30 July 2007
Krakatau Performance in Toronto Jazz Festival
Posted by admin under: Festival; Gigs .
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SOURCE :KOMPAS MAIN NEWS
Sunday, July 25, 2004
Krakatau’s Performance in Toronto Jazz Festival
Written by: Franki Raden
It’s halfway through the summer, yet the weather in Toronto still makes the people there shiver. For the members of Krakatau, mostly living in Bandung, maybe this kind of weather suits them more instead of the blazing heat of summer.
THIS famous Indonesian jazz group performs in two prestigious places in Toronto. The first is the Toronto Jazz Festival (TJF), which presents big names, such as Oscar Peterson, Gary Burton, Jean Luc Ponty, Stanley Clark, Al Dimeola, John Scofield, George Benson, Wynton Marsalis, Joey De Francesco, and Michel Camilo, along with numerous local jazz musicians, such as the group of jazz lecturers at the University of Toronto and York University. Krakatau’s second performance takes place in the Royal Conservatory of Music (RCM), an influential center for music activities in Canada. These performances are part of the Krakatau North America Tour 2004, journeying through several cities since June 3 to August 19, 2004.
In TJF (sponsored by TD Canada Trust), Krakatau performs in the center of the festival location, which is at a stage in Nathan Philips Square in front of City Hall. The performance of this famous Indonesian group was not held in the main stage, but it is still a meaningful breakthrough for the Indonesian jazz scene. The audience was willing to soak up the sun in the middle of the day, enthusiastically welcoming Krakatau. Most of them actually said that this is the best jazz group they’ve ever seen. Some audience at RCM also gave the same comment. Moreover, there are a few people who came from out of town just to see Krakatau.
What’s interesting to observe from this event is how the jazz fans (including the local jazz musicians among the audience) in this cultural country of Canada can enjoy the problematic music of Krakatau. First of all, Krakatau’s musical notes are built based on the Sundanese pentatonic element, which may not be easily accepted by the ears of jazz lovers in Canada. Besides that, when the music glides to the improvisation part, the notes used by Dwiki Dharmawan (keyboard), Pra Budi Dharma (bass), Zainal Arifin (multi-synchronized bonang), Yayon Dharsono (vocal, traditional flute, and rebab), and Ubiet (vocal) are no longer heard as pentatonic music, that perhaps is easier to digest. At the moment, the notes they used has transformed into microtonal notes because they combine slendro, pelog, madenda, and matraman notes, all in one octave. The consequence of this combination is the changes of the pitch of each notes in their instruments that are no longer fixated on the international pitch (piano).
As the result, their music in these improvisation parts sounded melodically chaotic, going round and round, and difficult to digest. In the first two songs, the audience in the front stage of Nathan Philip Square looked like they’re having difficulties in following the flow and direction of Krakatau’s music. At the same time, their repertoire didn’t help. Their songs dramaturgy in the beginning felt slow. Especially for Bebuka, which is played as the opening song, the intro is a bit too long. Besides that, they didn’t succeed in getting a good sound balance and quality even though they brought two sound engineers from Indonesia (or perhaps that was the reason?).
Krakatau’s music does offer a new challenge, not only for the listener and sound engineers (who are probably not used to traditional instruments), but also for the Krakatau members themselves. By leaning on the original Sundanese pentatonic notes, their music automatically are dwelling in the heterophonic (multi-layer) music area of gamelan. Meanwhile, their songs are still created with the pattern of homophonic music (melody and accord) of the west. Dwiki and Pra, who are the motor of Krakatau, are aware of this, but it seems that they have not managed to find the right solution for it. At the moment, what’s heard from Krakatau is some sort of dualism. During the song (melody), their music is thick with Sundanese pentatonic. However, when it’s improvisation time, their music changes into “just intonation” jazz music that floats around (not modal, not tonal, and also not atonal).
Actually the jazz development nowadays has traveled so far. Some jazz groups, like Orchestre National de Jazz de France (that performed on the same stage) played “jazz” music that is a collage of various genres, just like John Zorn’s music, America’s experimental music icon who’s rising at the moment. But the difference between him and Krakatau is, although their music constantly change, it has a distinct form and shape, not floating here and there. If we listen carefully, free jazz music such as Cecil Taylor or Rosco Mitchell still have this quality. My point of view is still based on the ear (“modern”) in measuring whether a music is good or not. Perhaps in this “post-modern era”, the music lovers have to resynchronize their hearing to be able to digest the music that offers new phenomena like Krakatau.
Unrelated to the aesthetic issue, Krakatau’s performance at TJF intrigued famous Toronto jazz radio, Jazz FM, and jazz critics, the Jazz Times magazine to interview them. In the Jazz FM broadcast the next day, they begin airing the interview with, “Krakatau’s emergence shows how eclectic TJF is. This band managed to amaze the audience on the second day of the festival “. What’s interesting is how Ron Davis, the group performing after Krakatau, sometimes leans to the atmosphere of Sundanese pentatonic notes used by Krakatau. Before the festival, Ron Davis, Toronto’s well-known jazz pianist, was frequently invited for jam sessions in the recording studio by Krakatau, and he really admires this Indonesian group.
The struggle of Krakatau, motored by Dwiki Dharmawan and Pra Budi Dharma, for these 20 years have not failed them. Their tour to the northern part of America (USA and Canada) have received exciting welcome. It was said that in Vancouver they were very successful. I received an e-mail from Pra Budi Dharma from there saying, “We were having a blast in Vancouver!! There are about 45.000 people here with many support from the Indonesians here…crazy!! Because this is our last gig, we played to our limit, letting ourselves go with the audience’s emotion… The point is everyone’s happy, so the committee asked us to play for them again next year in the Vancouver Jazz Festival”.
So, I think Krakatau has successfully open the international door for other Indonesian jazz groups. The problem now is (1) who’s able to keep playing in one group for that long? and (2) who’s able to perform with their own music style, and not copying other country’s style?
Franki Raden,
