This weekend Indonesia's biggest music festival and one of the worlds biggest jazz festivals, Java Jazz Festival, will take place in its new home at Kemayoran, Jakarta. Reason enough to shine a light on its founder and brain behind it, Peter Gontha ( left, here at the 2009 JJF press conference next to festivals program director Paul Dankmeyer and Eki Puradiredja, the program coordinator.)
The following interview is taken by Indonesia Now:
It has now grown to be the biggest jazz festival in the world, this year's version featuring 1,300 performers on 18 stages. The Java Jazz Festival is big, helping put Jakarta on the international music map. It's now in its sixth year, and the man behind it all is a jazz fan himself.
IN: What's hot at this year's festival?
PG: John Legend obviously. He's coming. Besides John Legend, we have also Diane Warren. I don't know if you've heard about Diane Warren. You know, Diane Warren probably in the history of music, the biggest song writer in music. She has done 90 over hits. And sold more records than the Beatles, Elton John and Robby Williams sold together.
IN: This event has evolved from a pure jazz event to more R&B, hip-hop, pop. Some criticize saying that it's not a pure jazz event.
PG: What is a jazz event? You know you go to Monterey and you have Fleetwood Mac playing there. Monterey is the biggest jazz event and the oldest jazz festival. You have Fleetwood Mac, Earth Wind and Fire, James Brown. So do we. You know jazz is a genre, that not majority people like. But people when they come to the festival, they come to understand jazz and understand the pop artists. That's how they learn jazz. My aim, our aim is to make people feel what jazz is all about, to learn what jazz is all about.
IN: Peter, where did you get your love of jazz?
PG: My father started as a music conductor. He, in the early 50s, he played for a band which was owned by Shell. He was music conductor of the Shell Big Band. And that's how I got to know what jazz is all about.
I played piano when I was 8 years old for 6 months. And when my parents went bankrupt, the first thing they sold was my piano. So now that I can afford it, sort of, I cannot play still. If I cannot play I will have other people to entertain Indonesians as spectators.
Jazz is becoming sort of in Indonesia, a household term. People talk about jazz all the time, nowadays. It's different than dangdut you know. Jazz has always been there. It's not something that's only fashionable. It's something we inherited from our predecessors. Jazz will continue forever.
One big change this year is the venue. It's moving from the Jakarta Convention Center to the Jakarta International Expo site in north Jakarta. Dates for the Jakarta International Java Jazz Festival - March 5, 6 and 7.
source:
0 comments
