West Java: Sundanese Jaipong and other Popular Music [Original recording remastered]

Idjah Hadidjah | Format: Audio CD

Product Details

• Audio CD (January 28, 2003)
• Original Release Date: 1987
• Number of Discs: 1
• Format: Original recording remastered
• Label: Nonesuch
• ASIN: B00007MEWH
• Also Available in: MP3 Download
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #209,247 in Music (See Top 100 in Music)
  • #14 in Music > World Music > Far East & Asia > Indonesia > General

Track Listings

1. Tonggeret

2. Bayu-Bayu

3. Mahoni

4. Hiji Catetan

5. Arum Bandung

6. Daun Pulus Keser Bojong

7. Serat Salira

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com

Jaipongan emerged during the 1970s and was as much a pop craze as a traditional style. In it, a kittenish female singer-dancer, whose lyrics might deal with love, planting, prosperity, or the lack thereof, fronts a scaled-down combo of instruments typically heard during a gamelan (a large-scale court entertainment based on hypnotic cycles of drumming and chimes), such as gongs, metal xylophones, and percussion, plus a two-stringed fiddle called a rebab. Male backup musicians respond to the singer's comments with sympathetic or satiric ejaculations and melodic underscoring. Jaipongan was invented by Dr. Gugum Gumbira Tirasondjala, a producer-composer who moved with the times when Western influences were subject to government disapproval. His ensemble is heard here accompanying the delicately lovely voice of Idjah Hadidjah. The album also includes examples of kliningan, which calls for a woman vocalist, but adheres more closely to the gamelan structure and doesn't call for dancing. --Christina Roden

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Get up with it, April 25, 2003

By 

dig-it-the-most "dig-it-the-most" (New York) - See all my reviews

This review is from: West Java: Sundanese Jaipong and other Popular Music (Audio CD)

Unlike the large, court-oriented gamelans, this music is a popular idiom sung by the enchanting voice of Idjah Hadidjah and buttresed by the supple hand drumming of Suwanda. What remains is the perfumed sound from the gongs and mallet instruments. Give Gugum Gumbira credit for organizing this music with Miles Davis like ingenuity.

Good quality recording too.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Delightful Musical Treat, December 13, 2005

By 

Thomas J. Leiby (Washington, D.C.) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: West Java: Sundanese Jaipong and other Popular Music (Audio CD)

Having grown up in Jakarta to a mother who is ethnically Sundanese, I thought that this collection of Sundanese Jaipong and other popular music from western Java would be a wonderful way for me to reconnect with my cultural heritage. Indeed, I am pleased to report that this compilation did just that!

Idjah Hadidjah's strong vocals, in conjunction with a traditional Indonesian orchestra of varying instruments and a choir of accompanying singers, produces music that is both rich in detail and beautiful in sound. Although I needed my mother's help to translate the Sundanese lyrics into Bahasa Indonesia, the music allowed my mother and I to reminisce about old times, about all the wonderful memories that we shared together back in Indonesia.

My father, an admirer of the Indonesian culture, enjoyed the collection just as much as my mother and I did. Listening to my mother's translation of Idjah Hadidjah's lyrics, which included stories of rice harvests or a young girl renowned for her beauty, prompted him to share with us his own stories of living in Southeast Asia for over twenty years.

Music is, indeed, at its best when it has the power to evoke fond memories of the past as it did with me and my parents. "West Java: Sundanese Jaipong and other Popular Music" is a must-have piece for any musical collection.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars tonggeret...go get it (almost an anagram...), January 8, 2006

By 

jive rhapsodist (NYC, NY United States) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)   

This review is from: West Java: Sundanese Jaipong and other Popular Music (Audio CD)

I've loved this CD since it first came out, and despair of finding others like it! More modern Dangdut and such feels too much like disco to me. But this would be on my "Top Ten Sexiest Late-Night Make-Out CD's" list. And it's always worked...Yum-m-m. Well, maybe I'm spoiled...But, still...this is music for the heart, the brain, the body...Beautiful playing, incredible singing, a palpable sense of mood. When people say "Pop Music", this is the kind of music I always HOPE they mean. But usually, they mean some kind of compromised schlock with traces of something real. But this CD holds up beautifully against both the most austere Javanese Gamelan AND Caetano Veloso (and Berg, for that matter...).