Live at the Jazzschool

Sénggot – In the 1970s and 1980s Burhan Sukarma became famous for his improvisations over traditional “framework” pieces, such as “Sénggot” (cast in the sorog tuning). The musicians apply instrument-specific elaboration techniques to a simple pitch framework to produce a rich tapestry of polyphony, over which Burhan weaves rhapsodic improvisations. This rendition includes two contrasting rhythmic treatments: a very slow tempo called dua wilet (double-length time periods), followed by a livelier “one-and-a-half” wilet section.

Écéng Gondok – (“Water hyacinth”) is one of the many enduring songs composed by Ibu Haji Siti Rokayah, a remarkable musician who overcame prejudices against women instrumentalists and composers in the 1940s and 50s to earn the respect and admiration of her male colleagues and Sundanese audiences. Burhan Sukarma has arranged it as a duet for singers Laura McColm and Danni Redding Lapuz. The verses are paparikan, a poetic form with two couplets, the first of which is nonsensical or trivial, but sets up a sound and/or image upon which the second couplet somehow riffs to make a more meaningful, profound statement.

Rengga-Renggi – The violin—with a Sundanese name, biola—has long been a familiar instrument for traditional music in West Java (although not typically with gamelan). Burhan’s composition, “Rengga-Renggi” opens with a seething, syncopated soliloquy for the bronze instruments, which then leads to a call and response between the bronze and the biola. The biola, played by Laura McColm, dominates the third section, only to be silenced by the recapitulation of the bronze instruments’ soliloquy. Lightning-fast caruk (interlocking) figurations from the matching pair of saron and drumming inspired by the popular music and dance called dangdut contribute to the composition’s unrelenting energy, while the intricate intertwining melodic lines justify the piece’s title, which means “ornate.”

Gantana-Gintini – (“Sashay”) was composed by Burhan for the San Francisco Gathering of Gamelans Festival in 2005. The gamelan’s highest-pitched metallophone, the peking, opens the piece, and its high, feminine voice hints at the coquettish, sashaying mood suggested by the title. As the sections unfold, the peking engages the flute in a flirtatious dialogue.

Saka – (“Pillar”) was composed by Burhan Sukarma to commemorate Pusaka Sunda’s twentieth anniversary in 2009. It combines snippets of material from a variety of traditional Sundanese sources into a narrative sequence of moods and atmospheres. Saka’s dramatic opening and closing material is adapted from one of tembang Sunda’s most difficult songs, “Jemplang Panganten”; the ostinato and descending melody are adapted from the kacapi (zither) accompaniment that accompanies the song.

Gelenyu – (“Smile”) composed by Burhan, calls for a suling panjang (long flute), which has a mellow tone quality and six (rather than four) fingerholes that enable the performer great pitch flexibility. The piece’s syncopated gamelan melodies, intense rhythmic density, and meandering flute parts combine with the sorog tuning’s yearning affect to suggest the warm thrill of a furtive smile.

Élékésékéng – (“All Keyed Up”) is a popular song by the prolific composer Nano S. Alarmed by the increasing popularity of western-style pop music at the expense of traditional music in West Java in the 1960s, Nano sought to create songs that were unabashedly Sundanese yet still appealed to the increasingly cosmopolitan ears of urban youth. “Élékésékéng” tells the story of a young man whose amorous ambitions are foiled by circumstances at every turn, leaving him “all keyed up.” Careful listeners will notice how cleverly the song’s occasional diatonic melodic turns are combined with the pentatonic gamelan tuning.

Ucing-Ucingan – is in degung’s klasik (classical) style, in which each of the instruments plays its own idiomatic version of a single melody, resulting in an intensely heterophonic texture. Klasik pieces also are characterized by austere stick drumming and rather surprising formal asymmetries. The piece’s intriguing title alludes to a children’s game roughly equivalent to “cat and mouse” (ucing is the Sundanese word for “cat”). Whether or not there is a programmatic relationship between the title and the melody is anybody’s guess, however. As is typical in modern practice, this klasik piece segues into a contrasting piece, in this case, another framework piece called “Kulu Kulu” which provides a backdrop for more suling improvisations.

Sulanjana – originates in the repertory of ketuk tilu (a social dance form), but this rendition is actually an adaptation of an adaptation—it is a common practice in West Java to recycle good material between multiple genres. “Sulanjana” accompanies the most refined dancing, and listeners familiar with Sundanese dance drumming could easily imagine the specific dance movements. At a signal from the drummer, the musicians change to the piece “Bendrong,” which starts out at a slow tempo and gets faster and more exciting as the musicians build toward an exciting climax.