Las Vegas Mercury Jazz Festival: World in a day

Dutch fusion artist Praful highlights global sound at Mercury Jazz Festival

By Mike Prevatt

When asked why he likes playing music festivals, 40-year-old Dutch jazz/electronic/world artist Praful (pronounced pray-FOOL) gives something of a canned answer. However, it underscores not only how widely contemporary jazz is being interpreted, but how that eclecticism is being represented at jazz (and other) music festivals around the globe.

"Every place is different," says Praful. "There's different folk...that like different types of music. Since my music is crossing over between different styles, I can play jazz festivals as well as pop festivals and world music festivals, and people respond differently. I like playing both for dancing crowds as well as also for listening crowds. I think the diversity keeps it interesting for me."

Praful is one of six acts to be featured at the Las Vegas Mercury Jazz Festival, a showcase of modern jazz that's hardly limited to traditionalist, radio-tested or even American acts. Joining Praful on the bill is English "groove jazz" group Down to the Bone, which incorporates heavy doses of funk, soul and R&B into its largely vox-less jams; American collective the Rippingtons, a longtime contemporary jazz outfit that once was home for such figures as David Benoit and Kenny G and has some 15 albums in its discography; Baltimore native and sax-dominant multi-instrumentalist Kim Waters, who has found success with his melodic soul-infused jazz productions, including a cover of R&B artist R. Kelly's "Step in the Name of Love"; Phoenix quartet Turning Point, an instrumental smooth jazz act with a pinch of international influences and a flair for rock-like performances; and local sextet Sacred Groove, which claims allegiance in the growing Christian Groove movement and branches out musically as far out as alternative, gospel and hip hop.

Out of the festival bunch, Praful is by far the most worldly-sounding, and the most accomplished among the international jazz scene. This is remarkable in that he has only released two albums as a solo artist--the last one, 2003's One Day Deep, serving as his American debut, which placed high on jazz, electronic music and college radio charts. This is not to say he hasn't paid his dues.

Praful began playing music at Amsterdam's School of the Arts in 1987, where he studied the saxophone and flute--his two favored instruments--and jazz. Though he enjoyed mainstream jazz, artists like the Pat Metheny Group were inspirations early on. But perhaps the biggest influence on his music would come a few years later, when he traveled to Brazil. Not only did he fall in love with the country's music, he married a Brazilian woman, too. Future excursions to India broadened his horizons as well. Not only did he study Brazilian and Indian music and instrumentation intensely during and after his travels, he saw no distinction between his art and his way of living; his sense of community and self-expression became one and the same.

"When I go someplace and I like the people, somehow I [also] like the music," says Praful. "It's an expression of the people. If I like the music, it's most probably a place where I will feel comfortable hanging out with the people. It belongs together. When you go to different places and you start listening to what they play there, it becomes part of your life."

Despite his frequent traveling, Praful remains based in Amsterdam, reaching a creative zenith in the mid-'90s through several creative endeavors. The most successful one, dubbed Project 2000, saw him venturing into electronic structures and rhythms--drum 'n' bass and downtempo jazz in particular--as well as new studio technology that dramatically altered the way he could present his colorful music.

"We had a certain taste for a certain sound and a certain vision," says Praful. "We experimented with a very new way to crossing over with dance and drum and bass. We had a Senegalese singer and a rapper, and me playing all my stuff. It was a pretty crazy crossover."

Praful, who is in the middle of his sixth American tour, along with four other musicians--including a DJ--has so many musical ideas, even within one song, that sometimes maneuvering in the jazz world can be tough. Jazz is the primary foundation of his music, but hardly his primary inspiration. It has taken Praful all his adult life to find the open-minded audience willing to accept and embrace his multigenre aesthetic. He's a man of many communities, so to seek acceptance from one in particular means less and less to him as time goes by.

"If you do what I do, you have to look for your audience," says Praful. "I guess I attract people from different walks...people who wouldn't listen to jazz but would like my music. But other people who like more serious jazz, or more complicated or intellectual jazz, they would not like my music. You have to build your audience and have patience for them to find your music. I don't know if it's more difficult or not. It's hard to compare since I don't know what to compare [my music] with. I feel a little bit between the worlds. I'm not sure what I am, a jazz musician--I don't even know what that means. They are just words."