After 5 successful years, the 6th Ubud Village Jazz Festival has finally started! Once again this annual jazz festival paints Bali in vibrant jazz color, spreading out from its homeground, the Arma Museum and Gallery in Ubud, Bali. We have been covering this event since 2014, watching how it grows in every aspect. It was started upon a dream to make Bali has a classy, ellegant jazz festival with strong character. The founders Yuri Mahatma and A.A Anom Wijaya Darsana wanted the event to be modest but full of quality. They wanted it to be enjoyable and familiar. Not only the audience could enjoy each and every presentation with ease, meaning that no one has to be hectic running far away to catch any performance, but they could just walk to access any stage easily while breathing fresh air provided by the green, eco-friendly and artistic nature Arma has offered.
Impressive line up once again makes this year’s edition shine, and like before, the committee did a great job on keeping the schedule on time. All the artists are spread into three stages, there are about 11 shows each day, the audience can enjoy jazz for 8 straight hours, for 2 days. This event provided jazz from all around the world, brought by legends, the highly skilled and experienced artists. Amazingly they still have rooms for newcomers to take part in the fest.
Day 1 of Ubud Village Jazz Festival kicked off around 3:30 pm in the afternoon with a cool Australia-Indonesia connection courtesy of Melbourne based jazz vocalist Emilia Schnall and Bali-based drummer/producer’s band, Panji Baskoro Trio. Emilia has successfully built her career around Melbourne and beyond since age 18. Known for being ‘Sugar Mama’ in Australian popular band The Mamas is not the only role of her, because she is also a band leader, composer, teacher and pianist, the way she shows with her own band The Emilia Quartet and Emilia Band.
She made a very warm start with her smooth, sweet and heartfelt swing. Her singing voice reflects jazz naturally breathtaking. She took some of her originals along with some standards and covers. “Don’t Wait Too Long” was one of our favorites from her show, as she demonstrated how she connected her heart and voice to let everyone feel the love of jazz. A fast swing on Johnny Cash’s “You Are My Sunshine” became a delightful finale. Emilia doesn’t just have big hair, but she has big voice too. Panji Baskoro Trio did very well in providing the music for her. What a wonderful opening for the UVJF 2018.
Meanwhile, just some minutes after that first show, the Subak stage at the back side of Arma began its service with Komunitas Jazz Jombang. Like the name says, this community comes from a regency/town situated to the southwest of Surabaya, East Java. This community was established in 2014 by Shoni Alkava and friends who love listening to jazz. From there, the community moved fast in spreading jazz in Jombang, including regular two-weekly community event and also provides the education for those who wish to learn jazz.
We always wish to check out how jazz is doing in other cities of Indonesia. It’s good that this festival invited the jazz community from Jombang. If any of you still wonder whether jazz infects other than big cities, we can say, hey, Jombang is jazzy too now.
It’s time for the biggest stage to run. The first band to start this stage is Insula. Insula is a trio from France that brings something different than what you normally find in a jazz trio by playing a fine blend between Arab-Andalusian music, jazz improvisation and Carribean groove. The band is the fruit of friendship between pianist Maher Beauroy and French-Algerian oud player Redha Benabdallah who met for the first time in 2006 at Paris Sorbonne University. With percussionist Adriano Tenorio, the trio debuted in 2015, drawing inspiration from Martinican philosopher Frantz Fanon’s writings.
For this time Adriano unfortunately couldn’t come, so he’s replaced by a local percussionist Affan Latanete . They gave us a dreamy voyage through the multi dimensional sound, not just through the combination of oud, piano and percussions but also by Redha’s voice.
Unique, mind-bending and innovative, the Insula Trio opens up a new horizon in music. They shows how far can jazz accomodate new invention, musically and creatively speaking. Music has no boundary, it’s dynamic and progressive. Only with three players this band shows that jazz connects Arab-Andalusian music and Carribean groove so seamlessly in the hands of creative brains with skills. Amazing showcase, surprisingly fascinating.
Since 2015 there is a jazz talent search competition created by MLD called MLDare2Perform. They selected musicians from all around Indonesia in 6 categories, and then the winners bond together as a band. In 2017, the third season got no less than 1000 participants and almost 600 videos sent online. The winners are Windy Hariyadi (vocal), Hezky Joe (guitar), Hansen Arif (drum), Yoshua (piano), Muhammad Rizki Abdulllah (bass) and Erick Giri (sax). Simply called as MLD Jazz Project Season 3, these 6 winners has performed at the Java Jazz Festival 2018 and now landed big on another prestigious fest, this time in Bali.
Although this band was formed from the winners, they played tight with a strong chemistry. They even got original songs that successfully made them bagged loud applauss from the crowds. Windy sang some songs, including a cool jazz version of Vina Panduwinata’s “Di Dadaku Ada Kamu” and a bossa standard “Tristeza”. A good band with highly skilled young guns, it gave us chance to see great talents who will surely be on top in the future of jazz in Indonesia.
Back to Subak stage we got one of the frontliners of today’s jazz scene in Indonesia from the younger generation. Not only he’s skilled and experienced, he also plays an important part in the educational aspect. He is none other than Satrio W Alibasjah, better known as Tiyo Alibasjah.
Tiyo is no stranger to us. We have covered many of his appearance either as a sideman or his own project/band, and nowadays we are connected with his students that make us able to see how good he is in producing new talents. Speaking of his solo project, it’s been going on for a while now. At least we have heard it some years ago. Now he brought that in this 6th edition.
After the first few songs, Tiyo presented his original composition called “Illusion”, a fine piece that began with charming solo from him before the rest of the trio contributing their part in making the song full rounded. Joining him in the trio were Kevin Yosua (bass) and Dezca Anugrah (drum). He also featured the gifted pianist from Bandung, David Manuhutu who joined the trio near the end of their show.
From Tiyo you can learn that being a jazz player doesn’t mean that you have to always play everything complex. You don’t need to overdo your part just to look or sound cool, or jumping high and low to get the attention. You don’t even have to think too much. What you need is a tight connection with your heart, feel whatever you play, equip yourself with proper skill and technique, and share your feeling and story to the audience. Just as how Tiyo is in person, it’s always nice to enjoy his apperance and music on stage. He never fails to add more flavor as a sideman, but it’s great to see that he is stepping up with his own band.
On the Giri stage, the official opening ceremony took place. The founders and the core team stood there, welcoming and thanking everyone who came, also the lineup for this year. Directly after that, Vienna-based trio, Triple Ace – Colours in Jazz took their position.
It’s certainly fascinating to have the trio of Oliver Kent (piano), Uli Langthaler (bass) and Dusan Novakov (drum) bring something fresh and energetically exiting. You could see that each player has special ability, then imagine when they join forces. After travelling around the world from USA to Israel, from Russia to Cuba and Mexico, from South Africa to Thailand, Vietnam and Mongolia, now they have arrived in Indonesia, particularly in Bali.
Jazz speaks loud right from the start as the band locked into action, including wicked solo and tradings. Then they waltz in straightahead seamlessly, letting us feel the fine blend between American and European jazz. They also featured the founder, Yuri Mahatma who gave even more dramatic sound with his ellegant guitar playing.
Yes, all of them are strongly related to jazz tradition, you could see that clearly, at least by the way they improvise. You can also see that they are open minded in creating their compositions. Elegant but playful, sticking to jazz tradition but somehow still feels contemporary. The name says it right. Triple Ace – that’s they are, and Colours in Jazz – that’s what they do.
From Vienna we moved to Germany, watching one of contrabassist Sebastian Gramss’ trio, Fossile 3. In this trio, Gramss plays alongside Rudi Mahall (bass clarinet) and Etienne Nillesen (drums). This trio celebrates the inexhaustible energy in a cunning, new frame. As their motto says “Short and Sweet”, Fossile 3 keeps their head upon compact topics, small variations and compromised solos.
After reaching half of their performance, the rain suddenly poured hard. But that didn’t stop them performing, and the audience also didn’t care about that. They even climbed the stage, rounding the trio and that created such magical scene that you could only find on jazz stage. Truly high octane show, great play, great crowds. Amazing scene.
Every note is important with Fossile 3. They don’t like to waste anything, rather they shot everything on target. Even so, they still have many surprising twist and turn, along with their blazing, killing free jazz.
If you think South Korea’s music scene is only about K-Pop , you should think again, because they also have other than that in their music industry, including jazz. We have known or seen some of them, and now in this year’s edition of UVJF we got a female fusion band, A Fuzz.
A Fuzz consists of Jinny Kim on guitar, Seulki Song on keys, Sunmi Shin on drums and Hyemin Lim on bass. This band won the 2015 Hello Rookie competition aired on EBS Space. They were also one of 6 bands competed in K Rookie competition made by Korea Creative Culture Agency (KOCCA) and finished third. In 2015 they released their first EP “Fading Light”.
This ladies are great in playing jazz. They know how to swing, they can rock it up. Challenging and fascinating. Even when the heavy rain poured during their performance, the crowds stood with them. Some used umbrella, some didn’t care of getting wet. They still enjoy the performance all the way to the end. Again like what we captured at Fossile 3 show, the Subak Stage where A Fuzz performed gave a sweet scene of jazz which involved players and their fans.
The ladies of A-Fuzz have great control over their songs. The way they funk the jazz is awesomely moving. Even without vocalist, the band has no problem to convey their feeling. Other than the fascinating rhythms and melodies they create, their boppin’ heads and blazing appearance said it all. There were some vocoder and keyboard elements that simulate a vocal inflection that helped a lot to built a dynamic intensity in their appearance.
Back to Padi Stage we got a trio representing Bali’s local jazz talent named after its guitarist: The Ichang Rahimy Trio. Joining Icang are Helmy Agustrian on contrabass and drummer Gustu Brahmanta. If before Icang mostly performed as a quartet, since 2017 he founded this trio. This act featured Qee Qee on vocal.
A free flowing jazz with some sprinkles of ethnic were found on the stage. Gustu also used karinding along with his sharp steady drumming. In the promo material, UVJF described this act like this: The music they create, with the sweet voice of Qee Qee, exhibits rich interplay and sheer allure of sound, is one of the most organic, engaging and involving band you’re likely to hear. Rich interplay, sheer allure of sound, organic, engaging and involving, that could very well be the keywords of Ichang Rahimy Trio. This show alone has already spoken out loud of how great the development in Bali is today.
This year UVJF made an important move in terms of supporting the jazz development and regeneration. Not just the two days fest, this time UVJF held a Youth Band Competition as part of International Jazz Day Celebration. From this competition they got the winner: JODA Band, surprisingly consisting of 6 teenagers with range of age of 12-17 years old. They are Gavriel Baruch Azanya, Ezra Briant Azanya, Aaron Juan Pradana, Adam Juan Pratama , Keisha Claudia Indrianto, JeromeGABE. As the winner they earned the chance to perform plus recording session provided by Antida Music Studio.
If usually the winner of competition created by a festival would be placed as the starter, UVJF honored the winner by placing them near the final show. We could see why they won the competition, as these teenagers played flawlessly and fearlessly, taking difficult songs like “Moody’s Mood For Love”, also a cool reinterpretation of “Someday My Prince Will Come” and Stevie Wonder’s “Superstitious”.
Playing on Subak Stage, we could see why this band stole the heart of judges Balawan, Koko Harsoe and Bogie Prasetyo. Their confidence made them able to go boldly making twists and turns when improvise. They are solid as a unit, great teamwork with lovely harmony. We hope they continue building their career together, because if they do, we have no doubt that one day they will stand among the tops.
A senior guitarist originally from Malang but live and build his career in Bali took his moment on the main stage. He is Koko Harsoe. This man fell in love with jazz very early, so early that he has established his own jazz band at the age of 14. He is a proud member of a great band of friends, Jiwa Band which has spread madness here a couple of years ago.
Like his performance in 2015 and 2017, Koko Harsoe embraced the modern jazz fully along with a strong team in quartet formation. Joining him were Gustu Brahmanta (drum), Made Ignatius (bass) and Kuba Skowronski (sax).
Koko Harsoe is a versatile musician who loves to explore. He has collaborated with exotic traditional instruments, from tabla, djembe to digeridoo, the Aborigin instrument.
But when he gets to play pure jazz, he would embrace it with his soul, ‘painting’ and ‘sculpting’ the jazz like a fine art artiste, which in the end allowing us to feel the beauty of it.
For this time he brought naturally dynamic jazz, intensely sharing stories through music which wasn’t only his but also Kuba’s own composition. Long solo from each players were given which got huge appreciation from the crowds.
Koko Harsoe wrapped the first day and make us wait unpatiently for the second day. There will be many more interesting performances to highlight on Day 2. For you who couldn’t be with us, you still have one day of jazz fun if you are in Bali. But if you live somewhere else and can’t be a part of it, we will keep you updated in the next article. Stay tuned for our upcoming coverage!
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Reporter: Riandy Kurniawan
Photographer: Dendy Adhyatma Purnama Benny Weyara Praditya Nova .