[JAZZ MUSIC PLAYING]
ARI ROLAND: The first thing about jazz
is that since its creation, about 100 years ago,
it's been this unbelievable engine
of bringing people from different communities together.
So it starts in New Orleans, created by African Americans,
but with the participation of everyone else too.
African Americans from all different communities,
from the islands, from who had been in the states
as slaves, from many different places.
And what you have is not only is the music a melting pot
of different musical styles but more importantly,
it was only in the jazz clubs and people
listening and dancing and playing to jazz together
that you have all different kinds of Americans
from different races, different ethnicities,
different religions, all coming together.
It's in the jazz world that everyone's mixing.
And now it does the same thing all over the world.
[JAZZ MUSIC PLAYING]
ARI ROLAND: I think it was somebody at ECA wrote to me
and said that they'd like you to go
to Pakistan to do a program for a couple weeks,
would you be interested?
And I wrote back with huge capitals yes, yes, yes, yes,
exclamation mark, down the page.
I just accepted for everybody.
I know these guys.
We've been all around the world together.
And I knew how excited they would be.
JUNAID MALIK: It was a time when a lot of events
were not happening in larger venues in Islamabad.
This is 2009.
And I had a basement.
[JAZZ MUSIC PLAYING]
ARIEB AZHAR: Up till then, our experience
had been that most musicians who came from abroad,
because of all the stories you hear about Pakistan
and what you see on the news, slightly uptight or tense
or slightly wary or closed.
But the Ari Roland Quartet was just extraordinary.
ARI ROLAND: The vibe of the place,
the vibe of the young people, it was exactly
like being in a jazz club in New York City
and being around young people.
ARIEB AZHAR: We were just like, there
was hardly any space between the performers and the audience.
It was all just cramped into one room.
So it was a very intimate experience.
JUNAID MALIK: Well, half the people were sitting in my room.
Some people are sitting in back in the kitchen.
People from the Embassy were there.
I remember the Cultural Attache at that time, Constance,
she was there.
And she was sitting in one corner.
Like everyone was like there was no protocol or anything.
It wasn't just like engaging.
Music was the common denominator everyone had.
NATASHA EJAZ: I mean, jazz isn't a Pakistani--
it's not Pakistan's heritage.
So it's not something you can just walk across the street
and some jazz musician will exist there.
So for me, it was very special because I'd grown up
listening to this music.
And I'd grown up wanting to discover it
a lot more than what I can find in just recordings or just
on the internet and just figuring out all of that stuff.
Like meeting a jazz musician for the first time,
I think that was the biggest thing.
ARI ROLAND: You know, one of the really most poignant moments
of that night and powerful moments of that night
was us teaching "Summertime" to the people who
were watching us.
And the response, not only did they enthusiastically sing
along but the feeling with which they sang it.
As opposed to a big concert hall filled with the diplomatic core
and where some may want to sing very enthusiastically,
some may think that it's not what
you're supposed to do if you're in that position.
These are young people who feel uninhibited.
It's their place, not letting whichever voices want
to tell you you can't do that.
They're not going to be shut up.
And you could feel it in the way they were singing.
It was like a protest song.
[JAZZ MUSIC PLAYING]
JUNAID MALIK: Everyone was blown away that night.
ARI ROLAND: You just bared your soul,
even without trying, on the bandstand
together with someone you just met, right, in front
of a whole lot of other people.
And so when you get off the bandstand,
you're not going to talk about the weather's nice here
in Islamabad or, yes, I had a very nice lunch.
It was a nice cafe.
You're going to talk about the most personal things
immediately.
NATASHA EJAZ: We're exposed to American culture
a great deal because of the music that we listen to
and the TV watch and the films that are in the cinemas.
But actually getting to know American people is a rarity.
ARIEB AZHAR: It showed me a different-- a new side
of Americans.
ARI ROLAND: We knew it was going to be magical.
And it was.
The Embassy and the Consulates got us
in so many different places and finding these orphanages
as well.
Very, very powerful.
Each day we'd just look at each other
and my friend Chris would say, well, Ari,
you're never going to top this.
And we still have that feeling.
It means a lot to us.
It means a tremendous amount every time we go there.
NATASHA EJAZ: Just to connect on a heart-to-heart,
musician-to-musician level.
On this level if we were communicating with each other,
the world would be much more connected than it is.
I think it's also important first to connect on this heart
level, on this art level, and then
the economy and the politics of it can follow.
But in the beginning, you have to perceive the other human
being to be like yourself.
And the best way to perceive that is through music.
[MUSIC PLAYING]