Jazz Street 2010 Asagaya

From yesterday there is a jazz festival two days in a row at Asagaya. It reminds me the brief chat I had with an Italian professional jazz musician couple weeks ago. He has been in Tokyo for a year as well as me. Though he finally moved back to Rome two days ago. For us, Tokyo is excited, but we both agreed that there was something missing here. Is it a our root? I wonder.

Even I am a resident here, I don't have a strong sense of belonging. Of course it takes time to fit in the community. The good thing in Japan is there are numbers of festivals in a year giving us opportunity to be closer and closer to the community.

I've been looking forward to the Jazz Street in Asagaya for months. Though it doesn't seem that excited as I expected. Comparing to people from Hong Kong, the Japanese seem to have a better sense of melody in music. They are always good at following the beats and clapping hands along the music. Though it's not usual to see the Japanese people dancing freely along the music.

I believe music is a media for communication. It creates no boundary among people. Especially jazz music that is not strictly structured as other genre like classics. It's hardly to see a Jazz performer reading music notes. No doubt that jazz musicians have very flexible and own way to interpret each tune. They rarely repeat the composition exactly. That's an attitude. Having this individual attitude in a group, the collective sound forms an inspired piece of art. But as you can see, the Japanese are just too organized sometimes, and eliminate the passion. From what I see today, it seems to be arranged orchestra. And I can feel a little tensed when the players playing the music.

在阿佐谷一連兩天的爵士音樂節從昨天正式展開。這使我想起了幾個星期前與一意大利專業爵士樂音樂家簡短的交談。他和我一樣在東京住了一年,但前兩天他最終回羅馬去了。對我們來說，東京是充滿驚喜的城市。但我們同時也同意，在這裡像是有什麼缺漏。是無根的原故嗎？我也不太知道。

即使現在名義上我是一名東京住民，但我並沒有丁點的歸屬感。當然，適應從來也需要時間的。我慶幸在日本有大量的節日活動，給予我更多機會把自己拉近社群。

我已期待著阿佐谷爵士街音樂節好幾個月。但它似乎並不像我的預期的熱鬧。相對於香港人，日本人似乎有更好的旋律感。但總覺得他們的反應過於機械式。在日本不易看到隨歌起舞的日本吧。

我相信音樂是一種溝通的媒體介,使人與人之間沒有邊界。特別是爵士音樂，沒有像有古典音樂嚴格的結構。我幾乎不曾看過一個爵士音樂演奏者會細閱樂譜。毫無疑問，爵士音樂家們都非常靈活，以自己的方式來演釋每一個曲調。他們很少重複的完全相同的音韻。這是一種態度吧。結合著不同個性的聲音,啟發了藝術的創作。但依我所見，日本人講的嚴謹，往往使熱情減卻。從我今天所看到的，這似乎是純樂團演奏的爵士樂。我就是覺得他們的音樂感太拘謹了