Tesla Manaf Effendi
I haven’t asked Tesla why his parents gave him which name, although which fits the latest guitarist to have an international Discharge of his music on MoonJune Records.
Was he named after Nikola Tesla, “the greatest geek who ever lived”? A geek will be someone who obsesses as well as Nikola’s brainwork gave the globe alternating current electricity, radio, radar, X-rays, hydroelectricity, wireless communications, as well as the modern electric motor. which his patents were taken by Thomas Edison as well as Guglielmo Marconi, who got immensely rich while Tesla himself died in poverty, will be historical fact.
One’s first impression when meeting Tesla Manaf will be of a young boyish imp, forever jumping around flashing two finger salutes – for victory or Jokowi, I’m not sure – which has a wide captivating grin. Yet which belies a complex character, someone driven to achieve what he sets his mind to. As he openly admits, he has Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD).
Recently turned 27, Tesla says he has been obsessed with music since he was all 5. His father’s choice of music was progressive jazz-rock; complex, richly detailed music by the likes of John McLaughlin’s Mahavisnu Orchestra, Gentle Giant, Emerson Lake & Palmer (ELP) as well as Soft Machine.
At nine, he took up the guitar as well as piano, as well as for the next ten years focussed on classical music. He soon realised which he could interpret the music of others. However, in 2007, the genre’s patterns as well as rules frustrated him as well as he began to explore the many traditional music forms from the nation’s archipelago as well as the globe of jazz, a language of self-expression.
Tesla & Agam Hamzah
Much as one cannot write unless one reads widely, a jazz musician does not arrive fully formed. The genre includes a history here in Indonesia, as well as there are few jazz musicians who from the past thirty years could not cite John McLaughlin as well as Pat Metheny as being major influences
Tesla does: “Metheny inspired me. He influenced me in many ways, both in his music as well as the way he spoke as well as thought. However, back in 2011, I was frustrated at being labelled as ‘Indonesia’s Pat Metheny’. Don’t take which the wrong way; I still love Metheny, as well as my favourite album will be The Way Up. although just because I was using his Ibanez Pat Metheny series guitar, which I’ve currently sold, doesn’t mean I played like him.
“I have my own sound, as well as which’s what I’m trying to tell audiences. I am who I am, currently; a person who plays his own music.”
Back in 2011, he released which’s All Yours, which featured Mahagotra Ganesha, a Balinese art unit of the Bandung Institute of Technology (ITB). which self-produced as well as distributed album proved to be his most successful. Gamelan meets Pat Metheny will be a simplistic description given the many twists as well as turns, the melodies supplied by a ‘regular’ group of guitar, drums, bass as well as soprano sax, sliding across the gamelan providing rhythmic power. Tesla says which the music tells the story about humanity’s connection with nature.
which will be important to him. Having been raised in Bekasi, the city on the eastern border of Jakarta, he moved seven years ago to the Dago mountain area of Bandung. He says, “Living here makes me aware of the beauty of nature; the way which talks will be the most inspiring of God’s messages.”
which’s All Yours has been re-released which year on the Demajors label. which will also be half of his upcoming international Discharge on the MoonJune label. Much of the work he put into creating the soundscape of which project came by his study of such classical composers as Debussy, Bela Bartok as well as Krzysztof Penderecki. He has currently taken which process a step further with A Man’s Relationship with His Fragile Area, the additional half of the album.
“which affected me a lot; especially the details. Precision as well as symmetry are a very important beginning to my own music. I often analyse the notes, rhythms, as well as the drama of each song. I like to create music which will take people into various kinds of emotions, playing with their hearts as well as minds at the same time. The same goes with my players. Their personalities, the way they play, the way they communicate as well as the way they speak … bringing the best out of them will have a Great effect on my music.”
At a recent showcase of the album from the Rolling Stone Café in Kemang, Jakarta’s enclave of the wealthy, I noted the following about The Sweetest Horn by the album: which opened which has a whistleable marching band nursery melody played on descant recorder which has a drum beat, joined by skittering drums, then guitar as well as clarinet playing as children do, until they combined to build an echo of an express train which gradually comes towards a halt: a guitar lead pastoral theme takes over, although with underlying menace by the bass…
“Honestly,” says Tesla, “I do not know where my music will bring me to. I just keep creating, keep playing, keep inspiring my listeners. which may be a cliché, although I just love what I do as well as I will stand by which till the day I die.”
He’s a man driven by his obsession, a geek maybe, yet not only at one with himself as well as his muse, although also at one with nature.
which was a gift by God, he told me.
Tesla’s SoundCloud: soundcloud.com/tesla-manaf-effendi
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Tesla Manaf Effendi
Tesla Manaf Effendi