“For a performance of popular music, the question is this: Is the building going to be big enough for the audience? But when the show is jazz, the question is: Will there be an audience at all?
Ha ha …”

Despite the laughter, when chatty Yovie Widianto was making this joke during the jazz fusion music show in the Jakarta Arts Center this month, he was making a shrewd comment about the current state of public concerts and music in Indonesia.

(Courtesy of Yovie Widianto)

“Most people actually prefer simple music, but as musicians, we’re not happy about that and must keep creating works that are high quality and honest,” Yovie says later in an interview.

Who doesn’t know Yovie Widianto? The 41-year-old Bandung native might have been in showbiz for half his life, but still his name keeps coming up.

“I’ve been around since the 1980s with my mate Fariz RM, although I haven’t always been getting a hysterical response [from the public],” he explains.

The Sundanese musician, who now owns the Yovie Widianto Music Factory/KAIn Entertainment in Utan Kayu, East Jakarta, first appeared on the music scene as a finalist in the Indonesian Popular Song Festival in 1987 — and then again in 1989, 1990 and 1991. Also in 1991, he was named Best Composer in the Young Stars International Festival in Taiwan.

Yovie began to make more of a name for himself when his group, Kahitna, released its first album Cerita Cinta (Love Story) in 1997, with the band’s characteristic fusion of jazz, pop and Latin sounds. Another six albums followed, with the latest released in 2006.

“My musical journey with Kahitna has been, well, unforgettable,” he says.

Another musical project called Yovie & Nuno resulted in two albums and a slew of awards: the Panasonic Award 2000, the Multi Platinum and 5 Million RBT Award, the Most Favorite Indonesian Artist at the MTV Asia Awards 2008 and Best Album for The Special One.

All of these, Yovie says modestly, “are blessings from Him”.

Yovie’s success as a musician encouraged other musicians to entrust their albums to his production, including Rio Febrian, Glenn Fredly, Audy, The Groove Band, the Quartet Warna, the Trio RidaSitaDewi, Ruth Sahanaya — even senior musicians such as Chrisye. As arranger and conductor, he also brought together musicians for the Indonesian Harmony, the Yovie Widianto Light Orchestra and the Yovie Widianto Fusion band.

Yovie explains his prolific activity as a desire to ensure diversity in Indonesian contemporary music.

“What I want is for Indonesian music to be full of different colors, not to be dominated by a certain musical stream,” he says. He uses as an example the music once broadcast by government television station TVRI, which gave people a range of “colors”, including keroncong, jazz and pop.

He reels off a list of names people knew “in the old days” – Yoppi Item, Pah Hoegeng, Edy Sud, Rhoma Irama, Jack Lesmana – adding “but now people only know ST12, Ungu, D Masiv, Radja, and Peterpan. That isn’t too much variety.”

He points the finger at the 11 national television stations that do their programming according to ratings; the result, he claims, is that appreciation of culture has simply stopped.

He also criticizes musicians who follow established trends in a bid to become a commercial success, resulting in much music sounding the same. Or perhaps it sounds the same, he adds, because there are those who might plagiarize.

“I don’t know whether they deliberately copy or not, but it’s clear when so many critics say that this group is the same as that group and so on,” says Yovie.

Yovie, whose passion for originality is plain in his work, claims many musicians hide behind other musicians’ “influences”.

“When there are musical influences, it is legal and we can judge that from the sense the music is similar,” says Yovie, who counts composers Chick Corea and David Foster among his own idols.

“But when the melody, chord, ambience and drum beat are just the same, that is plagiarism.”
Consider for example, he says, Frank Sinatra’s “My Way” and Lionel Ritchie’s “Truly”. Although the two songs have a similar feel, they have many different elements.

And a creative musician, he insists, can tell the difference.

“If in creating a song I find that it resembles another, than I choose to leave that song,” he says.

With his prolific output, creative sounds and strong opinions, Yovie is clearly a man with a mission: to increase people’s appreciation of music. He is determined to continue nurturing complexity and originality in contemporary music because quality music, he believes, will be able to permeate and influence contemporary culture.

“Society can’t be taught,” he says. “I prefer to influence society through a cultural approach that slowly increases our musicians’ quality.”

And that’s where he comes back to jazz, for all his jokes about the size of the audiences. Jazz music, he says, has succeeded in raising public interest in “culture”, which, he believes, will change social attitudes.

“Jazz lovers have an aversion to pirated recordings because the quality of the originality work is higher than the illegal recordings,” he says.

And he dares to dream his dream: “One day the music world in Indonesia will reach the stage where it appreciates music that is high quality, rather than just popular.”

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