Java Jazz Festival 2008 : Awesome!
Java Jazz Festival (JJF) 2008 was so awesome! This yearly events now get more popularity in Indonesia. Both me, and my wife agree that this event is one of the “must have” in every year. For the price of daily ticket IDR 500,000 (around 50USD), its very cheap that we can get so many world-class performance. It’s luckier for me as I got Buy 1 get 1 for this show!!
World Class performers in this show are James Ingram, Bobby Caldwell, The Manhattan Transfer, Incognito, D’Sound, Marc Antoine, Brian Simpson, Kenny “Baby Face” Edmond, Renee Olstead, Joe Sample, Lee Ritenour and many more! Local Jazz performers also stunning, like Syaharani, Benny Likumahua, Dian Pramana Putra, Andien, and also many more talented performer.
So many genres available there, from the very jazz freak until light jazz which close to POP music. I believe that not only Jazz lovers who come top this event, and in each year more and more Indonesian people enjoying thin kind of music.
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Where is the position of Java Jazz in the worlds’ jazz? I quote what Mark Antoine said that JJF is the biggest Jazz Festival in the world! With 18 stages, hundreds performers and thousands jazz lover, yes this is one of the largest Jazz Festival.
This festival grab wide attention in Indonesia, including the visit of The Vice President of Indonesia, Mr. Jusuf Kall. Although he only sat few minutes when the show of Mark Antoine J, but it showing that the government support such this great event.
Local Performance punctuality in term of time performance is one of the improvement should be made for the following years event. Delay and change on the place and time made visitors must change their route of performance, sometimes its such a hassle as it must walk quite far from one stage to another one. It is also nice to have big screen in many places telling who is performing in what stage.
Anyway, like Peter Gontha (Founder and Leader of this event) said, organizing an international festival is no easy feat. Congratulation Pak Peter, you have bring the world to Indonesia, and also bring Indonesia’s name to the world!
Indonesia has 3 yearly Jazz Festival. The other two is Jak Jazz Festival and Jazz Goes To Campus. The last one is student-organized Jazz Festival in Faculty of Economics University of Indonesia.
Attending each of these festival always make a different in life. Jazz is full of improvisation. There is harmony in diversity. The most interesting part of the show is when each of the bands’ member individually performing their talent. Its like he/she own the stage, but when the time they play together again, wonderful harmony is coming..
The other interesting part of Jazz is that we have one common things: Peace! Like mentioning in the closing show by Bluey (Incognito) that their band members comes from various countries (England, US, Pakistan, including guest member from Indonesia), but they have one in common: Peace!
Guys, See you in next festival! Keep the peace spirit with you!
Links to Jazz Festivals:
Photo Album Java Jazz Festival 2008
One Response to “Java Jazz Festival 2008 : Awesome!”
By John Hondorp on Mar 19, 2008 | Reply
Hi! I totally agree that it’s great to see so many jazz lovers in Indonesia. I have experienced things from the other side, from the stages of both Java Jazz and Jak Jazz 2007. Java Jazz is big, but it is definitely not the biggest event in the world. Led by Peter Gontha but programmed by dutch former North Sea Jazz Festival programmer Paul Dankmeyer, Java Jazz has the same format as the NSJF, which is the biggest, indoor Jazz Festival. I loved them both, because both festivals have their own flow, their own atmosphere. At times I felt a bit lost at Java Jazz, not knowing where to go or where to be, and not having the idea that organisation staff knew any better than me. At Jak Jazz things are uncomparibly smaller, but therefore perfectly organized. I liked the intimacy of it.
Besides those two festivals, I taught at the DAYA institute in Jakarta and at UPH in Karawaci which I enjoyed very much (being a conservatory techer in Holland for 20 years). I long to come back, but finding funds to do so is hard.
Any tips in this field would be very welcome, maybe I could get you a private concert in reward…
Thanks for the enthousiasm on jazz.
It keeps us connected.
John Hondorp
Professor for Hammond Organ Jazz
ArtEZ School of the Arts, Enschede, Netherlands