shanghai jazz scene .com

I have just returned from the third day of the festival happening at Fuxing park this holiday, “Jazzy Shanghai“.??  I was not able to make it to the first two days, as I was out of town; however I heard they went well.??  Lisa Ono packed in the punters and pleased them the first day with her bossa nova sound I imagine, though I haven’t heard yet from anyone who went.??  The second day started with Alec Haavik’s Friction Five, who rocked the house as they do every tuesday night at JZ Club.??  Next was Coco’s Possicobilities, who rocked out in their own special way, as they do every sunday night at JZ.??  Then came Toku, the Japanese Chet Baker, who wowed and wooed the crowd with his singing and playing and good looks.??  Last was Maria Pia de Vitto, I also don’t know much about how her show went, except one person told me they felt her music lacked enough percussion.

I wasn’t able to attend yesterday’s shows, because, even after arriving back in Shanghai early in the afternoon, I was not able to get in for free (as I thought I should, since I was performing there on two subsequent days).??  Not that I had a big problem with paying, but I would only have had time to stay for Coco’s show as I had a rehearsal for my regular thursday night show at JZ.??  Last night we were joined by a fantastic Norwegian Hammond organ trio, “Solid!” so we had to rehearse a bit beforehand.??  The show itself turned out great, these guys were amazing to play with and we had the three horns as well (Since trombonist Andy Hunter is back in town) so it was lots of fun.??  Solid trio plus the Liquid horns.

Also playing last night before us at JZ was the XiaJia electric trio from Beijing, who are part of a series of Beijing trios in town playing sets at JZ most of this week.??  This trio played the Fuxing Jazz Fest last fall as well, and since then their group sound has really progressed.??  I recognized a few tunes from that show, but plenty of fresh new stuff as well.??  They have a strong dynamic range, which is especially noteworthy for an electric group.

Today at the Jazzy Shanghai festival was pretty slow, with the seats never filling past about a third of its capacity.??  I played with the first group, The Lawrence Ku Septet.??  This group recently recorded a CD of Lawrence’s amazing compositions and arrangements, which will be released at a special party at JZ on May 24.??  The group will also play the first concert of the JazzArt series on May 13 at TwoCities gallery on Moganshan lu.??  But more about all that later…today the group played well and sounded great.

Following the septet was a local vocalist named Michelle Dong, who sang about half of her show with a CD accompaniment and the rest with a live band.??  Many of us were quite appalled that she was doing a karaoke thing at a jazz festival, as well as by her low level of skill and dreadful stage presence.??  Needless to say it was disappointing.??  However it was during her performance that the venue was filled the most, and many people left after she finished, presumably her family and friends who came only to hear her.??  So I guess we can’t blame the venue for inviting her to play, as she brought the people in.

After she finished, there was a very long setup and soundcheck for the third band, Bconnected, who hail from Switzerland.??  This group came to Shanghai a year or two ago and played at JZ, in fact they may have come two different times.??  I did hear them one of those times, and they were solid, but never extremely impressive.??  My opinion of their performance tonight was similar to the other time I heard them, however they brought in two traditional Chinese instrumentalists who enhanced the show a bit.??  Sometimes those parts just got a bit new-agey and boring, like the parts with guzheng, but other times quite interesting and dynamic, like the bit with the pipa and erhu.

The last band, Vienna Tony Jazz Quintet, was also quite solid and skillful, but didn’t play much original music or very many arrangements with much level of depth.??  Sure, they had some nice head arrangements, but pretty much every tune was melody-solos-melody, which gets boring.??  They have a good group sound though, bringing the energy of the music up and down together effectively.??  They are on the bill again tomorrow, I noticed, so maybe they were just playing their easy stuff tonight and will pull out some even better stuff tomorrow.

On the bill as well tomorrow is the JZ All-star Big Band, which will play second after Carol Kidd.??  Then back comes Vienna Tony, and finally Omar Sosa to finish out the night.??  His show should be great, he is a highly-celebrated Cuban pianist who is meant to be quite amazing.??  Sunday evening is the final performance, featuring the Brucknam Project, which sounds like fun.??  They say their music mixes jazz, hip hop and electronic music.??  We’ll see if I can get in.

This entry was posted on Friday, May 4th, 2007 at 11:59 pm and is filed under Concert Reviews, JZ news, musician comings and goings, shows at JZ, upcoming events. 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.