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.