MOLAM MASTER PASSES

Assoc Prof Jarernchai Chonpairot dies aged 83 after a lifetime of championing Isan culture

- ■JOHN CLEWLEY

World Beat journeyed to Roi Et province last week to attend the funeral of Assoc Prof Jarernchai Chonpairot, who passed away on the July 5 aged 83.

Ajarn Jarernchai, who was still on the faculty at Rajabhat Maha Sarakham University's College of Music (a department he helped found), was World Beat's "go-to" for an understanding of traditional Isan music, especially molam.

In the early 1990s, after living in Japan for several years, I returned to Thailand determined to write about and take photographs of Thai music. I was trying to make sense of the different styles in molam music, and after a performance at the Thailand Culture Centre, I finally met Ajarn Jarernchai and explained my dilemma.

About a week later, I received a letter, typewritten on small notepaper, that summarised the main styles of molam. Academics are not always that cooperative with journalists but he never turned anyone away; he always had time for those interested in Isan music.

For over 50 years, he and Prof Terry Miller of Kent State University in the US collaborated on research in the ethnomusicology of Isan music and coauthored research papers.

The story of the long collaboration and friendship between the two professors goes back to 1972, when Ajarn Terry came to Thailand to do research for a doctorate, which would result in his classic text book Traditional Music Of The Lao - Kaen Playing And Mawlum Singing In Northeast Thailand (Greenwood Press, 1984).