Music lovers walk out of 1997 JakJazz in droves
Music lovers walk out of 1997 JakJazz in droves
JAKARTA (JP): A young man studying in Jakarta took his
visiting, Jazz-loving father to the JakJazz festival Friday
night.
But after moving from one stage to the next for nearly two
hours the father turned to his son and asked: "Where's the jazz?"
The first two nights of the 1997 JakJazz have been marred by
low attendance and uninspiring music which is the farthest thing
possible from jazz.
Organizers have dubbed this year's festival "more than jazz",
but from most of the performances so far it would have been more
apt to dub it "anything but jazz".
These shortcomings have been compounded further by a complete
disarray in organization, not to mention a poor sound system.
Organizers' efforts to introduce an eclectic nuance by
introducing dangdut music evolved into a sour experiment.
Audiences stayed on out of curiosity when Trakebah featured a
potpourri of ethnic-dangdut-jazz music by noted Indonesian pop
stars.
Arrangers Indra Lesmana and Dewa Budjana should be commended
for trying.
But the scant audience left the main stadium in droves when
singers Hamdan ATT and Iis Dahlia began playing pure dangdut.
Despite JakJazz organizer Peter Gontha's earlier assertions
that dangdut "has jazz elements" it is clear that dangdut has no
place in a jazz festival.
Organizers seem willing to bear the criticism of introducing
dangdut to the festival for the sake of giving it an "Indonesian
identity".
Keyboard player Indra Lesmana himself was quite pragmatic in
his approach to the whole scene, saying the event was "really
more of a general music festival than jazz festival".
Most of the foreign acts played well but failed to leave any
lasting impression.
Bad organizing frustrated fans as schedules kept changing.
One featured act on opening night, the LA Allstars, performed
one hour earlier than scheduled. By the time most of the fans had
entered the stadium, the band was nearing the end of its
performance.
The 14-member band, fronted by Earth, Wind & Fire guitarist Al
Mckay, consists of mainly session and backup musicians from other
groups in Los Angeles.
Their set was anchored by Earth, Wind & Fire songs, in
particular September, Let's Groove Tonight and Boogie Wonderland.
Their performance brought fans to their feet boogeying to the
hits of the 1970s and 1980s. But what might have been a good
vocal performance was buried under the percussion and brass
section due to poor sound mixing.
Whether they were simply rusty or unprepared, the LA Allstars
had to resort to playing a song twice for their encore.
Other performances by foreign acts like singer Phil Perry and
Japanese group Jimasku & Watanabe were good. No one could doubt
their musical virtuosity.
But frankly, they seemed to merely be going through the
motions of the enjoyable but uninspired show.
Real jazz lovers could perhaps quench their thirst for
authentic music more at the free show staged in the food court of
Pasar Festival than at the three stages.
Here -- where music clinics are held by celebrated local jazz
musicians -- Batuan Ethnic Fusion, a band consisting of Balinese
musicians, blended just enough traditional sounds with serious
jazz technics.
The result: free entertainment for happy jazz lovers. (team)