G

iven the fact that the two biggest stars at the Java Jazz Festival 2011 opening today are guitar legend Carlos Santana and another guitar-wielding funk rocker, George Benson, let us forget the word “jazz” in the festival’s moniker.

Jazz may or may not be dead, but one thing is certain, that in the next three days, music buffs in the city have more than enough reason to celebrate, despite the absence of serious jazz purveyors besides Bob James and Fourplay: good music, good food and a relaxed atmosphere in the increasingly claustrophobic Jakarta.

It is still a moot point right now. The connection between music and civility, whether this art form can contribute much to holding back our animal instinct (Hitler after all was a big fan of Wagner), but the arrival of another installment of Java Jazz would be a much-needed respite in our politics-weary society.

At the very least, in the next three days we can escape from watching politicians jockey for ministerial posts that President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono is expected to dole out in the coming Cabinet reshuffle.

And after strings of bad press on members of hard-line groups continuing their wrangling of Ahmadis and other minority groups, Java Jazz Festival could bring the world’s attention back to Indonesia, and this time the attraction will not involve blurry YouTube videos of locals lynching their neighbors.

The tenacity with which Java Jazz Festival has existed in the past six years —which makes it something of a cultural institution in Jakarta — shows that stability, both political and economic, has returned to this country. Now, big names in the music business no longer have qualms over performing here.

Even some of the biggest names like Iron Maiden — which only five years ago would certainly have been objected to by authorities for security concerns —can have trouble-free concerts in Jakarta and Bali. There have been talks about legendary thrash band Metallica — which caused Jakarta to burn in 1993 — performing in Jakarta.

We indeed have come a long way from our troubled days in the late 1990s, where almost no one from the international music industry had the courage to turn up and perform here. Today, the endless stream of foreign performers who charge serious amounts of money for their shows indicates the expansion of the middle class, not only in Jakarta but also in other major cities in the country.

Members of this middle class have gone past the stage where they only had to think about the bread-and-butter issues, and now they finally can find time to indulge in the more refined things in life: music, art and literature.

But sadly enough, the middle class’ newfound fervor for music and art hit the wall of the government’s ignorance and big business’ insistence on crass materialism. The
government — other than official speech supporting Java Jazz and Yudhoyono dropping in for a Diane Warren gig — continue to let music and art promoters fend for themselves.

The greatest irony of Java Jazz is that the country’s biggest music festival and the city’s credible claim for civility is being held in the farthest post of the capital, the Kemayoran fair ground.

But at the end of the day, Jazz is always about rebelling against the authority. So consider Java Jazz a party of our own, and when you head North this weekend be sure to leave politics in downtown Jakarta.