The huge banner that hung over the entrance to the multiple of halls of the Kemayoran fairground, the venue for the sixth International Java Jazz Festival, serves a double purpose this time around.
    
The names and familiar faces of homegrown jazz performers printed on the banner, reminded festival goers where and when their idols would play on a given night, but it unwittingly went to show how far the local jazz scene has fallen into a predicament.

On the banner were the names of “jazz” performers Tohpati Ario Hutomo, Andien, Andre Hehanusa, Glenn Fredly, Maliq & D’Essentials, Elfa’s Singers, Simak Dialog who for many years have become mainstays of the local jazz scenes.

These performers are indeed bankable and by putting the names on the banner — which also adorned Jakarta’s main streets days before this weekend festival started — Java Jazz organizers hoped to draw a large number of fans to the festival.

The strategy paid off. A large number of jazz fans turned up and contributed to probably the largest concentration of human beings in one small corner of Jakarta in a single night.

But the fact that performers from olden days could still top the bill of Java Jazz, in its sixth edition no less, indicates the local jazz scene has problems with grooming new talent. Where can we find the new
Elfa Secorias, the twenty first century Bubi Chen or a hipper Indra Lesmana?

No one can blame those big-name performers for staying far too long in the local jazz scene. Besides, that’s what most people say about having a career in life. It certainly is a career, and the fact that they are still being hired by Java Jazz promoters after all these years goes to show that it is a wise career move.

The only problem is that the success from the old talents has not rubbed off on younger jazz performers who would soon take the throne from the old guard and claim it their own.
But maybe I am wrong.

In the course of this three-day festival, one of the most talked about artist in the festival was Dira J. Sugandi, a Bandung-based jazz chanteuse who shot to fame last year after performing with American Grammy winning pop singer Jason Mraz. Her duet with the American performer showed Dira has what it takes to be a star.

She finally received long-overdue recognition when she gave a solo performance on Saturday evening and shone brightly during the show.

Another highlight was the rapturous response jazz enthusiasts gave to the open-stage performances of Margo Rising Star and Skywalk, who played serious jazz in collaboration with saxophone legend Benny Likumahua. Not to mention the thunderous applause given to their rendition of some of John Coltrane’s most complicated works.

But Dira’s powerful presence and Margo Rising Star’s masterful take on Coltrane seemed to be an exception rather than the rule in the current installment of Java Jazz.
The biggest crowd pleasers in the festival were new outfits that had only little or nothing to do with jazz.

Hours before, Gugun Blues Shelter took the stage on Saturday evening. The band has literally become the talk of the town among festival goers, and as its name suggests, is a pure blues purveyor deemed as the savior of the country’s — if not Asia’s — dormant blues scene.

Still on Saturday, one of the most sought after performers was Tika and the Dissidents, an indie band considered to be the hippest of the pack in Jakarta’s close-knit indie scene.

The band’s performance at the medium-sized venue Lawu I Hall on the sixth floor of the Jakarta International Expo building was a packed affair, teeming with Jakarta’s trendy kids, who were busier typing away on their BlackBerries than digesting Tika’s socially-conscious lyrics or responding to the singer’s enthusiastic stage banters.

Tika and her backing band the Dissidents delivered the goods by rearranging their tunes to make it sound jazzy enough for the festival, and for those whose sole motive at the festival is to just be there and trendy, it was more than enough.

But this is more a problem of the jazz scene in general than of Java Jazz. Java Jazz is merely a showcase of what talents the local scene has. In fact Java Jazz organizers have done much to nurture the talents of homegrown artists by opening music clinics, including one with Diane Warren as its instructor.

Java Jazz organizers also deserve praise for making jazz trendier than ever, at times by adding performers with pop sensibilities into the bill. The challenge next year is to draw a bigger crowd that will come for new talents with jazz as their true calling.

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