Cultural Events
Music Students in Bukhara Learn Elements of Jazz (05/22/2009)
A crowd of music students and teachers was clapping in rhythm, singing along and dancing to a calypso beat when Foreign Service Officer Sean O’Hara gave a presentation in Bukhara on the origins of jazz.
About 100 music teachers, students and musicians came to the “Jazz: Born in America” presentation May 22 at the Public Creativity Center music school. O’Hara, who has played the saxophone since his childhood, led the audience through a history of the musical form. Rather than serve up a dry, boring lecture, though, O’Hara got the crowd to sing the different musical parts of classic jazz songs, clap along to different rhythms and get out of their seats to dance in a line to a calypso song called “St. Thomas.”
“The teachers told me that when they have guest speakers, the students usually sit there quietly, listen and behave themselves. I wanted them to get up and dance,” O’Hara said.
During the presentation, O’Hara played his saxophone to demonstrate different ideas such as swing and syncopation. Popular Uzbek singer Uktam Hakimov joined him to sing classic Louis Armstrong pieces, show how a rhythm-and-blues song like James Brown’s “I Feel Good” can be played with Uzbek drums, and what a Russian-language holiday song like “A Pine Tree Was Born In the Woods” would sound like if Armstrong sang it.
After the presentation, O’Hara jammed with a group of professional musicians from Bukhara playing instruments like the doira (a percussion instrument) and the stringed dutar. Throughout the event, it was clear how a musical form like jazz can bring together musicians from very different backgrounds, he said.
“Anytime you get musicians together, it’s a form of multi-ethnic communication,” he said. “Music brings people together. It helps you cross barriers.”