Basement Sessions´ expression is strongly influenced by the heritage of avant-garde and modal jazz from the fifties, sixties and seventies. Prominent for this style are often simple themes and harmonic progression, where the instantaneous improvisation within the style is at the center. The improvisation goes beyond the traditional jazz way of improvisation. Fellow musicians were chosen because of their ability to improvise and work in such an environment.
The performers on the Bali tapes are:
Susana Santos—Trumpet/Gamelan
Jonas Kullhammar—Saxophones/Clarinet/Flute/Gamelan
Torbjorn Zetterberg—Bass/Gamelan
Espen Aalberg—Drums/Gamelan
Ilir Ilir(Excerpt)(----) Traditional. Recording: Youtube 2008 Link
Elements Included in the Research Project: Basement Sessions
To merge modal jazz with inspiration from Indonesian gamelan, I have brought together different musical elements, which form the framework for new music. These elements are as follows:
1. Gamelan instruments
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Gong (hanging)
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Gender (metallophones)
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Reyong (laying gongs)
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Kendang (drums)
2. Fellow musicians
3. Musical elements and moods imported from gamelan
4. African−American/Western musical influences
5. Other inspirations from gamelan (surrounding/recording location)
1. Gamelan Instruments Included in Basement Sessions
To elaborate on why I use a specific gamelan instrument, I will answer the following questions:
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What is the function of a specific instrument?
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How do these instruments blend with Western instruments?
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How are the instruments tuned?
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Which instruments can be played by a musician who is not well trained in the gamelan’s technical performance?
The choice of gamelan instruments depends on the musical function they hold. I will, in the description below, point out how they are used in the “Basement Session.”
Several of the instruments from the gamelan orchestra can be played by musicians who are not trained in gamelan music, but require an understanding of musical periods and a basic knowledge of how to get the sound from a percussion instrument. These instruments can, by an improviser, “be played with” (as in testing out and "fooling" around) and will, in many cases, provide a musically successful result. I also can adjust the difficulty level of the musical part to the musician’s performance level.
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Gong instruments
The bass gongs in Bali consist of the Gong Wadon and the Gong Lanang. Wadon is the largest, with a diameter between 80–110 cm and a 15 cm-diameter bowl in the center. Lanang is slightly smaller. This center bowl affects the instrument so the sonic result is a clear tone, unlike traditional flat gongs, which are full of overtones and without a clearly defined tone. The function of the Gong Wadon and Lanang, with its long, sustained low tone, is to form a drone in many ways.
Gong Kempur is a medium-sized gong, around 60 cm in diameter. The pitch was around a fifth higher compared to Lanang. This interval might vary from one gamelan instrument set to another.
The smallest gong is called Klintong and is high in pitch. Unlike the other gong, which requires a soft mallet, the Klintong needs a wooden stick/mallet to produce a more distinct sound.
Recording of the Actual Gongs:
Lonley woman - Excerpt(1959) by Ornette Coleman from Ornette Coleman – The Shape of Jazz to Come ℗ 1959 Atlantic records.
Using pentatonic scales as a harmonic foundation is compatible with modal jazz expressions from the 1960s. The musicians wanted to avoid functional harmonic progression by using only one scale and chord as the basis for composition and improvisation. This gave the music a more open expression and musical freedom for the performer.
- Element 2: Kotekan/rhythmic patterns. Kotekan is more thoroughly explained in part 2.3. "Own compositions" Kotekan.
- Element 3: Duality is a fundamental concept in Balinese philosophy, Hinduism, and gamelan music.
Examples of duality in the Balinese gamelan
- The kotekan principle is a consequence of the interaction between the two contradictory rhythm patterns, which together form a complete rhythmical unit.
- Extreme contrasts. Dynamics, instrument range, temperature changes.
- Waves of oscillations. The gangsa metallophones in the Balinese gamelan consist of two similar instruments where the differences are a tuning of some hertz. The sonic result is a wave of oscillations between the Gangsas, and this concept is a vital part of the duality principle.
These concepts are vital compositional tools for the creative process of making the music presented on "The Bali Tapes".
. I will write more about this in the description of each piece below.
Composition 3: Slow Ostinato
“Slow ostinato” is inspired by the central Javanese gamelan. The style is characterized as quieter, slower, and more contemplative, in contrast to the Balinese, which is, to a large extent, fast and energetic.
Composition 5: Irama Berat
“Irama Berat” is a composition in the Afro-American modal jazz tradition and is based on the pelog scale. The bass ostinato is a four-bar pattern in 4/4 triplets or 12/8 with an Afro-Cuban drum rhythm. The melody, played by saxophone and trumpet, is triplets based on a three-against-two poly-rhythmic phrase. The theme has an idea around the kotekan principle, where I have linked two equal melodies with rhythmic displacement so they together form a rhythmic structure.
When I edited the recordings, it felt as if the bass solo on this piece was a bit too naked, significantly, since the bass sound was somewhat affected by its poor condition. I had the idea of creating a soundscape that one often heard at night in Bali. This soundscape was the sound of the gamelan orchestras performing music in the distance
The new overdub is a processing of the Javanese of the gamelan piece “Ldr. Balabak.”
My electronic processing consisted primarily of time stretching. That is, I took an two-second excerpt from this piece and stretched it so each sound was much longer.
Conclusion
In "The Bali Tapes" I aimed to deal with the history of jazz and its use of another culture’s music as an inspiration to create new music. I have tried to find different ways to illustrate this starting point, where various contents of gamelan music are central, together with the jazz aesthetics I refer to in the text. As an artistic product, “The Bali Tapes” has met these intentions, and created new music on the basis of jazz and gamelan. I have made different compositions, which together form a whole for the release. The work is, in my opinion, unique, where some of my pieces relate quite strictly to these gamelan principles. In my view, this is not the case with similar recordings and music I referred to earlier in the article. The sound is also unique since our recordings were made outdoors with the Balinese sound environment. This soundscape strengthens the sonic identity of this music and its musical identity, greatly because these soundscapes are a central part of what I associate with the recordings of gamelan music.
An important factor was making a product that would fit into a specific recording label catalogue. Basement Session has released our previous recordings on the Portuguese label Clean Feed, which has a clear direction regarding what type of music they will release. Clean Feed´s primary interest is modern and free acoustic jazz. For our previous recording, the process of the releases has been different. For the first CD, we made the recording and sent the mastered tracks to Clean Feed. They accepted this recording. For the second CD, they asked us to make a sequel. For the third CD, Clean Feed invited us to the Ljubljana jazz festival, and Clean Feed wanted to make a live recording. I intended to make a musical product that could fit Clean Feed’s musical profiles and “Basement Sessions” musical directions, but with new elements included in the gamelan. My musical identity as a jazz musician fits Clean Feed’s profile, but working within this new environment of gamelan could have the danger of affecting my musical aesthetics related to a release on Clean Feed. This aesthetic duality might be just because of my imagination and self-made dogmas of how I thought the modern jazz community would react to a recording, including other cultures’ music. After working with Basement Session—The Bali Tapes, I feel this is not the case, and having been accepted by Clean Feed for the release confirmed the musical choices I made.
Introduction
“Basement Sessions - Vol. 4 - The Bali Tapes” (from now referred to as "The Bali Tapes") is the first out of four project in my artistic research Eastern Rebellion with Gamelan as Inspiration for New Musical Expressions. "The Bali Tapes" is the jazz group "Basement sessions" 4th release, hence vol. 4, and consists of five compositions. In this project I investigate how Eastern music have influenced the modal jazz of the sixties and, in combination with my new inspiration from gamelan, create new music. Gamelan is characterized by its use of ostinato layers, which in many ways are reminiscent of the way modal jazz uses patterns and melodies. Gamelan instruments were previously used to some extent in jazz, for example, in Don Cherry’s work, but with a less prominent approach regarding the gamelan tradition and traditional ways of performing. I wanted a slightly more rigid structure and traditional approach than earlier music made for jazz settings. My goal is to develop, compose, and record a repertoire for a jazz ensemble, which includes Indonesian gamelan instruments, principles of composition, and other elements inspired by this culture, and point to similarities between my work and Eastern-influenced modal jazz.
Project Background
This project seeks a fusion between the Indonesian gamelan, its concepts and instruments, and the modal jazz that arose in the sixties. My goal is to create a musical framework in which both styles of music become equally present. My process in solving this problem is to point to common elements, such as scales and rhythmic systems, and further compose music for the Western instrument and the gamelan instrument included in this project. My work with “The Bali Tapes” tries to answer this project’s primary research question: Can I create fusion music between gamelan and sixties modal jazz?
I have a broad background as a musician. My field of work is both as a jazz musician with a basis in the Afro−American jazz tradition from the sixties and as a classical percussionist dealing with mostly contemporary repertoire. The Eastern Rebellion idea grew out of my six-month stay in Bali during the spring of 2012, when I learned about the Balinese gamelan tradition and playing technique. The most emotional element in the learning and absorption of this culture was the extreme power and energy of this music. (Balinese gamelan is considered one of the loudest acoustic music traditions in the world.) Conversely, the Javanese gamelan tradition offers a more subtle and calm soundscape. The common element is pentatonic pattern/modal and drone-based music, which I felt could be a well-suited partner to the Afro−American jazz tradition, to which I belong to aesthetically. Accordingly, my research quest was the search for a common platform to create music where my background as a jazz musician could unite with my new knowledge about gamelan tradition and instruments. For this purpose, I have chosen to create several compositions in which each has its own conceptual framework for improvisation to achieve a coherent release on CD. The pieces are still independent of each other. In this way, each compositional content varies according to gamelan references, both in content and through composing. Some have explicit connections to standard compositional techniques from gamelan music, but others focuses on sound and mood. In the section “Description of the Work Process and the Musical Content" further below, I will go into detail about each composition and define these according to gamelan references and other influences.
An interesting question for me is what function the gamelan has in the expression of "The Bali Tapes". Are the gamelan instruments laid on top of Western music as an “Eastern spice”? Alternatively, are these instruments forming the foundation for the music? What is the musical hierarchy between the traditions? There is no clear answer to this, and it varies from composition to composition, something I will highlight further in the section describing the work process and musical content. However, my main objective for the project was a unified instrumental sound, where instruments from both styles are present and together make a new soundscape.
The gongs form the foundation for the rhythmic big structures or circles in gamelan. The Gong Gedé is central to highlighting the beginning of the musical period. In my composition "Slow Ostinato," this structure is a compositional key element.
The music example to the right are excerpts from the gamelan part of my composition, "Slow Ostinato", which is a part of the Basement Sessions - The Bali Tapes.
Resolution - exerpt(1964) by John Coltrane from
A Love Supreme: The Complete Masters ℗ 1965 UMG Recordings
Musicians: John Coltrane - Saxophone, McCoy Tyner - Piano, Jimmy Garrison - Bass, Elvin Jones - Drums
- Trompong/Reyong
Trompong/reyong are two instruments in the same family consisting of multiple, smaller, prone kettle gongs of different sizes. The distinctions between the trompong and reyong is the register. The trompong, the lowest of these two instruments, is melodic and prominent within gong gedé style, performed by one musician. Gamelan gong gedé means "gamelan with the large gongs,” and it is the largest gamelan ensemble with up to 70 musicians. This style is an older music style within Balinese gamelan and are first and foremost ceremony music. Its slower pace characterizes the style.
- Gender
In the recording venue, we had available a set of instruments called Gamelan gender wayang that were tune in the slendro scale. Gamelan gender wayang is described as the Balinese chamber music ensemble, and it is usually performed by four musicians. The gender wayang ensemble consists of four basic instruments:
- Two genders, a slendro tuned gangsa (metallophone).
- Gong pulu (deep two-stave metallophones whose function is the same as a gong).
- Kempli bamboo (bamboo stave w/resonator acting as a “timekeeper”).
I used these instruments as the basis for the introduction to my composition "Gender Rock!” In the example below, all these instruments are featured.
- Drums: Kendang
Kendang drums are the heart of the gamelan orchestra. The drums control the dynamics and tempo through both performance and movements. The kendang drum is a cylindrical drum with leather heads on both sides, where one side is the treble, and the other is the bass. The bass is played with the hands or mallet, while the treble side is always played with the hand. The kendang drum is considered the most difficult gamelan instrument to master. It is played using several kinds of techniques, where the variation of off-beat bass strokes and “slap” in the treble, in combination with “ghost strokes,” are characteristic of the technique and style of performance.
The Baris dance is a solo dance with a gamelan orchestra accompaniment. In this music, the kendang is the link between the dancer and the orchestra, where the drum follows the dancers’ movement and in this way gives cues to the rest of the orchestra.
The kendang is also prominent in the gamelan part of "Slow Ostinato"(above), where all the drums are performed on these instruments.
The lineup on "The Bali Tapes" is extended with a trumpet as the fourth instrument. I wanted to keep the instrumentation free of chord/harmonic instruments as this put too much harmonic color in interaction with the gamelan. A fourth musician will also contribute to expanding instrumentation possibilities in terms of gamelan participation.
The lineup with two melody instruments, drums and bass, is widely used in jazz. Most common is the saxophone/trumpet or two saxophones, like the Ornette Coleman Quartet.
4. Afro/American Influences
Afro/American influences have been written about earlier in this text. See “Defining the Genre” and "Jazz Genres’ Use of Traditional and Folk Music as Inspiration."
5. Recording Location and Other Inspirations
"The Bali Tapes" recording was made at the home of Dewa Berata in Pengosekan, Bali. Dewa Berata is the head of the Cudamani Ensemble, Bali’s leading gamelan orchestra. Pengosekan, which is part of Ubud, is known for its rich gamelan tradition.
The recording location was a garden house open to the ambient sound. I brought my recording gear from Norway. Almost all recordings of gamelan music are done outdoors, which also captures the sounds the environment produces. This outdoor soundscape fascinates me when I listen to gamelan music, something I wanted to recreate. Here, sound from the rain, crickets, birds, frogs, mopeds, chainsaws, and other daily life sounds are a part of the recordings. The idea of recording this music on Bali was primarily due to the exoticness of these background soundscapes. During the recording, we experienced sounds that could only be produced in these surroundings. It colored the recordings not just audibly but also influenced how we performed the music. All starts and ends had to be planned differently compared to how we would do it if recorded in a studio. For example, if we were recording a slow and mellow tune and a motorcycle honked, we just had to wait a few seconds and start over again. The quiet tunes were influenced by the ambient sounds. For instance, in the composition “Slow Ostinato,” where a cricket herd enters the sound during a transition, we had to let this sound find its space before we continued. Indeed, recording outdoors is an inspiring factor that is impossible to replicate in a studio environment.
However, there were some challenges during the recording session. Bali is hot and humid. It is 30 degrees in the shade, with a humidity of about 85%. In this climate, it is difficult and exhausting to work. We had excessive fluid loss and were generally drained of energy after working two hours. The instruments used for Nordic air and temperature reacted to the climatic changes. The most challenging thing was to keep the acoustic bass in a playable condition. Already after the first day, the bass began tearing apart. The bottom plate loosened, and the gut strings began delaminating and became soft. The bass sound is somewhat affected by this ambient exposure, and a little jarring can be heard when the chair comes loose.
Description of the Work Process and Musical Content
This recording consisted of five compositions, and the intention was to use different approaches for each. Some of the pieces have a more prominent number of gamelan references. For me, it is vital to achieve a coherent recording and a possible concert repertoire that bring out the references and background of the project, both in the context of gamelan and jazz. In the discussion of the musical content below, I will describe the content of each composition.
The musical form of the Ilir-Ilir recording
- Introduction—presentation of mood and melody in the bass. Important parts of the mood are the drone, tonality, and a rubato approach.
- Main presentation of the melody. The melody plays on a trumpet and saxophone. Trompong colors the melody and plays the drone.
- Solo improvised part: The trompong solo is based on motifs from trompong practice in traditional gamelan. Examples of two central motifs used as building blocks for improvisation are:
These motifs are used relatively freely over the instrument in combination with free elements and parallel octaves, which is another distinctive feature of traditional Trompong practice.
The other soloists have an improvisational approach that builds on melodic material in the composition. The structure is a collective improvisational expression in which some instruments are occasionally leading. This improvisational structure is not an unusual shape in avant-garde jazz. This could be exemplified through Tomasz Stanko´s recording “Almost Green” (1979).
Central to this direction is Gendhing, which refers to the “colotomic” structures that describe the rhythm and use of rhythmic structures in Javanese gamelan. Henry Spiller describes the gendhing concept in the following way in his book:
"The term gendhing has two senses in Central Javanese music; in its most general sense, it refers to any gamelan piece with a cyclical foundation—in other words, it means something like the English word "piece." Its more specific meaning refers to large-scale forms with 64, 128, or 256 beats in each phrase marked by a gong stroke. Gendhing has two distinct sections (merong and inggah), each with its own colotomic form. Sometimes the inggah section of a gendhing is a piece in ladrang form.” (Spiller, 2004, p. 74)
In Javanese gamelan, instruments that support and corroborate these structures are called colotomic instruments (or structural instruments). The gong instruments are the framework for these concepts, and the big gong starts a phrase.
"Slow Ostinato" is a composition based on the ostinatos in gongs and reyong, which provide the framework for the piece and groove. The structure has a length of four 4/4 bars, which is transferred to 16 beats, and the music consists of four 16-beat periods, with a total of 64 beats. The composition has a half or doubling principle, where the larger instruments play with the lowest speed. The gong ostinato functions as the bass and is like a traditional gamelan ostinato.
Musicians: Ornette Coleman - Alto Sax, Don Cherry - Cornet, Charlie Haden - Bass, Billy Higgins - Drums
Composition 1: Ilir-ilir
“Ilir-Ilir” is a song that originates from Sunan Kalijaga and is used to preach and spread Islam in Java. Sunan Kalijaga is considered one of the nine saints in the prevalence of Indonesian Islam. The composition comes in several versions, from a solo song with accompaniment zither to full gamelan. The piece belongs to a tradition of clear melody, unlike other gamelan music where the theme, in the Western sense, is unclear. This puts it in a central Javanese tradition, which often has a more distinct melody.
“Ilir-Ilir” has a drone feel and is within the pelog scale system. In the Western tempered system, this scale is Bb - D – Eb - F - A and occasionally visits H, almost as ornamentation.
I chose this piece as a part of The Bali Tapes repertoire because it had a clear theme with a defined shape. The accompaniment in the version I refer to is relatively rubato and open, an openness it is possible to imagine will suit an improvised expression.
Our version is not an exact transcription of the melody, but more a tune that builds on the content of “Ilir-Ilir”, that is, a kind of re-composing. The way I‘ve done this is by listening to the reference recording. Then I let the music “mature” over a few days, where I hum the melody. At the end, I write the piece the way I would like it to be. I use this approach partly because I want to avoid direct transcription, but most importantly, I want the melody to have a personal form, and through this approach, it would fit my musical vision.
Our recording of "Ilir Ilir" ends with fragments of the main theme. This is to avoid a static form proceeding with a regular melody–improvisation–melody structure that ties up the improvisation section to finish in a certain way.
The accompaniment in Part 2 is the basis for the whole composition. Dewa Berata and I discussed the kotekan principle and how Western music has influenced Balinese music. Dewa told me that the odd meter (uneven time signatures) had particularly influenced many composers of Balinese gamelan music. I worked out a kotekan in a 7/4 beat, which formed the basis for further work with this composition.
The composition "Suling" got its name from and inspiration from the Balinese flute, Suling. This flute is a bamboo instrument with a melodic function. In the gamelan orchestra, it is performed in unison by several musicians. The sonic result is an airy oscillation sound between the instruments. In my composition I aimed to recreate some of these expressions. The melody is played by a Western flute and a trumpet with a mute in the same register. I also wanted the musicians to play slightly out of intonation, that is, in phase with each other, to achieve this oscillating wave, which is central for the suling ensemble performance.
The main goal of this work was to create a framework for freer improvisational expressions. The composition is, therefore, without a fixed pulse, and the melodic progression is relatively free related to scales.
2. Fellow Musicians
The starting point for this project is an ensemble I have worked with previously called Basement Sessions. Basement Sessions has existed since 2009 and recorded three CDs (vols. 1–3) on the Portuguese recording label Clean Feed.
The musicians on these recordings are:
Jonas Kullhammar/Jørgen Mathisen(*)—Saxophones/clarinet/flute
Torbjorn Zetterberg—Bass
Espen Aalberg—Drums/percussion
(*) Only on Vol. 3.
The ensemble is based on the classical saxophone−jazz−trio format established by the Sonny Rollins Trio in the fifties. This lineup gave the musicians greater freedom, both harmonically and rhythmically, for several reasons. The lineup did not have an accompanying instrument like the piano or guitar, instruments that often define the harmonic process to a large extent. The classic jazz combo, piano−bass−drums, is reduced to bass−drums, and the musicians therefore have more space in the rhythmic image.
3. Musical Elements from the Gamelan
- Element 1: Scales: Pelog and slendro. Scales and tuning are more thoroughly explained in part 2.2 - "Mantra - Gamelan Tuning and Scales" section
The other soloists have an improvisational approach that builds on melodic material in the composition. The structure is a collective improvisational expression in which some instruments are occasionally leading. This improvisational structure is not an unusual shape in avant-garde jazz. This could be exemplified through Tomasz Stanko´s recording “Almost Green” (1979).
Ilir Ilir - Javanese Traditional arranged by Espen Aalberg
from Basement Sessions Vol.4 - The Bali Tapes ℗ 2017 Clean Feed.
Composition 2: “Gender Rock!”
“Gender Rock!” is a composition based on the gamelan gender wayang, which was available at the recording location. The purpose of using these instruments was due to their scale, Slendro, which is close to the conventional Western pentatonic scale. The other gamelan we used was pelog. The composition consists of two parts:
Part 1: Composition with melody and improvisation. The compositional content is rooted in the syncopated rhythms of kotekan.
Part 2: Bass improvisation over gamelan accompaniment.
The structure of Part 1:
- Bass ostinato: The basic structure of the bass ostinato in Part 1 originates from the syncopated rhythms from the kotekan in Part 2.
- Melody: The melody is an Afro-American style rooted in the slendro scale.
- Improvisation - Trumpet - Saxophone
- Final melody
Overdubs: I made two: vibraphone and woodbox. I added vibraphone to emphasize the bass ostinato. Regarding the woodbox sounds, the intention was to use the kendang drums to make a hectic double-time drum feel. The sound of the kendang drums was too huge to fit or blend, and I ended up finding wooden boxes that blended nicely with the overall recording.
Issue: After we made the recording and put the two parts together, it musically did not feel right. In the aesthetic of the total musical content, we omitted Part 2 from the recording. The rhythmic elements from the kotekan in Part 2 form the basis for the bass ostinato in Part 1. Therefore, it is essential, even though it is not present in "Gender Rock!”
Why did this not work out musically? The part with the gender wayang was perhaps the most original gamelan part we recorded and had a typical form of kotekan accompaniment. The function of this part was an introduction to the main melody and improvisation part. The two segments were recorded separately with a plan to merge them in the mix. After mixing, I felt Part 2 did not suit the total expression on the recording. The introduction did not have the united sound of the two music traditions I was searching for. It felt like two styles were put together without a musical idea at the center, and the lack of musical identity was too apparent.
Over this gong ostinato, I made an accompaniment in a doubling principle derived from the gamelan. Underneath is the fundamental score of the gamelan in the slow ostinato.
Over this gamelan accompaniment, I composed a melody on the pelog scale. The composition has an AAB form.
Another noticeable concept with this piece was the idea of only using gamelan instruments, drums, and saxophone. I did this to see if it was possible to create a piece of music within an Eastern-inspired jazz tradition where a gamelan holds functions such as bass and other accompaniment instruments.
The audio quality of the recording was not optimal, which led to much complementary work. All the gamelan instruments had to be doubled subsequently. I solved this problem by making single samples of each instrument we used during the recording in Bali. These samples were then laid atop the gamelan tracks, doubling the individual sounds to enhance the audio quality. In this way, I managed to maintain the musical performance.
Defining the Genre
Fusion music, which merges several music genres with different traditions/folk-music mixed with Western music, has several designations: “world music,” “worldbeat,” “world fusion,” and “exotica,” to name a few. “World music” is the most commonly used term and defines the style in many ways. The genre is broad, but a common understanding of “our” and “their” music and instruments, where “their music” is used in conjunction with “our music,” is prominent to define the genre. This emphasizes the music’s ethnic inclusion. Whichever term one uses, the genre must be seen as an umbrella for many types of music where ethnic affiliation is prominent. The terminology used is too complex and bewildering and is defined by artists, themselves. Therefore, it is unclear to denote this music as a genre, as the genre consists of several subgenres and styles.
Within jazz, the use of ethnic elements has been a tradition since the sixties, if one ignores the fact that jazz itself is a mixture of kinds of music. Duke Ellington’s “jungle style” predates the extra-musical associations of exotic, primitive Africa and Africans that were tied to it once Ellington began working at Harlem’s Cotton Club in the late 1920s.
I chose to denote “pure jazz” (i.e., music) that originated in the United States around 1920 and evolved from there as the core of jazz. “The core of jazz” contains a common rhythmic reference and phrasing (i.e., triplets, swing), a functional harmonic progression, instruments, instrumental phrasing, and a tradition-oriented way of improvisation. Jazz has developed into several styles, but a reference to history, culture, and the “jazz sound” at its core, is essential to call it jazz. Today, on an equal footing with almost all musical genres, the genre term “jazz” is blasted in all directions and is defined more by each artist than it is by tradition.
I chose to define my work with jazz and gamelan as historically rooted research work in jazz. This is because the musical result has many elements that refer to jazz’s core. Although I do not define my work related to the current use of the “world music” concept, it is still in line with the way the jazz tradition makes use of traditional music as an inspiration.
Jazz Genres’ Use of Traditional and Folk Music as Inspiration
Fusion music, which includes traditional music, must be seen in context with directions of the modal and free jazz from the sixties/seventies. Then, musicians desiring to break from functional harmonic progression were seeking new inspiration. This inspiration was often derived from traditional music and folk music, and inspiration from Asian music was prominent, where Indian and Arabic music was the leading type of music. The most notable jazz musicians in this context are Ornette Coleman, Don Cherry, John Coltrane, and Yusef Lateef. Coltrane was devoted to learning Indian music and philosophy, and through studying with Ravi Shankar, he incorporated this into his style in the mid-sixties. Some of his important compositions are “India” and “Om.”
Don Cherry worked with musical traditions from around the world, and his recording "Eternal Rhythm" (MPS Records, 1969) has the prominent use of Indonesian gamelan instruments.
from Ldr. Balabak · Karawitan Condhong Raos Original Javanese Music - Gamelan Music – Gending Gending Instrumentalia Volume 1 ℗ 1992 Gema Nada Pertiwi
Musicians: Bass - Arild Andersen. Drums, Gamelan (Saron), Gong, Bells, Voice - Jacques Thollot. Guitar - Sonny Sharrock. Piano, Piano [Prepared] - Joachim Kühn. Saxophone (Tenor), Oboe, Clarinet, Flute - Bernt Rosengren. Trombone - Albert Mangelsdorff, Eje Thelin. Vibraphone, Piano, Gamelan (Gender) - Karl Berger. Producer - Joachim Ernst Berendt.
While the trompong has two lower tones, the reyong has a much higher register. Reyong is an accompaniment instrument with the extensive use of kotekan. Reyong is performed by two or four musicians who share the same instrument.
The tonal quality of the trompong and reyong is a clear bell and is performed with a thicker wooden stick with ropes around it. In Java, this instrument is called the bonang. It is also used both as a melody and as an instrument for accompaniment. It is always played by one musician.
In the gamelan part of my composition "Slow Ostinato"(showed and mentioned above), all the pitched percussion, besides the gongs, are from the reyong.
Tabuh Telu Gajah Nongklang by Unknown
from Tabuh Telu Gajah Nongklang · Stsi Denpasar ℗ 12014 Aneka Record.
In the excerpt to the left the theme, “Crystal Clear (Exposition)", is presented and is a four-tone theme that uses the gamelan scale pelog. Furthermore, the composition develops with the freer use of gangsa and gamelan metallophones of different sizes.
In Scandinavia, artists such as Arild Andersen and Jan Johansen used Nordic folk music to create a new expression. Anderson’s release “Sagn” (Kirkelig Kulturverksted, 1991) in which he processes Norwegian folk music and Johansson’s “Jazz på svenska” (Megafon, 1964) are examples of releases that use such sources as inspiration. Others, like Jan Garbarek and the Swedish jazz group Rena Rama, used Eastern music sources for creating new improvisational music, strongly inspired by Don Cherry’s previous work in this direction.
An example of Rena Rama is this footage from SVT 1971.
Musicians: Bengt Berger - Drums/gamelan, Palle Danielsson - double bass/gamelan, Bobo Stensson - Piano/gamelan, Lennart Åberg - Saxophone/gamelan
The musical effect of the gongs can be compared to how bass instruments in modal jazz highlight the musical periods. This was used a great deal by McCoy Tyner, among others, in the John Coltrane Quartet, creating a drone in the musical process. McCoy Tyner, Coltrane’s pianist, used a fifth/octave in the piano bass to achieve a periodic fundamental start.
Keith Jarrett’s American quartet continued the aesthetics of Coleman, where an Eastern and African influence was characteristic of the quartet’s repertoire. Jarrett is a multi-instrumentalist with piano as his primary instrument, but he also performed saxophone and percussion on recordings with this quartet.
An example of Keith Jarrett American Quartet´s multi-cultural approach is this live preformance from 1975. (By multi-cultural I here point to the use of instruments and soundscapes from different parts of the world.) This example is probably an improvisation between composotions.
Untitled(1975) by Keith Jarrett from Keith Jarrett American Quartet - 1975-11-12 or 13, Ithaca, NY (Bootleg).
Musicians: Keith Jarrett - Piano, Pakistani Flute, Wood Drums, Percussion Dewey Redman - Tenor Saxophone, Maracas, Tambourine, Suona, Musette, Charlie Haden - Bass, Paul Motian - Drums, Percussion
As a side note: The Ethiopian music Tizita uses a similar scale as the gamelan pelog. The difference is a whole step between the first and second tone in the Tezeta Minor scale, while the gamelan Pelog has a half step. This, I experienced in 2010 while working with Mulatu Astatke in Ethiopia, the founder of “ethio-jazz.”
