By N. RAMA LOHAN
If you know where to look, good music can be found. Plying their blues trade are Karen Nunis and Julian Mokhtar, and the duo will turn it up at No Black Tie this weekend.
Times they must be changing because, apparently, the music climate isn’t as bleak as we think it is.
“I don’t think it’s as bad as it looks. There’s a lot of talent out there among the young and what’s great is there is a lot of underground stuff happening where people get to do their thing and develop a following.
“I find a lot of the musicians who’ve been playing for a long time don’t know the younger ones, so there is clearly a void between the two. But there is still appreciation for these younger musicians, they are playing at gigs, and they are getting hits on Myspace and more,” says folk singer Karen Nunis.
Karen Nunis and Julian Mokhtar to perform at No Black Tie on Dec 6. Having plied her trade for a fair number of years across different parts of the world (Japan, United States, etc), Nunis is a fair judge of the status quo in her native Malaysia.
“A lot of people don’t understand blues as a musical form. People think its a slow, 12-bar thing with drunk guys participating in this interminable jam session. What’s not seen is there are so many styles – rock n’ roll, R&B – and there’s a lot of fast stuff, too. It’s all one web of music going through, really,” says Mokhtar, finding himself compelled to defend the genre he holds so dearly.
Nunis and Mokhtar will be showcasing their appreciation for the blues idiom at No Black Tie (NBT) on Saturday in a show titled Mississippi to Chicago. Both artistes will trade sets and then sit in with each other, along with Mokhtar’s band, the Soul Doctors, with guest Nan Blues on harp hauled in for good measure.
“It works on a few levels. The simple word, ‘blues’, covers a lot of ground, musically and geographically speaking, as well as over time, and the theme of the night, Mississippi to Chicago, expresses that variety,” explains Mokhtar.
“There are many different styles, from New Orleans at the mouth of the Mississippi river all the way up to Chicago, from early 1920s acoustic Delta blues through to modern electric urban styles,” he adds.
“We’re not doing a museum piece performance ... where it’s just running through the blues classics. I’ll probably do a couple of acoustic style things. But it’s not going to be direct copies of anybody in particular but my take on the Delta Blues. The rest of it is going to be on electric guitar, from 50s style of Muddy Waters to Stevie Ray Vaughan, Texas-style stuff and in no chronological order. It’s going to be high energy,” Mokhtar says, disregarding any need for a history lesson during the show.
While Mokhtar and Nunis both share an innate love for the blues, there is a fine line that draws them apart.
“I think blues is what we have in common and some of the off-shoots as well. If you listen to my music, it’s not all blues. In fact, someone described my first album as blues-inflected but the second one is a bit of a departure from that,” Nunis relates.
“We hope the show conveys the whole range of the music genre we are doing ... not just geographically, as in from Mississippi to Chicago, but also through time since this took a while to develop the way it did,” explains Mokhtar.
Beyond paying homage to the blues, Mokhtar does feel that audiences should be educated about it because it is a musical form that has received a lot less exposure than it used to. “If people stop listening to the blues, I’ll be out of a job,” he quips, though fully aware of the truth behind his words.
An experience in Japan has left Mokhtar cooing over the audiences there; “Just like kabuki or something similar, the Japanese will always show respect to an ariste performing. They are quiet during the performance and clap appreciatively at the end of songs.” The bluesman is looking to face a similar audience at NBT this weekend.
Popular music has played a small hand in perhaps providing blues with a foothold among younger listeners, courtesy of a new crop of singer songwriters.
“I would say people like Amy Winehouse, Duffy and Joss Stone have done well, people who have given R&B a bit of a shot in the arm,” Nunis shares.
Should the blues evolve to suit a younger generation of listeners, then? “Well, it has always evolved, it started off with acoustic players like Robert Johnson and all and went on to Muddy Waters and later Eric Clapton and after that Robert Cray ...” Mokhtar reasons.
Mississippi to Chicago sounds like a night of rip-roaring fun ... one to savour, a tip of the hat perhaps to the legends who have given the blues so much credibility and appreciation over the years.
Whether it’s the sad wail of a harp or the metallic clangour of a resonator guitar that seeps into a listener’s soul, only No Black Tie and its denizens will know for sure on the night what this art form has always had to offer.
Karen Nunis and Julian Mokhtar perform at No Black Tie on Saturday. Showtime is 10.30pm and admission is RM30. No Black Tie is located at 17, Jalan Mesui (off Jalan Nagasari), Kuala Lumpur. Call 03-21423737 or e-mail noblacktie2003@yahoo.com.
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