Trick question: What’s the longest running jazz festival in the S.F. Bay Area? Most would guess it’s the long running San Francisco Jazz Festival (sponsored by the SF Jazz Organization) which will embark on its 18th year this October. In reality though, it’s one year younger than the real answer: The San Francisco Asian American Jazz Festival (SFAAJF) which has been a Bay Area fixture now for 19 years.
It’s a testament to the cultural uniqueness that is the Bay Area that the SFAAJF has become an annual institution. It’s budget and schedule is far more modest than the gigantic San Francisco Jazz Festival, but when it comes to heart, it more than holds its own. Started by in the early ‘80s by Paul Yamazaki (now a buyer at S.F.’s famed City Lights Bookstore) and with such featured players like Russell Baba, the SFAAJF has been at the forefront of defining and redefining the meaning of APImusic over the past two decades.
This year’s festival, held in S.F’s Asian Art Museum from September 21 — 23, represents a bold — and important — step forward in trying to stretch the meanings of APIcreative music. It’s certainly not the first time that the SFAAJF has broadened its horizons past just the diverse genre of jazz — three years ago, they sponsored a night of API hip-hop that was an unqualified success — but this year’s festival seems to give a nod to new, contemporary styles like never before.
The big attraction for many younger listeners will likely be the Saturday premier of DJ Q-Bert’s "Wave Twisters" movie. This work-in-progress is a visual adaptation (through animation) of Q-Bert’s 1998 "Wave Twisters" album, an ambitious attempt to visualize what the sonic science known as scratch DJing aka turntablism. Q-Bert, of course, has been one of the pioneering grandmasters of the scratch, part of the recently dissolved Invisbl Skratch Piklz, a Bay Area collective who lead the world in turntablist innovation for the better part of the ‘90s. "Wave Twisters" is a loopy, eccentric blend of cartoon-like frivolity with ear-bending audio assaults and the merging of sound with image is likely to be as interesting as it is entertaining.
Personally though, I actually think Friday’s schedule is the most promising in terms of creative diversity. Taking place in Oakland’s Asian Cultural Center, the night includes several pioneers in APIjazz including pianist/composer Jon Jang, bassist Mark Izu and tabla master Zakir Hussain (if you’ve never experienced the percussive wonder that is tabla, you’ve never really heard percussion). Jang is teaming with Hong Wang to present "Melodies of China", part of Jang’s ambitious attempt to translate traditional folk songs from China into the language of jazz. Meanwhile, Mark Izu and a host of players will present "Circle of Fire", a performance that blends musical styles from more countries you can count.
But I’m most compelled by Asian Crisis, an ensemble group made up of several different musicians, all of whom are in their late-20s. They’re young, they’re talented and their group is the latest attempt to define that amorphous category we know as APImusic. The group draws on a polyglot of musical cultures, mixing up Western instruments like the piano and bass with Asian instrumentation like South Asian tabla, Pilipino kulintang and Japanese taiko. Directed by pianist Art Hirahara (see below) and features players like John Kim (Korean drums), Meena Makhijani (tabla), and Jason Jong (taiko), Asian Crisis reminds me a lot of Hiroshima in their early years — fusion-oriented but not with cheesy, "East meets West" clichés and tropes.
Their songs suggest that API music and culture — as we’re all supposed to know anyway — are complicated mixes of styles, with no clear borders between where one culture leaves off and another jumps on. Their music are not fixed diatribes on culture and identity but a series of floating possibilities. To this degree, Asian Crisis treads familiar ground laid down by many others, including people like Jang and Izu, but they represent a newer generation of artists with a different sound and different sensibility. For maximum enjoyment, I highly recommend that you all come to the Festival with open ears — and open minds.
P.S. Speaking of Art Hirahara, musical director for Asian Crisis, he’s just self-released a gorgeous new jazz album called "Edge of This Earth". Performed by himself (on piano) with his sextet, Hirahara’s debut album is highly recommended to any fan of straight-ahead jazz in the vein of Blue Note and Impulse recordings or for anyone who’s ever been curious about this thang [do not correct] called jazz music and wants something more contemporary than Count Basie but not as esoteric as Ornette Coleman. For more info, visit www.arthirahara.com.
P.P.S. Not highly recommended is Wyclef Jean’s "The Ecleftic." I had always wondered why Jean and the Fugees seemed to like using Asian caricatures in their albums — both "The Score" and Jean’s solo "Carnival" featured the same, kung-fu fightin’, bad English speaking Chinese cook. But on "Ecleftic", Jean pushes the limits of irony with "Soogi", a Japanese-accented Sony record exec plus an anonymous Asian massage parlor prostitute that appear in separate skits. So much for conscious hip-hop — Jean stumbles badly on his sophomoric, sophomore album.