Jakartass Home thoughts from abroad. Alien thoughts from home.

With the news that 11 year old Indonesian pianist Joey Alexander’s first album, My Favourite Things, topped the jazz charts in the first week of release, the Indonesian jazz scene seems to be in quite a good place in the jazz firmament.

Joey is undeniably an incredible talent, a prodigy as I confirmed when I saw him in concert (video) in August 2013. Much is made of his extreme youth and I wondered then if the rest of the audience were there to bathe in reflected glory. Sadly for them, he has been fast-tracked for an O-1 visa “for individuals with an extraordinary ability” and can no longer be regarded as Indonesian.

However, there have been, and are, many outstanding jazz musicians here. In the 50s Bubi Chen (1938-2012), the pianist widely recognised as the ‘Godfather’ of Indonesian jazz, spent two years in the USA studying jazz piano under the tutelage of Teddy Wilson, sometime accompanist for Billie Holiday. Two young drummers, Demas Narawangsa and Sandy Winarta, are currently studying jazz in the USA; pianist Nial Djuliarso studied at both Juilliard and Berklee. Moreover, several talented musicians, such as Sri Hanuraga, Adra Karim and Elfa Zulham, have completed their jazz studies at European universities.

Indonesian jazz is a tale of generations, politics and class structure, a history as yet untold.

I arrived in Jakarta at the tail end of 1987 and as an inveterate seeker of jazz, progressive rock and ‘world music’, I soon discovered the pirate cassette scene. This had such a wide range of western and otherwise unobtainable music that its influence in the development of Indonesia’s music scene cannot be under-estimated.

I found Neil Ardley’s Kaleidoscope of Rainbows (1976), played by the crème de la crème of Britjazz, his compositions were based on the five note pelog scale used in Balinese music. This lead me to search for Ardley’s ‘mirror’, examples of ‘traditional’ Indonesian music fused with jazz, I travelled widely through the archipelago in my pre-family days, from North Sumatra to the Molluccas, and made a point of collecting cassettes recorded locally. I came to appreciate that each region had its own music traditions, with a range of particular instruments, often including electric keyboards.

I also discovered that such jazz as existed appeared to be formulaic; piano, guitar, bass, drums and maybe saxophone, backing a pop singer whose melodies and lyrics, with the word ‘cinta‘ sprinkled generously throughout, were invariably sugary. Newcomers to jazz will recognise the labels ‘lounge’ and ‘smooth’, but it’s muzak to my ears.

According to Professor Royke Koapaha at Yogya ISI, in the 50s and 60s classical music was considered high class and jazz “low class”; to be caught playing it invited scorn. There was also President Soekarno’s mid-sixties ‘war against the Beatles’ and other ‘western influenced music’. Was the jazz I was hearing ‘subversive’?

Soeharto’s accession to the presidential seat in 1966 let the shackles off anti-west sentiments. The following year, having played at a jazz festival in Europe, the Indonesian All-Stars, comprising Bubi Chen on piano and kecapi (Sundanese zither) Jack ‘Lemmers’ Lesmana (guitar), Marjono, saxophonist and suling (bamboo flute), Jopie Chen (bass), and Benny Mustapha van Diest (drums), recorded an album in Austria with Tony Scott, the American jazz clarinettist and arranger. Djanger Bali is now recognised as a seminal album in Indonesian jazz history.

After that, there appears to have been a lull in the jazz scene. Psychedelic music captured imaginations for a while, and then Jack Lesmana is credited with introducing jazz rock music in the early 70’s. This was followed by a prog-rock scene which has lasted to this day. Notable names included Soekarno’s son, Guruh, who, in 1976, played gamelan on a recording with a group called Gypsy; the album, Guruh Gypsy, is now regarded as a classic.

The first JakJazz festival in 1988, co-ordinated by guitarist Ireng Maulana, was notable for easy listening artists such as Lee Ritenour and Phil Perry, with but a few truly creative groups such as Itchy Fingers from the UK and Kazumi Watanabe from Japan.

In 1989, ethno-jazz re-emerged. Bubi Chen, “credited with adding an Indonesian flavor to jazz music especially at a time when President Sukarno despised western music”, may have been the catalyst with the release of his cassette only album, Kedamaian. Accompanied by kecapi (zither) and suling (bamboo flute), his playing flows over Sundanese (West Java) melodies.

In the early 90s, Karimata released Jezz: one track did feature the aforementioned Phil Perry and Lee Titenour, but the others offered a kaleidoscope of Indonesia’s varied music genres. Krakatau, a fusion jazz group lead by classically trained pianist Dwiki Dharmawan, incorporated Sundanese percussion and wind instruments, with western instruments tuned to slendro and pelog scales. The group Java Jazz, formed by keyboardist Indra Lesmana, son of Jack, was to follow suit. Balinese guitarist Dewa Budjana, mentored by Indra, replaced the deceased saxophonist Embong, and the group forged a catalogue of tunes based not only on technical ability and melodic sense but also their different ethnic backgrounds.

Ten years later, President Habibie’s initiative to dissolve the Ministry of Communication may have been the trigger which released jazz, the music of creative improvisation, of play. With access to the internet and the growth in Indonesia’s economy since then, ‘jazz cafes’ have proliferated urban centres and festivals are held throughout the archipelago. Universities and music schools have established jazz departments staffed by professional musicians, many of whom were mentored by their ‘seniors’.

Jazz is about community, not about individual celebrity status and mentoring through the generations has been a notable feature of its current dynamism, for example: Jack Lesmana to Indra to Eva Celia; Benny to Barry and Utha Likumahuwa. Riza Arshad, founder of ethno-jazz group simakDialog, says that he is particularly proud to have played with Bubi Chen. Riza also studied with Jack and Indra Lesmana; and in turn he has mentored pianists Joey Alexander and Sri Hanuraga.

In recent years, a few artists such as simakDialog, Dewa Budjana, and Tohpati have had self-produced albums released internationally on the MoonJune label based in New York. Leonardo Pavkovic has also co-ordinated the recording of albums with A-list western jazz musicians. What is particularly encouraging is the release on MoonJune of self-produced albums by I Know You Well Miss Clara, Tesla Manaf and the power trio Ligro who truly stretch the genre’s boundaries.

Many other musicians, similarly informed by their heritage and the wide range of music of the past sixty years, have distilled that into personal statements. However, few have an outlet other than occasional gigs where fans can buy recordings.

IndoJazzia has been established to support the Indonesian jazz community at large by offering access to information and resources on a communal basis. The website also offers a portal to the many musicians seeking international exposure as well as jazz aficionados abroad newly aware of the astonishing creativity to be discovered here.

A start has also been made on a major project: ‘The History of Indonesian Jazz’. With early pioneers reaching the evening of their days, this is intended to be an audio visual documentary and book, with the possibility of the release of hitherto non-digitalised albums, concert tours and other associated activities.

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First published in the Indonesia Expat magazine 29.5.15