Mostly Jazz: The Birth of Indonesia’s Jazz Movement
The Indonesian jazz scene now looks brighter than ever. why? Imagine this: loads of jazz artists has actually been gathering every Friday night inside a simple office building located at the fringe of Jl. Veteran in Bintaro to do something, to explore whatever they feel inside them in the jazz language. It’s in this space, where a grand piano stands still on the corner of the room with a wooden dining table and chairs, Indra Lesmana conducts his jam sessions with all these jazz giants and everyone else who dares to explore.
This is a movement that we might never thought before. That’s what we call “Indonesia’s Jazz Movement” that appears in the shape of the true origin of jazz, the spontaneous improvisations in total freedom. Officially the jam session starts in the afternoon on every Friday. However, due to their activity, in reality the musicians show up usually after 8 pm. Indra would lead the session by sitting behind his piano. No matter what, even when there’s only one musician in attendance, Indra would still get the jazz run. It may seem like a rehearsal or practice, but it’s actually a jam session.
Look at the names who have dared themselves to enter the vault. Indra Aziz, Riza Arshad, Sandy Winarta, Indrawan Tjhin, Barry Likumahuwa, Indra Dauna, Andien, Dira J Sugandi, Donny Sunjojo and Joy Marantika are just some of the names who have tried this challange. The Madagascar-born F.A Talafaral and Don Tham are two of the foreign musicians who have also collaborated in making the session livelier. This is the fact that gives us goosebumps when we heard about this for the very first time. Who knows, There might be more international jazz musicians stopping by to join this out-of-the-world jam session of Inline Music. And yes, we can dream that Indonesia will turn out to be a famed favorite spot for international jazz musicians to explore, collaborate and find something inspiring. We believe this is historical, it’s the start for something big that will happen in the near future.
As we said before, it’s great to see Indra Lesmana‘s appearance on the surface again. There’s always something new whenever he arrives at the scene, and we have to admit that his contributions have always given lots of strong impacts, to jazz in particular and in the bigger scale, to the music world in general. After flying low under the radar for quite sometimes, now he’s back on the saddle to appear up front. Now it’s the time, for us it’s the perfect time for indra to open up a space and himself for a new exploration venture in jazz music once again. This time, it’s highly probable that the experience will be entirely different. If in the past such explorations usually were motivated by musical anxiety, this time in line with the age maturity and immeasurable experiences in exploring every layer of jazz, Indra Lesmana has opened himself as a “laboratory” for any musicians wishing to dig deeper into the layers of jazz.
Today Indra Lesmana has centralized all of his activities at Inline Music Studio. From recording, engineering, mastering, rehearsing, and running the music business with his wife Hanny Lesmana, to conducting steamingly hot jam session with musicians across generations and nations, it all takes place at his beloved place. For many, many years Indra Lesmana has carried out discussions with various musicians of his generation and also the younger ones. From the basic knowledge of jazz, the condition of jazz at the moment, the prediction of jazz genre’s developments and last but not least, the map of Indonesian music industry in general. He does care about it, as he showed in our exclusive interview with him several months ago. We can understand why Indra got stimulated to do something, to carry out an action. And it’s bigger than just making a series of activities. There must be a lot of ideas in his mind right now, where one of them has appeared tremendously last night, Wednesday, April 21, 2010 in the shape of Mostly Jazz located at at Moscatly, Metro Pondok indah, Jakarta.
Moscatly is a resto with wine and dine as the concept. It’s cozy and comfortable, using many elements made from woods in minimalist style of design. This time Moscatly was chosen to be the place for us to witness the beginning of jazz movement, a movement carrying the large scale of vision and mission in Indonesian jazz world. This movement can go very big, so big until it can even change the face of Indonesian music scene forever. This event used the simple title: “Mostly Jazz”, but certainly it’s not a simple thing in real. The jam session delight that appears in “Mostly Jazz” outfit has marked the first start for the jazz movement’s publicity. It was the magical moment when Indra Lesmana brought his colleagues from younger generation, the tasty-groovy-licious Barry Likumahuwa and the young master of the rhythm, Sandy Winarta. As the jazz lovers, you might see this merely just a concert at the cozy cafe, but actually if you look closer, you would join the thoughts of jazz musicians that took this facility as a breakthrough to explore themselves even more.
Indra, Barry and Sandy brought an unforgettable magical moment on stage. They brought the modern jazz pattern in freedom but somehow could be acceptable for the music fans outside jazz genres. John Coltrane‘s collection such as “Giant Step” appeared more current in their hands. It was delivered in a delicious groovy way to suit the taste of youngters in general. As Indra used his synthesizer, the jazz pattern for last night’s gig was resembled a modern jazz in electronic style. I’d say that it was a modernized modern jazz. Joining Indra on stage in such a unique occasion like this brought a different spirit within Barry and Sandy’s souls. For me it was a surprise, because I’ve never seen Barry and Sandy played that way! Widyasena Sumadio, the senior Public Relations also for Java Jazz Festival even said “I don’t think Barry and Sandy even realize that they actually could play like that.” I don’t know what kind of spell Indra put on them, but the outcome was unbelievable. They played out of the box! And the audiences stunned by their performance. For one hour straight the audiences got hypnotized by their perormances, and a short break came right after.
At the break, EQ Puradiredja, one of Humania‘s vocalist and also the music director of Java Jazz Festival and Urban Jazz Crossover came to fill the break by playing the turn table. We spoke with Indra during the break, and he said that the concept of this gig was to bring jazz back to its roots, where it was all began. 
As we all know, jazz was born through the African American slaves that “ragged” freely to express their feelings using the instruments they could found back then. We also felt the spirit carried by Coltrane and Hartman when they made a historical album in 1963 that’s still considered as an important milestone in jazz history until today. When we asked him how far they practiced before the gig, Indra laughed and said, “as far as you’ve just seen.” “Just wait until you see the real jam session.” he added.
And that moment came. Indra took his pianica, with Barry on bass and Sandy on drums. This time Nikita Dompas joined the gang, also Ali Akbar and Indra Dauna. The real jam session has begun! What they gave wasn’t the kind of music for sale, but music for the soul. They gave out everything they had, exploring each other through the music they played. The second floor of Moscatly lounge was burned real hot by the musicians who were having a serious showdown on stage. Indra Aziz came and did a cool scat, followed by Pitoelas Big Band’s leader, saxophonist Dony Koeswinarno jumped in. Riza Arshad took the keyboard, and Dira J Sugandi came on singing “My Funny Valentine”. Nikita Dompas was replaced by Aditya Bayu, the rising young guitarist who performed with Indro Hardjodikoro Trio at Serambi Jazz a couple of weeks ago. Andien took over the mike from Dira and sang “Summertime”. Sandhy Sondoro came on to sing “Just the Two of Us”. It was seriously cool! A series of unbelievable jam session were held in an out-of-the-world performance by everyone. Indra said thank you to all the participants and audiences, and that was the end of the concert.
What we just witnessed was actually not just an ordinary jam session, or just simply some musicians playing their instruments. What we just saw was a showdown of skills came out from the heavily talented artists. They were drived to give their best, and the result was unbelievable. Benny Likumahuwa looked so proud of his son, Barry Likumahuwa that has just showed his ability in such a way he never done before. As Indra Lesmana said, one of the things most needed by jazz musicians or any other genres’ musicians is the chance to play “live”. At the moment it seems like almost impossible for us to have a cafe or club that’s willing to provide a space to a pure jazz jam. Generally the sessions at cafes and clubs are mostly presented in jazzy tunes. But now Indra has made a perfect playground for every jazz musicians to challange themselves in the jam session culture. Through this concert Indra Lesmana extends an invitation to every jazz musicians to show themselves and expand their ability by joining the Inline’s jam session. Even with the fact that the gig was finished very late, a couple of hours after midnight, we felt the night looked so bright through the flame of this jazz movement. Once again, it was a memorable night indeed. We can’t wait to see what else will happen through the mind of Indra Lesmana and every awe-inspiring jazz musicians in the near future. What we experienced was only the beginning. It was the start for something big. Salute to Indra Lesmana, all artists, and also everyone else behind this movement.All of us at Jazzuality.com will work together at full speed to support you. We urge everyone who has the same vision to join the march. Attention all jazz musicians and jazz lovers, are you ready for this?
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Reporter: Novan Yahya Renatal
Photographer: Bayu P Warjiyo
Editor: Riandy Kurniawan
Popularity: 4% [?]
Really good report, it is so jazzuality
and of course also proud of these musicians! This is proof that jazz never die in this country, it’s just being latent for some time, and now back to surface with a great master plan (bring all his styles) to concour the Indonesia’s music world! Yeah, allright!
This is a very important moment for Indonesia’s jazz scene. Indra Lesmana is a very important and most influential figure in Indonesia jazz, what he’s doing with all this jam sessions is allowing wider access to the new generation jazz musicians to experience his radiance and this inspires many musicians to grow more and grow fast! I’m telling you guys, this will lead into something a lot bigger.
iA
1st of all, it’s jazzuality.com’s reportage… great as always…
And yes… Indra Lesmana is Indonesia’s jazz icon. The good thing is this icon open himself as an open book to anyone who wants to explore and experience jazz.
In these couple of months, Indra and Hanny Lesmana have been sharing the idea of Indonesia’s jazz movement for looooong hours… And without second thought, I jumped in. We have so many things in common in regards to our vision of developing Indonesia’s jazz music scene. Such deeply provoking discussion with the couple, Eki Puradiredja has also contributed his piece of the idea of the movement.
Further more, now Indonesia’s jazz movement needs everyone to strive and accelerating the movement, that includes this articulate website.
[...] up with the living legend Indra Lesmana and the popular and fast-rising bassist Barry Likumahuwa in Mostly Jazz, the event that marked the birth of Indonesia’s Jazz Movement. Just like the rest of the [...]
[...] including Sarimanouk Quartet, Pitoelas Big Band, and joining Indra Lesmana and Barry Likumahuwa in Mostly Jazz, the event that marked the birth of Indonesia’s Jazz movement. Recently he formed his new [...]
[...] Lesmana. (Indra has just done a special collaboration with Barry Likumahuwa and Sandy Winarta in Mostcatly Jazz and also active making the Friday Jam Session in his Inline Studio). We have experience, they have [...]