Tohpati Ario Hutomo (born 21 July 1971 in Jakarta, Indonesia) is an Indonesian jazz guitarist and songwriter. He is known as the one of the most famous jazz guitarist in Indonesia.[1] He has collaborated with many Indonesian musicians such as Glenn Fredly, Indro, Arie Ayunir and Shakila. Many of his work has traditional culture elements as he always try to combine both modern and traditional Indonesian music on his albums. The influence came from many different international jazz guitarists, but the most significant influence came from Pat Metheny.
Music career
Earlier experiences
Since his early age, Tohpati has already interested to be come a musician and often played on many shows around Jakarta, although it was not as a professional career. As a result of his effort, he had won the title "Best Guitarist" at a band festival in Jakarta when he was 14 years old. Four years after that, in 1989, he won another notable award of the best guitarist in Java, also was given at a band festival. This award then contributed a major part in Tohpati's music experience as his name began to be noticed because in the same year, he won the another best guitarist title at a "Yamaha Band Explosion" show, which was a national show.
Professional career
After winning a series of awards, Tohpati decided to begin his professional career. His professional career began in 1993 when he joined a band called Simak Dialog with Riza Arshad, Arie Ayunir and Indro. Indro is a bassist who played the "Bass Heroes" show in Jakarta. Later, Indro often played with Tohpati in many different shows. With Simak Dialog, Tohpati had released 3 albums, which were Lukisan, Bauk and Trance/Madison.
In the late 1990s, Tohpati decided to start a solo career and released his first solo album in 1998. The album was also includes a collaboration with Shakila and Glenn Fredly, both pop singers. To gained more popularity, he released two video clips of one of his songs on the album, the song titled "Lukisan Pagi", which was a song with a collaboration with Shakila. The video clip was a success and the song made it to the charts in Indonesia.
His second album, Serampang Samba offered more instrumental hits. Quite different with the last album, Tohpati only included one song with vocals on the album, titled "Jejak Langkah Yang Kau Tinggal. This was also the only song with a video clip. Serampang Samba also consists of more traditional Indonesian music with more acoustic guitars and Balinese elements. It can be said that this album is more idealist and progressive compared to his last album.
Equipments
Tohpati mainly uses his Fender Stratocaster for recording and live performances. However, he has changed the pickups of the guitar, which are Seymour Duncan and DiMarzio X2N. Other guitars that he uses are Sadowsky and Takamine. The guitars are connected to Rocktron effects then to a Mesa Boogie amplifier.
Discography
* Simak Dialog
o Lukisan
o Bauk
o Trance/Mission
* Solo Albums
o Tohpati
o Serampang Samba
o It's Time
(from Wikipedia)
