The Danced & The Dance Vol.2- A Night At Jaipong Club - Group Jaipongan Endah Parahyangan - e B

“A Night at Jaipong Club” is the second installment of the series: seven tracks recorded at Endah Parahyangan Jaipong Club in Bandung, West Java (legendary underground venue and one of the few jaipong clubs in Indonesia) and performed by Group Jaipongan Endah Parahyangan.

Although still uncertain and part of the modern mythmaking discourse of politics of identity in Indonesia, jaipong (also jaipongan), according to Jugala label’s website and common knowledge, was allegedly “founded by Mr. Gugum Gumbira: Sundanese composer, orchestra leader, choreographer, and entrepreneur from Bandung. Jugala was created as a part of a cultural movement. After 1961, when the Indonesian President Sukarno banned all forms of western music and challenged his people to revive their cultural music, Gugum Gumbira made this task his own. In order to do this he studied the rural, festival dance music for twelve years. His result was jaipongan. He created his own recording studio in Indonesia called Jugala. Jaipongan was a way for the Sundanese people to take back their culture from the Western ideas and rid themselves of the colonial Dutch influences. Jaipongan elevated the idea of village music or music of the people. It focused on love, money, agriculture, and as the world became filled with more turmoil, it became a vehicle for moral, political spiritual, and social awareness.”

The recordings capture not only the music compositions per se but also the acoustic and social ambience where jaipong as a show and interactive social spectacle is constructed and structured by the ensemble and the audience alike, including the voices and noises of the cheering, often drunk, audience members, the live, improvisational entertainment of the MC, the dialectic impulses and responses between the kendang player and the dancers (such as in the bajidoran mincid) and the noisy, crackling compression and distortion of the PA.

The live show showcases different tracks spanning from classic Sundanese tunes and jaipong hits such as Wangsit Siliwangi, Bangbung Hideung and Alim Bobogohan Deui to more contemporary and pop tunes by Bungsu Bandung such as Bohong and Talak Tilu medley, presenting how the genre is developing towards the future: born as a mixture (kollaborasi) of kiliningan, ketuk tilu and pencak silat and contaminated by pop sunda, dangdut and, eventually, disco.

The money earned from the selling of twenty cassettes are directly donated to the group. None of the curators has taken any share.
The curators would like to thank Paolo Rossi, Palmer Keen, Group Jaipongan Endah Parahyangan and Endah Parahyangan jaipong club staff, ISBI Bandung, Pak Ismet Ruchimat, Pak Indra Ridwan.

This tape is dedicated to the memory of Pak Ucung, amazing kendang maestro of Group Jaipongan Endah Parahyangan, who left us during the releasing process of this album.
“Mulih ka jati, mulang ka asal”

The Danced and the Dance is a series of collections and anthologies dedicated to indonesian modern dance musical traditions, in which the chosen genres entail stories and information about local developments in music as well as the production of entertainment, symbols, cultural values, spirituality, body politics and social processes.

credits
released August 8, 2019

Music by Group Jaipongan Endah Parahyangan
Recorded by Luigi Monteanni at Endah Parahyangan Jaipong Club (Bandung, West Java) in July 2017
Curated by Luigi Monteanni, Teguh Permana and Gigi Priadji
Graphic layout by Nicola Tirabasso
Mastered and pro-dubbed cassette by Loris Cericola
Digital Master Massimiliano Poli
Produced by Communion