I was handed a wonderful gift today–a CD re-release of a recording that my Balinese suling teacher, I Gusti Putu Oka, made in 1985 (over 20 years ago!).

photo taken from murnis.com

The re-release was published some time in the last few years (while I wasn’t paying much attention) by Maharani in Denpasar. The cover reads “The Magic Traditional Balinese Music”, “The Tranquil Sound of Solo Bamboo Flute”, “with background Sounds of Nature”, Gusti Putu Oka.

Before playing it, the part about background sounds slipped by me. Unfortunately, they were serious. Pak Oka is now playing in a jungle densely populated by many species of birds and probably other creatures. The birds compete with the suling; they’re mixed in almost equally loudly (so much for “background”).

Fortunately, the playing is so spectacular that you can manage to focus out the jungle much of the time. And the fidelity of the suling is better on this CD than on the original cassette.

The best part of this gift was the reminder of how sublime Oka’s playing was (he passed away late in 1998 immediately after returning from a tour in Europe with Gamelan Gunung Sari). He could make a symphony, an epic tone poem, out of a single note. This delivery/attitude/character–whatever you call it–that comes from a single note or dance pose is vital in Balinese performing arts. That’s why an audience might applause enthusiastically after a single syllable sung, note played, or dance entrance to first agem.

On top of giving every note a rich, unique life of its own, Oka was a master improviser. As far as I know, few musicians on the island could surpass him in melodic improvisation; I don’t think I’ve ever heard any that could. He had muscular phrasing. The twists and turns of his melodic lines continually surprise the ear. He knew the macapat like the back of his hand. His expression was nuanced like complex natural sounds (making it less surprising that they put birds in with him). His technical skills were extraordinary.

His pitch was amazingly flexible. Sometimes it seemed like he could play almost any tuning on any random suling, and he often played with the pitches for special effect.

Oka was well-known as a suling soloist for arja performances, where the challenge is not only to be able to play the various tembang that come up, but also to interact with the singer’s tembang in an improvisatory way to both reinforce and ornament it, while the singer is singing in whatever tuning came to mind at the moment.

Listening to him just now, I was transported as I am only with the most cosmic classical central Javanese music.

Although I say all of this with a bit of pride in having been his student and close friend, I’m humbled by the fact that I am not better than I am after studying with him. I have far to go.

Here are some Solo recordings of I Gusti Putu Oka (I have seen many/most of these still available in stores in Bali):

“The Tranquil Sound of Solo Bamboo Flute”
(with birds, as mentioned above) (2005? CD; Maharani, no cat #)
[Listed at Murni's:

http://www.murnis.com/onlineshop/cds_bamboo/index.htm]

“The Magic Balinese Bamboo Flute of Gusti Putu Oka; Suling Tunggal, Vol 2.” (1992 cassette; Maharani, no cat #)
[Note: As soon as you get it, erase the selection "Gambang Suling", in which he insisted that I play the solo with him. It didn't work. I recorded this album.]

“Suling Tunggal, Gusti Putu Oka, Peliatan, Ubud”
(1992-95? cassette; Bali Records #864; this is a re-release of the “vol. 2″ cassette from Maharani above).

“The Magic Balinese Bamboo Flute of Gusti Putu Oka”
(1985 cassette; Maharani, no cat #)
(original recording used on the new CD, but without the birds!)

Oka plays suling arja on this excellent Japanese release, recorded in Peliatan: “Geguntangan Arja: Arja Bon Bali”
(1994 CD; World Music Library, KICC 5183)
[These guys seem to have it for only $8.99:
http://www.berkshirerecordoutlet.com]

You can also hear Oka on Gunung Sari recordings, but often he played reong with them rather than suling.

If you do a web search on “gusti putu oka”, you will see a few results in Japanese that have photos of the cassette covers (you can click “translate this page” for humorous results).

Ken Worthy

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