After one month without Jazz Break Revival due to the fasting month and Ied celebration, now finally it’s back again. This time it was the 15th edition, called Jazz Break Revival XV. For this edition, all I can say is this.. what a comeback! Yes, there were only two groups performed tonight, but both were stunning and representing two countries. Just like the previous editions, the Jazz Break Revival XV was held at the Concordia Resto & Cafe at BP Bumi Sangkuriang. The hall was crowded with many jazz lovers, from all ages, and they all looked very enthusiastic.

For this October edition, KlabJazz together with the venue and also Melinda Hospital cooperated with Serambi Jazz, the music program of Goethe Institut Jakarta presenting a seriously cool band came far away from München, Germany, Henning Sieverts Quartett. Bandung got the honor to see the first presentation of them, before going to perform in Jakarta on the next day, right at the GoetheHaus Jakarta. Henning Sieverts Quartett came with an interesting concept called “Blauer Reiter”, a set of music interpretation from the collection of  “Der Blaue Riter” or in English known as The Blue Rider. I’m going to talk about it later. Not only Henning Sieverts Quartett, but tonight we also got Imam Pras Quartet on stage. Imam Pras is a very familiar name for Bandung jazz lovers, famously known as one of the senior pianist from Bandung that also admired by many musicians. He’s been active in teaching piano for quite some times. Many of his students have become great pianists today.

Now let’s talk about Henning Sieverts. If we talk about great German jazz musicians, surely his name should be included. Henning Sieverts is a bassist, cellist, composer and also a journalist from München with many achievements along his career. So far he’s involved in no less than 75 CD productions, where 10 of those had him as a band leader. Sieverts has made many compositions, for string ensembles, theatres and also various different size groups in jazz and classical music. He plays bop, hard bop, modern jazz, straightahead, cool jazz, mainstream and many other sub genres of jazz throughout his career. After many successful gigs around the world, now he got the chance to show his skill in Indonesia. For his gig in Indonesia he brings his fellows Till Martin (tenor-sopran sax, flute, bass-klarinette), Hugo Siegmeth (tenor-sopran sax, klarinette, bass-klarinette) and Bastian Jütte (drums). All three of them are also great and successful jazz musician in Germany.

Maybe for some of you haven’t heard about “Der Blaue Reiter” yet. Der Blaue Reiter is a group that was established about 100 years ago by some painting artists (Kandinsky, Marc and Münter) that came from the Neue Künstlervereinigung München, Germany, and later grew bigger with many other names joined in. This group, mainly was a German Expressionist movement instigated a revolution of colors, textures and shapes,  from the idyllic foothills of the Alps of Murnau, where they painted some legendary and historical paintings. What they did became  such an important movement of art which lasted from 1911 to 1914. The name itself came from one of Kandinsky’s painting with the same name. Der Blaue Riter of the Blue Rider believed that colors, shapes and forms had connection with sounds and music, as both were believed could create harmonious color that would purify the soul. With that said, Henning Sieverts decided to prove what was already believed a century ago. He brings his musical interpretation of those der Blaue Reiter’s collections, transfering the lumionus painting colors that belonged to the group into luminous musical colors. What we had was the connection that bridged our eyes and ears to feel the beauty of art in a whole new experience. It’s a very unique concept that we don’t see often.

Jazz Break Revival XV was started with the senior group in Bandung, Imam Pras Quartet. Imam Pras has been popular for the local jazz lovers not only for his skills in playing and composing, but also by his consistency in making many standout pianists. Many of his students have reached their success today. Besides Imam Pras, the Quartet consists of Rudy Zulkarnaen on acoustic bass, Ariefandi “Ari Aru” on drums and Boyke Priyo Utomo on tenor sax. It was interesting to see them all wearing batik to celebrate the Batik Day, following the official announcement from UNESCO to state Batik as a world heritage. Series of delicious post bop and standard compositions were delivered smoothly, full with improvisations. Boyke was on fire in several parts of the songs, standing in front of the stage and roared freely with his sax. The other member of the band also got their fair chance to improvise as well. They brought Duke Ellington‘s “Isfahan”, Imam Pras’ composition “Black Hole” and the jazz standard “Inner Earth” as three first songs.

Imam Pras then gave one song as a tribute to the earthquake victims in West Sumatera. Lia Amalia joined the stage to take the vocal part. The intro played in West Sumatra (Padang)’s specific melodies, and it was actually the intro for a Padang song, “Kambanglah Bungo”, a song about blossoming flower. Lia’s voice carried the song dramatically, it touched everyone’s heart. Lia continued with another song, this time covering a famous song written by Chandra Darusman for his band, the legendary Chaseiro entitled “Pemuda”. The last song they brought was written by famous Indonesian composer N Simanungkalit, a melodious and theatrical song called “Kulihat Terang” (“I See The Light”). Indeed they showed a very high quality, world class performance.

“It’s a dream come true to present two great quartet from two great nations”, Dwi Cahya Yuniman the coordinator of KlabJazz said right after Imam Pras Quartet’s performance. “It’s not meant for competing, but it’s for completing each other” he added. And shortly after, Henning Sieverts Quartet were ready to perform.

Sieverts greeted everyone in Indonesian language, and then explained that all the songs tonight was about the musics and paintings together. He’s inspired by the painting collections of Der Blauer Reiter and all the songs tonight were based on each painting collection from this painting artists group from 100 years ago. Sieverts provided the painting projected on stage through his laptop while playing each song. And that was simply a new experience, enjoying both paintings and jazz at the same time.

Henning Sieverts Quartett started with the first song, inspired by Alexej Jawlensky‘s painting called “Murnauer Landschaft” or “The Murnau Landscape”. It’s a portrait of a landscape near the Bavarian town of Murnau, aflame with bright color and well on the way towards abstract. This one is one of the earliest and most beautiful paintings of der Blauer Reiter. The composition gives a certain feel of having a joyful journey towards the mountain. The second song was taken from Wassily Kandinsky’s 1911 painting, “Sankt Georg” (“Saint George”), a picture that tells a mythical story about the fight between St George against a dragon. Sieverts builts the tense right from the start, and through his composition you could clearly get the feeling when St George successfully slayed the dragon. It was outstanding!

The third song was “Die Gelbe Kuh” or “The Yellow Cow”, a Franz Marc‘s painting. This one has an interesting story behind it. The painting is mainly showing a big yellow cow in the field. For Marc, yellow stood for feminine, gentle and joyful, but on the contrary, Kandinsky always referred this color to show something agressive and sharp. Since the cow was painted in yellow, we should wonder what this color represented in this one. But there’s no need to think too much, as Sieverts smartly combined both opinions in his composition. He started with calm and peaceful tones but later turned quite aggressive in a crazy 12-tone blues.

The fourth song was a composition from a very abstract picture made by Marc called “Die Vögel” or “The Bird”. The painting was very abstract. You could only see the bird hidden behind some textures only if you looked carefully. It was a cool composition that started with Hugo’s flute mimicking the happy bird whistling sound. They continued right away with “Berg” (“Mountain”), a painting made by Kandinsky in 1909. The painting appeared on the screen looked somewhat puzzling. A crown stands on the crest of bright multi colored mountain, then a hazy figure of a white horse rider’s spotted in the foreground. Sieverts canters this composition in sweet reggae rhythm, based on the dominant colors found in the painting, red, yellow and green, which basically representing the color of Jamaica Rasta Culture. The next song entitled “Improvisation 26″, taken from another Kandinsky‘s painting in 1912. This painting is just like jazz, a music that’s full with improvisation, he said. Sieverts got some string sights in the pictures and some curves that looked like the underbelly of his bass. Therefore he played this song in solo with his acoustic bass, giving it a warm major-key colors as an analgoe to the warm major tones found in the painting.

“StraBenecke” or “Street Corner” is a composition based on the painting made by Paul Klee, a good friend of Franz Marc in 1913. This song captured the hectic scene from a street corner especially through busy run flute sound of Hugo. Just as how the painting appears, the song goes scurries, beeps and squeaks. The next song was still based on Paul Klee’s painting, “Föhn im Marc’schen Garten” (“Warm Wind from the Mountain in Marc’s Fairytale Garden”). What Paul painted was actually a scene he saw from the place he painted it, in the garden of Marc’s house in the village of Ried. As the picture was deeply toned in dark colors, Sieverts translated it into the dark tonal music colors as well.

Then came a song inspired by a lovely painting of a gothic church of Saint-Séverin in Paris. This picture was named “Saint-Severin Nr.2″, painted by Robert Delaunay in 1909. As a matter of fact, Delauney wasn’t a member of der Blaue Reiter. But still he gave a very important influence on the path to the “autonomy of colors”. This painting was also included in both “Der Blaue Reiter”‘s almanac and also at the group’s first exhibition a hundred years ago. Henning gave a majestical nuance in this composition. It was a majestic, mediative and sacred composition picturing the scene of the famous gothic church of Saint Séverin. Henning Sieverts and friends gave the last song for the night, it was another Kandinsky’s painting “Murnau mit Kirche” (“Murnau with Church”). This is a very interesting painting of the Murnau Church in bright candy-like colored with the background of beautiful Bavarian landscape. For this one Sieverts choose to make it in a typical Bavarian musical form, “Zwiefacher”, in bars of 3-3-2-2, but presenting it in furiously fast tempo. Sieverts said thank you, big applause from the crowds came until they completely left the stage.

But the audience still wanted for more. They chant “more, more, more”, asking Sieverts Quartett to give another song, and they got what they wanted. For the encore, the quartet played “Hocken im Schnee” (“Hay Shocks in the Snow”), Franz Marc’s painting from 1911. Again it’s a very beautiful painting, picturing three shocks of hay with three different colors, red, orange and green. It looked like three juicy fruits covered in glittery white snow, and that was also the feeling I got from Sieverts’ interpretation for this one.

Without a doubt, Henning Sieverts’ Blauer Reiter is a musical experience as well as a visual expeience in equivalence. He composed lovely pieces of music representing each respective paintings that were all projected on the wall tonight. It was absolutely amazing. Their performance has given me a new experience of art. Music and paintings are without a doubt equivalence to touch the soul, and tonight both art forms joined together to warm all the audience’s soul. We got the chance to see the historical paintings for more than an hour and enjoyed the music interpretation of each paintings at the same time. It was a lovely concept indeed.

What a great night, and what a lovely come back for Jazz Break Revival. Bandung got special treatment for this edition with the unique concept brought by outstanding quartet from Germany, Henning Sieverts Quartett. That’s not all, because it’s always a pleasure to see Imam Pras and his quartet in action. Thank you to KlabJazz, Bumi Sangkuriang, and Melinda Hospital in collaboration with Serambi Jazz of Goethe Institut Jakarta for making up this edition. We wish you all the best. Can’t wait to see what Jazz Break Revival XVI will deliver next month!

See more pictures:

Reporter: Riandy Kurniawan and Adott Jumbo
Photographer: Eghi 25

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