shanghai jazz scene .com

July 8-21 are the dates for the camp held by the JZ School this summer, which will give musicians of all ages and levels a chance to push their jazz skills forward.??  The camp will be an intensive learning session that will give beginners a solid foothold into entering the world of jazz, and will open the door for more experienced players to step up to the next level.??  Taught by some of JZ School’s most experienced and effective teachers, the camp will feature plenty of listening, improvising, jamming, and practicing.

Sign up now or get more information by calling Erica at the JZ School, at 5403-6475.??  Sign up a friend to get a 10% discount on your own tuition!

First concert this Sunday, May 13 (Mother’s Day) at 3pm

This first week of the JazzArt concert series will feature the Lawrence Ku Septet playing at the TwoCities Gallery at M50 on Moganshan lu. The septet, which performs quite rarely, is playing quite a few times this month in fact. This is partly because trombonist Andy Hunter is in town through the end of the month, and there aren’t really any other good jazz trombonists in Shanghai. Besides the Jazzy Shanghai festival performance last week and this weekend’s JazzArt concert, the group will also play a CD release party on the 24th (and the Beijing jazz festival at the end of the month). Of course, the imminent release of the album is the other main reason for the increased performance frequency.

The concept behind the JazzArt series is to bring the various types of artistic communities in Shanghai together, as they are quite separate at present; the worlds of visual art and jazz music rarely cross. So this set of 6 concerts is intended to give the two communities a chance once a month to explore and enjoy each other’s artistic worlds. I, for one, am always happy to go to art galleries but I don’t get enough opportunities to, so am looking forward to checking out some new galleries and some new exhibitions at the familiar places. The concerts will be held on the afternoon of the second Sunday of each month, and each show will feature a different group playing a different kind of jazz at a different gallery.

TwoCities has already hosted quite a few jazz concerts in the relatively short time it’s been around, so it is a logical starting point for the series. Among concerts held there already, of note is pianist Steve Sweeting’s duet series “TwoCities in tune”, a set of ongoing concerts that feature a different vocalist accompanied by Steve each time. And unlike a typical concert, Steve always inserts a few bits of fun to lighten the atmosphere and get the singer’s creative juices flowing.

Some other galleries that will host later concerts in the series are number D, MOCA, and ifa village.

Great fun was had by all at the Sax in Shanghai workshop and concert thursday evening at JZ club. Great Britain’s National Saxophone Choir, led by Nigel Wood, managed to fit nearly all of their twenty-plus members onto the stage at JZ, and for a few tunes with at least ten or twelve more guest sax players together! It was quite a sight, but even more amazing was the sound of almost forty saxophones playing fantastic arrangements together. Nearly all the music peformed was written or arranged by Nigel himself, and included a splended rendition of Ravel’s Bolero. The group also performed a few pieces in smaller configurations, some of which featured Nigel playing the eensy-meensy soprillo saxophone right next to the woman playing the massive Tubax, which is a type of contrabass sax (both pictured here, sort of in the dark. Sorry I’m a terrible photographer).

Also a student saxophone quartet from the Shanghai Conservatory played a few numbers, which I thought was quite interesting and impressive as well. All in all, it was a great time and everyone enjoyed it thoroughly.

“Sax in Shanghai,” a concert and workshop given by the London-based National Saxophone Choir will take place this coming Thursday, April 12 at the JZ Club from 5-8pm. The event, organized through the JZ School, will feature about 20 saxophonists that regularly play with the NSC as well as any and all sax players who attend the workshop. During the workshop, which runs from 5 o’clock to about 6:30, the NSC members will invite everyone to play and prepare a few pieces that will be performed by all the attendees and NSC players together at the concert. The concert itself will start at 7pm and will begin with a short feature by the saxophone group from the Shanghai Conservatory led by Zhang Xiaolu.

The entire thing is free and open to the public, and will be a great chance for learners of the saxophone at any skill level to pick up some useful knowledge, skills, and experience. Besides that, the NSC will probably bring wacky fun saxophones of all sizes that you never thought existed, like a sopranino (which is even smaller than a soprano sax) and a miniscule soprillo (even smaller!). They especially prepare a custom program for each concert the group plays, so if you don’t play sax yourself then at least come down for the concert at 7 because it promises to be spectacular.

(picture courtesy of NSC, copyright Double Image Photography)