“Jazzy Shanghai” festival begins: Salena Jones
Welcome to the Shanghai Jazz Scene .com blog! The time has finally come for me to begin blogging about the jazz scene here in Shanghai, so what better time than the beginning of a week of jazz concerts at the Oriental Arts Center in Pudong? There are plenty of great shows coming up this month at other venues in town as well, so I intend to document them all…
The show tonight, American Vocalist Salena Jones, was the first in a series of four jazz concerts that make up this years Jazzy Shanghai festival. We bought our tickets on the way toward the venue at only a moderate discount (probably much more than we should have paid, as it was already just after 7:30 already)and we were ushered to our seats during the first or second tune.
Her all-Japanese rhythm section sounded great, all the arrangements were solid and played very tightly. They had all the arrangements fully written out, so there were no musical glitches at all except when the pianist accidently pulled the next tune’s chart down together with the one they had just finished playing…however it was quickly and easily resolved once he realized the chart in front of him was not what the rest of the band was playing.
Though I was not familiar with her before, I have not been surprised to find out that she performs at premier venues around the world on a regular basis. Her voice is clear and powerful, giving a masterful performance throughout. From driving swing to sultry ballads she did a wonderful job.