泰国和美国音乐家聚在一起交流爵士乐

Thai, American Musicians Come Together for Jazz Exchange

At about 9 o’clock on Saturday night, Noppadol “Long” Tirataradol walked quickly out of Alice’s Jazz and Cultural Society, a jazz club in Washington, DC.

Tirataradol, a musician and educator from Thailand, looked up and down the street. He was looking for a tall man carrying a musical instrument.

There he was! Tirataradol ran across the street and caught up to Percy White, a bassist and member of the DC Jazz Collective.

The men shook hands and exchanged kind words about each other’s performances earlier that night. “Man, you are a beast,” White said, praising Tiratardol’s musical skills.

Today, we will explore that warm exchange between the two men– one that took place across the borders of culture and language.

International Jazz Day

April is Jazz Appreciation¹ Month, and April 30 is International Jazz Day. On this day, musicians, educators, and fans celebrate the music at festivals, shows, and other events around the world.

In celebration of Jazz Appreciation Month and International Jazz Day, VOA Learning English talked with jazz musicians and educators who took part in an international exchange between two cities: Washington, DC and Bangkok, Thailand.

Cultural Exchange – DC to Bangkok

The exchange project started with an arts grant from the DC city government. Will Stephens, a lawyer and musician, organizes a non-profit group that runs jam sessions in Washington, DC. The grant money he received from the city helped send musicians from Washington, DC to Thailand. It also paid for a visit by professors from Thailand’s Mahidol University to America's capital.

In January, Stephens traveled to Thailand with four other musicians. The group, called the DC Jazz Collective, performed in Bangkok and at the Thailand International Jazz Conference, a large and important jazz education meeting hosted by Mahidol University. Just over ten years old, the conference hosts thousands of educators, students, and listeners each year.

The trip gave the American musicians a chance to see similarities and differences in jazz culture between the two countries. Stephens noted² that jam sessions in Thailand were similar to the ones he organizes in Washington

“One of the activities we did when we were in Bangkok was we sat in as the house band at a local joint³ that has a weekly jazz jam session. And the tunes⁵ that they call at the local jazz jam session in Bangkok are all the same tunes that would get called at our jazz jam session on U Street… So, it was fun. It’s like we were sharing the same book.”

Stephens also noted important differences. He said, for example, that many more women were studying jazz in Thailand than in the United States. It is not very common, Stephens added, to see female instrumentalists playing at jazz jam sessions in the United States.

Lionel Lyles is a saxophonist and educator who traveled to Thailand with the DC Jazz Collective. Lyles described his first experience in the Southeast Asian country as “amazing,” and explained that he considers these kinds of exchanges “necessary.”

“Music is a universal language,” Lyles said. As a musician, “what we are doing is having a conversation.”

Stephens shared Lyles’ ideas about music and language. He noted that jazz especially is “a good genre⁶” for these exchanges “because it is its own language, because it is a way of communicating with someone, even if you can’t communicate with them in speaking.”

Exchange Part Two – Bangkok to DC

The second part of the exchange project took place this past weekend. Teachers from Mahidol University, including Darin “Joe” Pantoomkomol, David Parente, Krit “William” Buranavitayawut, and Noppadol “Long” Tirataradol came to Washington DC.

Here, they played in several shows and at Stephens’ jam session.

On Saturday evening, they played a joint show with the DC Jazz Collective.

The event, at Alice’s Jazz and Cultural Society, started with a DC Jazz Collective performance. The group played their own pieces and some older well-known jazz tunes. The musicians also performed songs written by the former King of Thailand, who was a noted saxophonist and composer.

Then, the visiting musicians from Thailand performed.

Like the Collective, the Mahidol group also played songs members had written, famous jazz pieces, and arrangements of other songs. They played ballads⁸ and fiery⁹, fast tunes.

The group also performed music that drew from Thailand’s rich history of traditional music.

The crowd watching the show included Americans of all ages and backgrounds. They applauded¹¹ loudly after each song.

Elizabeth Singletary, a DC resident, was in the audience. “In this day and age,” she said, there is too much talk about “this culture against that culture … in music, it just doesn’t matter.”

Why are these exchanges important?

Both the American musicians and the Thai musicians said they felt cultural exchanges are important. They serve as “a reminder¹² of how small the world is,” noted Stephens.

Pantoomkomol highlighted the importance of information sharing in the modern world. He added that he and his fellow musicians wanted to see what jazz culture is like in the country of its birth. The Thai musicians hope to take ideas back home with them. The new information will help Thai music culture develop, as well as that of nearby countries.

Buranavitayawut said cultural exchanges are true to the earliest spirit of jazz. He explained that the development of jazz, “the music that connects us together,” was the result of a “melting pot” -- a mix of people, ideas, and cultures in New Orleans, Louisiana.

Buranavitayawut said he and his colleagues from Mahidol University were “proud to be part of the melting pot.” They were proud, he added, to be making that melting pot “bigger.”

I'm John Russell.

And I’m Ashley Thompson.

Words in This Story

grant -- n. an amount of money that is given to someone by a government, a company, etc., to be used for a particular purpose (such as scientific research)?

beast – n. informal --– a person who is very skilled or talented

jam session – n. a gathering¹³ or performance in which musicians play together informally without any preparation : a session in which musicians jam with each other

tune⁴ -- n. a song or composition

amazing -- adj. causing great surprise or wonder : causing amazement¹⁴?

conversation – n. a talk between people in which ideas are exchanged

genre -- n. a particular type or category of literature or art?

arrangement -- n. a piece of music that has been changed so that it can be performed by particular types of voices or instruments?

ballad⁷ – n. a slow song

applaud¹⁰ – v. to strike the hands together over and over to show approval or praise

1 appreciation   

n.评价；欣赏；感谢；领会，理解；价格上涨

参考例句：

• I would like to express my appreciation and thanks to you all.我想对你们所有人表达我的感激和谢意。
• I'll be sending them a donation in appreciation of their help.我将送给他们一笔捐款以感谢他们的帮助。

2 noted   

adj.著名的，知名的

参考例句：

• The local hotel is noted for its good table.当地的那家酒店以餐食精美而著称。
• Jim is noted for arriving late for work.吉姆上班迟到出了名。

3 joint   

adj.联合的，共同的；n.关节，接合处；v.连接，贴合

参考例句：

• I had a bad fall,which put my shoulder out of joint.我重重地摔了一跤，肩膀脫臼了。
• We wrote a letter in joint names.我们联名写了封信。

4 tune   

n.调子；和谐，协调；v.调音，调节，调整

参考例句：

• He'd written a tune,and played it to us on the piano.他写了一段曲子，并在钢琴上弹给我们听。
• The boy beat out a tune on a tin can.那男孩在易拉罐上敲出一首曲子。

5 tunes   

n.曲调，曲子( tune的名词复数 )v.调音( tune的第三人称单数 )；调整；（给收音机、电视等）调谐；使协调

参考例句：

• a potpourri of tunes 乐曲集锦
• When things get a bit too much, she simply tunes out temporarily. 碰到事情太棘手时，她干脆暂时撒手不管。 来自《简明英汉词典》

6 genre   

n.(文学、艺术等的)类型，体裁，风格

参考例句：

• My favorite music genre is blues.我最喜欢的音乐种类是布鲁斯音乐。
• Superficially,this Shakespeare's work seems to fit into the same genre.从表面上看， 莎士比亚的这个剧本似乎属于同一类型。

7 ballad   

n.歌谣，民谣，流行爱情歌曲

参考例句：

• This poem has the distinctive flavour of a ballad.这首诗有民歌风味。
• This is a romantic ballad that is pure corn.这是一首极为伤感的浪漫小曲。

8 ballads   

民歌，民谣，特别指叙述故事的歌( ballad的名词复数 )； 讴

参考例句：

• She belted out ballads and hillbilly songs one after another all evening. 她整晚一个接一个地大唱民谣和乡村小调。
• She taught him to read and even to sing two or three little ballads,accompanying him on her old piano. 她教他读书，还教他唱两三首民谣，弹着她的旧钢琴为他伴奏。

9 fiery   

adj.燃烧着的，火红的；暴躁的；激烈的

参考例句：

• She has fiery red hair.她有一头火红的头发。
• His fiery speech agitated the crowd.他热情洋溢的讲话激动了群众。

10 applaud   

vt.鼓掌欢迎，赞同；vi.鼓掌欢迎，欢呼

参考例句：

• The pupils that had been watching started to applaud.一直在一旁观看的小学生们开始鼓起掌来。
• Please don't applaud until everyone has performed.请在每个人表演完毕后再鼓掌。

11 applauded   

v.鼓掌( applaud的过去式和过去分词 )；称赞，赞许

参考例句：

• The audience warmly applauded when the performance came to the end. 当演出接近尾声时，观众热烈鼓掌。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• The audience applauded after the soprano sang the aria so beautifully. 女高音将咏叹调唱得十分优美，观众爆发出热烈的掌声。 来自《简明英汉词典》

12 reminder   

n.提醒物，纪念品；暗示，提示

参考例句：

• I have had another reminder from the library.我又收到图书馆的催还单。
• It always took a final reminder to get her to pay her share of the rent.总是得发给她一份最后催缴通知，她才付应该交的房租。

13 gathering   

n.集会，聚会，聚集

参考例句：

• He called on Mr. White to speak at the gathering.他请怀特先生在集会上讲话。
• He is on the wing gathering material for his novels.他正忙于为他的小说收集资料。

14 amazement   

n.惊奇，惊讶

参考例句：

• All those around him looked at him with amazement.周围的人都对他投射出惊异的眼光。
• He looked at me in blank amazement.他带着迷茫惊诧的神情望着我。