On Jazz and Blues

Photo: courtesy

If music be the food of love, play on. And if it be jazz, let it play the whole night!

When Jakob Dinesen arrived in Dhaka last month, he wasn't sure of what to expect from the Bangladeshi crowd. He was gearing up for the 3-day Jazz and Blues festival, which happened last month in Dhaka, and was obviously wondering about how the crowd would respond to his tunes and creations. "I was awestruck by the audience!" he, however, says. "I was doing what I always did with my saxophone. The audience, obviously, felt the music and that's when we just took off! The experience was an amazing one."

Jakob Dinesen is a Danish jazz musician who has traveled half the world with his saxophone, mesmerising all with his jazz numbers. According to his website jacobdinesen.com he has received just about every award a Danish musician can get – Grammys and soloist awards.

Mikael Hemniti Winther, however, was confident and knew all about the music scene of Dhaka beforehand. The current Danish ambassador to Bangladesh, Winther has had the opportunity to explore the Dhaka music scene, right after he arrived in September 2016. At the Jazz and Blues festival, both Winther and Dinesen jammed together on stage and fused jazz with rock, enthralling the crowd.

Even when he was serving in other countries, Winther, who is also a seasoned musician, guitarist to be more specific, always made it a point to connect with local musicians and jam together. "I started playing the classical piano when I was 9 years old and began playing the guitar when I was 18," he says. "I had formed a rock band in Hanoi, Vietnam where I was posted as Deputy Head of Mission at the Danish Embassy, together with the UK Deputy Head of Mission, another expatriate and two professional Vietnamese musicians." The band was called The Deputies. In 2008 he also formed a band in Baghdad, where he was appointed as Ambassador. "We called ourselves The Baghdaddies and would play with other diplomats and expatriates."

Jakob Dinesen, one of the most prominent and active musicians in Danish jazz, has also appeared on countless albums as featured guest or sideman. Even though he has learnt from the traditionalists, Dinesen has created his own identity by balancing between the conventional along with the contemporary. His music reflects his open mind; hungry for new genres and different styles. "Jazz is simple, you just have to feel it," says Dinesen. "Even in Dhaka, the audience would applaud the parts of the music which would touch them. In jazz, one does not have to respond to a certain bass solo or a particular beat, as some believe. You just have to let the music enter you, and that's what the audience did that night!"

In Bangladesh, we thrive on music, which is evident from the different cultural exponents being explored through the year. The genres of blues and jazz might still be new to many, but there are musicians who have already begun to blend the foreign genre with the local melodies. Hopefully, we will be looking forward to a whole lot of Bengali jazz in the near future.