based guitarist Tan Deseng, one of the fervent
supporters of ethnic jazz, says the disavowal of ethnic music by
the jazzers results more from some kind of inferiority complex.
"We were once colonized by Westerners. So, we think all from
the West is the best, and anything that comes from our tradition
is in the second-class level," he told The Post.
Deseng, still a little-known jazzer to the public, was once
hailed by Remy Sylado, the country's most respected music critic,
as the first man in Indonesia to be able to find the perfect way
to play Sundanese ethnic music with the guitar.
Deseng made his first, yet stunning public performance in
Jakarta at the Jamz pub a month ago and will perform at this
year's Jak-Jazz.
According to Deseng, jazz originates from the African blues
scale which is also pentatonic in nature.
"The history of jazz also shows that in its development jazz
has also adopted ethnic music using the pentatonic scale from
Brazil, the bossa nova. The leap needed to fuse Bebop with
Sundanese ethnic music will amount to the same leap Bebop has
taken to bossa nova," he said.
Deseng said the essence of jazz is improvisation and the
harmonious presentation of the various musical scales by the
players.
The failure of some local musicians to blend ethnic music with
jazz, he said, is because they have not mastered ethnic music
when they try the fusion.
"As a matter of fact, our ethnic music, like jazz, gives each
of the players ample chance to improvise during gigs," Deseng
said. Since his performance a month ago, Deseng has received
several offers to play in abroad.
Franky Raden, also an ardent supporter of the fusion of jazz
and ethnic music, saw the case from another point of view.
Lately, he said, many jazz musicians have introduced a new
genre, called free-jazz, where the musicians have considerably
freed themselves from conventional principles of jazz.
"Why should we oblige people to stick to conventional
principles of jazz and oppose the effort of searching for jazz
with Indonesian color?" he said.
While the jazz community debates the possibility of marrying
ethnic music with jazz, the other group of musicians here,
categorized as contemporary musicians, have long, successfully
fused local music with western music in their search for
innovations.
And not a few of them have gained recognition abroad.
This seems to prove that fusion is not necessarily doomed to
failure.
Some of these contemporary musicians, including Ben M Pasaribu
from Medan, Harry Roesli from Bandung, I Wayan Sadra from Bali,
and Inisisri from Banyuwangi, will also perform at Jak-Jazz. The
organizers will provide a special stage for them.
"By involving them, we hope a meeting will happen between them
and the jazzers who are now seeking to weave local colors into
their music, Franky said. Franky is organizing this year's Jak-
Jazz programs.
The 1995 Jak-Jazz is only one phase in the Indonesian journey
of searching for its own identity in the growing popularity of
imported jazz.
The task is now left for local musicians to seriously use the
chance and exercise their creativity as fully as possible.
JakJazz '95 will be held in Plaza Timur Senayan, Jakarta,
today through Dec. 10.