shanghai jazz scene .com

Here is a very nice article on local jazz proponent and musician Zhang Xiaolu. Apparently his grandfather was a well-known saxophone player in Shanghai, which is what he has become himself as well; he now heads the saxophone division at the Shanghai Conservatory as well as the jazz department.??  He also reveals some interesting things in the article, namely his plans to start his own jazz school here in town. I can’t blame him, as the Conservatory doesn’t pay its teachers too well; however, that means it’s pretty affordable for students to attend…If you can get in, that is. As the eminent music college in the country, Shanghai’s Conservatory is the place music students from around the country aspire most to be accepted into. I suppose attending a private jazz school could also really help one’s chances of being accepted into the newly formed jazz division of a famous conservatory.
Now that they offer a jazz major that could mean some great things for the scene here in town, which badly needs more enthusiastic local players who are driven to become really good jazz musicians. That drive to continuously improve is what is lacking now, because it’s quite trendy to hire jazz groups to play events, and there’s still quite a limited pool of musicians to hire for them. That means there’s gigs galore, and players really don’t have much reason to constantly get better since there’s not a great amount of competition.

There are some things happening to help this situation, like private schools being formed to teach jazz, more concert organizers working to bring great jazz player to Shanghai for concerts and master classes, and more interest in jazz on a meaningful and sincere level.
However for now it’s still quite trendy to hire jazz bands for events, but many people don’t know anything about what jazz is supposed to sound like. So if they don’t like what they hear, they think it’s because they just don’t understand jazz, when often it’s simply a case of bad musicians.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, November 22nd, 2006 at 1:52 am and is filed under Shanghai Jazz History, musicians' life, people news. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.