Jazz accelerates toward golden days in Indonesia

Jazz accelerates toward golden days in Indonesia

By Johannes Simbolon

JAKARTA (JP): Jazz has never been as prominent in Indonesia as
it is now.

Almost every week a world caliber jazz musician comes into
town; the New York-based Blue Note jazz club opened a club in
Jakarta last year, the fourth worldwide; also last year, the
School of Economics at the University of Indonesia staged its
17th "Jazz Goes To Campus", successfully bringing in thousands of
listeners; other universities copied the idea and vie to stage
end of term jazz festivals; and above all, the Jak Jazz festival,
which almost died in its infancy, has become an annual program
that attracts bigger and better jazz masters each year.

What does this euphoria surrounding jazz in Indonesia mean? Is
jazz coming of age after decades of being almost dead here?

"This is the end of the first period in Indonesian jazz
history, which started with Jack Lesmana and associates. Jazz is
going to take off," Idang Rasyidi, a noted jazzman, assured.

The late Jack Lesmana and his friends, including Bill Saragih,
are considered the country's jazz pioneers. They were playing in
the mid 1940s.

Businessmen are highly optimistic that they will be able to
make a profit with this notoriously hard to sell music.

Bambang Wasono, the club manager of Blue Note, says, "This is
the starting point. Jazz is on its way to golden days in
Indonesia."

Everyone agrees that jazz has gained momentum and jazz
musicians now have many outlets to express themselves. Former
generations saw that as a luxurious dream.

There are jazz only clubs like Jamz and Blue Note, and there
are some places, including the Stage and White Rabbit, that have
regular jazz sessions. Blue Note reserves two weeks a month for
local musicians to perform. The Jak Jazz festival offers local
musicians a chance to meet world caliber jazz players and broaden
their outlook.

"Jak Jazz is the place where international talent scouts
select great potency among local musicians to be orbited," says
musicologist Franki Raden, somewhat cryptically.

The growing Indonesian middle class, jazz's main market, will
surely guarantee its survival, if not its heyday.

Questions

Is the current trend toward jazz an indication that club
patrons appreciate or understand jazz? If not, what can be done?
Why are Indonesians concerned with the survival and rise of
imported music given that there is traditional Indonesian music?

Observers and musicians answer the first question without
hesitation. They say jazz clubs' patrons are largely upper or
middle class people who are desperately seeking an exclusive
identity. They have chosen the somewhat hard to grasp genre of
jazz. It's their way of showing they are above the easy-listening
loving masses.

"Most of them are snobs, frankly speaking. It's deplorable,"
comments the country's greatest entertainer and jazzman Bill
Saragih -- alias "Frank Sumatra".

Bill says Indonesian audiences are ignorant of jazz mores.
They chat during shows, don't know when to clap (ovations are
normally given after solo, he says) and request (popular) songs.
He believes this is an indication that there is still a lack of
real appreciation of jazz among Indonesians.

The Blue Note club's management has reportedly instructed its
crew to politely frown upon song requests. They tell the
customers "It is show time."

Most Indonesians are only familiar with fusion, at best.
That's why Jak Jazz organizers continue to use fusion jazz
musicians, like Dave Valentin and Mezzo Forte, as their main
selling points.

As far as snobbery is concerned, observers see it as the
normal primary phase of learning jazz.

"We all begin as snobs. After that we delve deeper and
deeper," says Franky.

Understanding serious jazz takes time and some prior exposure
to it. Unfortunately, Indonesians are never taught about it and
urbanites therefore tend to learn about jazz on the street, where
fusion is dominant. This breeds the wrong perception that jazz is
identical to Bob James and the like.

Jazz advocates fervently try to educate the public with jazz
festivals, workshops at universities and in pubs. The University
of Indonesia's yearly "Jazz Goes to Campus" is a good example. A
workshop is organized at the School of Economics before the
event. Musicians and other experts give a brief course on the
basics of jazz, especially its history and the different jazz
styles.

The idea that jazz is already a worldwide music, part of
global urban culture, is why Indonesians believe they must take
part. To be admitted into the world's music community is their
goal.

"As far as music is concerned, jazz is the only way we can be
acknowledged by the world. We can't go international with our
traditional music. It doesn't sell," Oom Bill says.

Oom Bill spent over 20 years of his music career in western
countries, including the United States and Australia, before
returning to Indonesia several years ago.

School

Everyone concerned about Indonesian jazz concurs that a jazz
school is needed to teach talented youngsters the basics of jazz,
so they can avoid repeating failed experiments. The best thing
they can do at present is study abroad. That is, of course, very
expensive.

"In the west, the best jazz musicians don't come from pubs
anymore. They come from music schools at universities," asserts
Franky.

Many young Indonesians have impressive skills but, since none
of them have any jazz schooling, they are trapped into repeating
standards. They are not capable of bringing new ideas into the
music, says Franky.

He points out "Karakatau", "Sketsa", and "Karimata" as
examples of Indonesian jazz groups that brought some innovation
to the country's jazz scene in the 1970s and the 1980s. They
fused jazz with Balinese, Sundanese and Javanese ethnic music.
Ethnic-jazz was coined to identify their music.

Ethnic-jazz became fashionable during the period because the
groups staged their music in unique idioms in order to capture
the attention of foreign, especially western audiences. There
were even flashes of nationalism in their venture.

Franky argues that the credit for the innovation must go to
musicians from the groups who had either studied jazz abroad or
had lived a long time in the west.

"Sadly, now jazz musicians only go from pub to pub and
improvise on the standards. If this continues, they will go
nowhere. Foreign jazz luminaries attending events like Jak Jazz
will only tempt them to continue imitating," Franky believes.

However, seasoned musicians like Oom Bill and Idang argue that
ethnic-jazz is a syncretized blend, where ethnic music only seems
to have been married with jazz. Both have a different nature --
jazz is diatonic, while ethnic music is pentatonic -- and are
therefore impossible to unite. They may cling to one another, but
they can't really bond, Idang asserts.

"You can have sex with a girl, but it doesn't mean you have
married," is Oom Bill's comparison.

He claims he conducted the same experiments with ethic music
in the 1960s but dropped the venture because he and his
contemporaries found it didn't work.

"If people call it innovation, we were the first to do it. But
to me, it isn't innovation," says Oom Bill.

Bill and Idang say any experiment with jazz should not negate
the music's principles, including its diatonic nature.

Bill sees the madness for ethnic-jazz among young jazz
musicians as merely escapism. The young Indonesian musicians turn
to fusion because they lack the willpower to master jazz basics.
According to him, a jazz player must master at least bebop before
going on to fusion.

What will jazz be like in Indonesia in the future? Will there
be Indonesian jazz where people can feel the beat of their
culture in the music? Or will it remain part of an urban culture,
entertaining a group of people who have lost the bond with their
original culture? Only time will tell.