Celempung Mang Jama — aural archipelago

Location: Dus. Ciledre, Ds. Cibubuan, Kec. Conggeang, Kab. Sumedang, West Java

Sound: Celempung Mang Jama (feat. Bu Nanih)

Mang Jama was an eight year old shepherd when he first picked up celempung in the late 1960s. Taking him to the bamboo groves, his grandfather taught him how to pick the finest awi surat, the giant bamboo which grew in abundance around the slopes of Mt. Tampomas in the Sumedang region of West Java. He’d then take his newly crafted tube zither with him to the fields, where he and his friends would play while gathering grass (ngotektak) for their rams. The instrument was the perfect thing to pass the time (ngangon) in the shade on hot days as they waited for their rams to munch away.

As time passed, Mang Jama’s celempung playing changed with the times: the 70’s brought new trends in Sundanese music, from dangdut and pop Sunda (Sundanese pop) to the explosive, rubbery rhythms of jaipongan. All could be channeled through Mang Jama’s celempung, which could produce a clever hybrid of the drum and gong sounds at the root of some of those genres. By hitting the end of the celempung with his left hand while striking with a bamboo stick the “string” of raised bamboo skin on either side of a large bridge, he could replicate the low-end thump and high-pitched twacks of the multiple heads of the Sundanese kendang drum. Two other strings were weighted down with a bamboo tongue (lidah) which flapped over holes in the instrument’s body. When struck, the strings then had the boom of the two large hanging gongs of gamelan, goong and kempul.

More than fifty years on, Mang Jama is still playing, accruing the status of a local legend for keeping his old school celempung style alive even when most others have left it behind. He’s blessed, too, with a third wife, Bu Nanih, who is also a music-lover. Hailing from Tanjungsari, a village closer to Bandung, Bu Nanih was already singing with local folk ensembles when they met and married in 2008. Together with a kecapi player, Bu Nanih and Mang Jama would perform for events around the area, from government shindigs to weddings.

Meeting these two this past summer, I was charmed: we’d had no introduction, but Mang Jama immediately fetched his celempung from a back room in his small house as soon as I arrived, a smile revealing a single tooth. His Indonesian was about as fluent as my Sundanese (that is to say, not very), but soon Bu Nanih showed up. While Mang Jama was somewhat bashful, Bu Nanih was pure charisma: taking the lead, she joked and told stories as we sat on their porch as the afternoon heat faded. I initially had no idea that she sang, but after a few solo recordings with Mang Jama, Bu Nanih piped in with a few tunes of her own. There were old classics like “Ayun Ambing,” a dangdutan medley (complete with playful, improvised lyrics - “he’s got no teeth, but the kiss is sweet!”), and finally a jaipong-style “Tepang Sono” (“That was all over the place!”, Bu Nanih playfully chastised Mang Jama afterwards.)

I’ve covered celempung multiple times for Aural Archipelago, but the charm of this instrument lies in the idiosyncrasy of it’s variations: here’s one more for the archives, a rare treasure from the slopes of Mt. Tampomas and the hearts of Mang Jama and Bu Nanih.