Hans Sligter: instantly hooked to the music of Doc Jazz

Audiences in the West seem to be slowly but surely picking up on the music of Doc Jazz. A recent blog by Fred Mullins – which is highly recommended, read here – was followed up by this beautiful article sent by Hans Sligter (see photo), an accomplished singer, guitarist and songwriter from the Netherlands who is part of a trio known as the LSB Experience.

By Hans Sligter – A couple of months ago I found out about the music of the Palestinian artist Doc Jazz and was instantly hooked. In a lot of his songs I spotted the musical influences of some of my own musical heroes; bands and artists like Little Feat, Steely Dan and Carlos Santana.

Within Doc’s songs I heard flowing melodies, backed up with smooth funky rhythms and jazzy harmonies and all  delivered with a passionate rock-drive. I was struck by the artist’s musical (composing-) talents and his excellent mastering of multiple instruments, such as the guitar, the keyboards, the Arabian oud and the Palestinian shibbabeh, a lovely sounding flute.

I was equally impressed by his ability to integrate all these Western and Middle Eastern musical influences and instruments into coherent and rich sounding compositions and arrangements and by his voice and vocal abilities, for he has a warm, soulful sound that can be both tender and powerful, giving a body to melodic vocal lines and rhythmic raps.

On top of all these obvious qualities Doc Jazz knows his languages. His English is most excellent and so is his Dutch (Doc Jazz was born and raised in the Netherlands). And even though I don’t speak the language myself, I have all the reasons to believe that his (Palestinian) Arabic is just as flawless.

By experience I know that it’s a very rare quality to be able to integrate socially/politically engaged subjects into intelligently crafted lyrics, that still fit the average three minute format of a pop song and yet sound musical and are dedicated to the groove of the music. Doc Jazz accomplished to write dozens of lyrics and raps like this, in several languages.

From his lyrics, the dynamics of his voice and his appearance in his video clips, I think I can tell that he’s an intelligent, educated man, a gentle, warm-hearted soul, who cares for people and at the same time has a strong, dedicated and persevering character when it comes to his beliefs and principles. All these properties shine through when Doc sings about his biggest passion: his love for Palestine and his involvement in the Palestinian cause.

Which brings me to the lyrical content of his songs. I started to really listen to what he has to say. Thinking: if a gifted, eloquent and developed artist like Doc Jazz is dedicating most of his talents and energy to this cause, the world should listen. I should listen.

I realized my knowledge of the Israeli/Palestinian conflict wasn’t objective, but colored by western perspective. After all, are we, raised in the western world, not conditioned to feel unconditional empathy for Israel? Perhaps fueled by a collective feeling of guilt because of centuries of persecution of the Jewish people and because of the Holocaust? Aren’t we programmed to believe that the present Islamic world is becoming increasingly regressive and conservative?  Aren’t we taught to be afraid of Muslim terrorism?

Of course we do know about the injustice that is done to the Palestinian people and the suffering they are dealing with, but do we really care? Or do we think it’s all too distant, too complicated and instead look away? How biased is our information and therefore our judgement?

Doc Jazz made me want to dig deeper into the subject and hear both sides of the story. I am convinced that this artist can build bridges between cultures and between people.