JQ playing at JZ

The Shanghai Jazz Scene is making a comeback post with a shameless plug for my own concert!  Oh well, please agree that it’s better than no comeback post at all.

This Thursday, March 12, 2009, I will turn 30.  I’m holding a big concert that night at JZ to celebrate, and to give some new music to all my wonderful friends and family here in Shanghai.  Here’s a basic rundown of what the show will consist of:

Set 1 will feature The Magnificent Seven, a septet that premiered in a slightly different configuration back when the Atomic Bombshells (a burlesque group) first came to the Glamour Bar early last year.  It will be a light-hearted set of jazz standards and original tunes, with lots of excellent arrangements by the great Rolf Becker, the man who started the JZ all-star big band.  In this set a very special birthday arrangement will premier as well, a tune of mine that the illustrious guitarist Lawrence Ku has arranged for the group.

Set 2 gets a bit more intense with the addition of 3 more brass instrumentalists, which will bring the total number of horns up to 7.  This is the real meat of the show, featuring some of my favorite arrangements originally played by Edison Machado, an amazing Brazilian drummer who revolutionized Samba on the drum set back in the 1950s and 60s.  His music has been among my favorite for years, especially the amazing horn arrangements on his album “E Samba Novo”, from which the tunes we’ll be playing come.  This set will also feature more original tunes written and arranged by myself, but also another special birthday premier arrangement Rolf Becker has done of one of my tunes.  Coco Zhao will join us for the final piece of this set after he runs over from his gig at the bund that night. This will be a very climactic and dramatic piece, in true Coco style.

Set 3 will see the Cotton Club band come over to play a few tunes with me, featuring Sugar Mama on the vocals as well as the long lost Terrence Bowry who is back in town for a while.  After they play a couple of tunes, I intend just to play with all my friends together in a wild jam session that never ends.  Or see what else happens.

I hope you can join me there for some or all of this special show!

Lawrence Ku, guitarist and composer, has been based in Shanghai for a few years already since moving here from Beijing, where he had been living for a good half-decade or more. Recording an album with seven players is no small feat, especially when it features some of the busiest players in town. I am especially impressed with this in retrospect since beginning my own process of organizing rehearsals and recording sessions for my own album. He has come out of it all with an excellent album, which showcases the range of his composing and playing styles. Not to mention some great other players as well.

The album opens with an tune called “Toothless” that takes the listener through extended forms for the melody and each solo, one of the many epic tracks on the album (the shortest tune on the album clocks in at 7:52, the longest is nearly 15 minutes). Like many of the tunes on the album, Lawrence has come up with different supporting structures for each soloist to make a journey though, rarely using only the melody form for solos to blow over. The second tune, “Sisters” was presumably written for (or about) his twin daughters, and illustrates their playfulness (or how they fight with each other?) from the beginning with trumpet and saxophone improvising together at various points.

The album has a lot of slow, mellow tunes, which can be a turnoff to some listeners but upon deeper listening there are a major strength in Lawrence’s composing style. He writes rich, unusually voiced harmonies that evoke complicated feelings. “Ballad for the Blue Box”, “Speechless”, and “Sentimentia” all show these more introspective emotional sides to the album. His tribute to Monk, the unique arrangement of “Well you needn’t”, brings the classic tune into a completely different light than it’s ever been heard. The album finishes with a climax on the epitome of the word “epic” with the rock ballad “Three doors, three keys”.

If you want to check out some of the tunes from this album or others Lawrence has played on, as well as some live recordings, check out his website or his myspace page. They have both been (as of this writing) recently updated with new info and recordings of his. You can also check out Lawrence (as well as many of the other musicians who play on his album) playing live at the JZ Club a few nights a week. Currently I believe he’s playing there every Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday.

If anyone else knows what is going to happen over there, please leave a comment here. If I find out anything new I’ll be sure and let you all know. For now, though, I can say if you want to hear Al and Bill’s dynamic duo playing everything from blues to bebop, then you better go check them out in the next couple days before they finish.

It’s been a long time since the (JZ All-star) big band went on its crazy adventure to Nanjing last October, but the story is too good to leave untold. Of course, it wasn’t scheduled to be a crazy adventure, but rather a simple big band gig in Nanjing for the German week festivities happening there. We knew it was going to be especially festive on our own return trip, as it happened to be E.J. Parker’s birthday during the drive back to Shanghai (after midnight the same night). The trip getting there was mostly uneventful, except for a sudden exploding tire sound and hasty stop to check it, and then after a pronouncement of “tire’s not blown, just lost the surface of one” an exceptionally slow rate of speed that caused the ride to take about 6 hours. Also Barry Wedgle (who was filling in for Lawrence Ku on the trip) fell asleep and Rolf took this classic picture of him just as a truck passed by carting a horse and carriage. As the bus pulled into Nanjing, we proceeded to get lost as nobody had thought to bring a map of Nanjing with us, and our driver received a stern talking-to by Coco for his oversight. We had initially departed from Shanghai with plenty of time to spare, but with traffic jams, the tire issue and the subsequent snail’s pace, we were already coming into Nanjing an hour after the originally scheduled sound check time.  We were all on edge, thinking we were going to miss the sound check completely, that everything was going to be a mess, and it was all the driver’s fault. At least we all thought so.

Now if you’ve ever received a stern talking-to by Coco Zhao, then you would probably feel wronged too. Our bus driver certainly did. But he didn’t say much just then, and we rushed off the bus as soon as we finally reached the venue hoping we hadn’t missed our chance to sound check, and already accepting the possibility that the whole big band performance was going to be ruined. Of course, we hadn’t remembered that the event company running the entire event was German–and so of course a sound check was promptly arranged, and it was lightning-fast, ultra-effective, and simply a breeze. In and out, boom. Not a problem at all. We were shown our dressing room, barbecued chicken dinner was served, and we played the show for throngs of screaming teenagers without a hitch. After packing up and getting another snack, the band got back on the bus and got ready to celebrate E.J.’s birthday for the bus ride back to Shanghai. The bus tire had been repaired while we played the gig so it should have taken only 3 or 4 hours to get back.
We had just passed around the second round of vodka-soaked gummy bears and had just cracked open some beers when the bus passed through the toll booth and suddenly pulled over. The driver stood up as we looked on and simply said, “who’s got my money?” He insisted that his boss told him not to drive one more meter until he’d been paid in full for the trip. We yelled and pleaded, begged and fumed, knowing full well that he was just bitter about receiving a Coco-yelling and wanted to delay us even more for hurting his feelings earlier in the day.  However, nothing seemed to work, and finally after at least half an hour one of the trombonists called the police. Meanwhile, James Danderfer in his sunglasses and black leather jacket was on the roadway trying to flag down another bus for us to hire and ride home in. The cop who finally showed up told the driver to get moving, and finally he did, grudgingly. And before we took off again, the cop pulled us aside and said, “when you get back on that bus you leave him alone. Poor guy has obviously been abused by you cruel jazz musicians.” So we did. We left him alone and we partied the whole way home. Except E.J. was the only one who lasted past 3 hours of warm beers, vodka gummy bears, and more warm beers.

I’ll be on the show myself at some point as well, as I just spent this afternoon getting interviewed about my musical experience, background, and inspiration over at the JZ School. All I can say is, I’m not very eloquent when speaking out loud…I just hope they have really good editors to take out all the “um”s and “ah”s. They also interviewed Theo Croker, so I imagine he’ll get featured on the show as well.

Unfortunately, I was halfway to the concert before it occurred to me I should bring my camera. So I don’t have any pictures of the event myself, but I saw a few people snapping shots with cameras much nicer than mine anyway, so there should be a few popping up on the JZ School website within the next couple days. Also, another blogger posted their own set of pictures from the event as well, so you can check them out too.

I probably say this after every one of these concerts, but the JazzArt shows are always my favorite concerts in town. The vibe is always so nice in these great galleries to begin with, and then to have people show up who just want to listen to some excellent jazz on a Sunday afternoon makes it so special. Not to mention exceptional wine, and all for free! It all really conspires to create an atmosphere of utmost creativity for the musicians, so they really put their soul into it. It’s sad to know that they won’t continue every month, but at least next year will see the series start up again anew. It gives us something to look forward to next spring.

The JZ Festival came to a roaring close today, unfortunately with a much lower afternoon turnout due to the rain but once again a satisfying mix of music, fully dug by those of us who did attend. But I skip ahead–first back to details of yesterday’s festival.

Saturday

Saturday was a very successful day for the festival, drawing medium-sized crowds again in the afternoon and selling out completely the evening portion. The day started with E-Groove, a Shanghainese funk-fusion band who play a popular brand of original instrumental music a la ’80s Michael Brecker. These guys play a regular concert series at the Jin Mao concert hall, and can occasionally be seen featured at JZ Club. Following them was Islaja, a Finnish duo who used lots of loop-based soundscapes to support the female folk vocals. She played guitar, and there was a man who played bass, and he played lots more chordal stuff than traditional bass lines. It was a slightly psychedelic, soothing sort of Finnish folk.

After Islaja finished, things got crunchy when The Thing started playing. The Thing is a free-jazz trio with members from Norway and Sweden, consisting of drums, bass, and saxophone; and their music was raging and intense most of the time, not accessible to the average listener but I though they were quite interesting and creative. The saxophonist played baritone saxophone most of the time, except for when he busted out the slide saxophone. Though not very loud, the slide sax seemed perfect for this kind of music because it has such a unique sort of effect.

The final group yesterday afternoon was Mi Ni Ma, a trio of laptop-poking, dial-twisting electronica musicians. It was a fun set, sort of dub-influenced hip hop beats. I know there are lots of special descriptors for different types of electronic music, so I’m probably using the completely wrong words to describe this group’s music (and all the electronic music I’ve heard at this festival) but anyway they were great.

After the area was cleared and the hordes of teeny boppers came streaming in, the JZ All-star big band played their set to a completely packed house. It was an ingenious way to bring some jazz into the attention range of young locals who normally wouldn’t ever hear it, and in fact the group was very well received. Of course, the masses had arrived to hear Taiwanese pop artist Chen Qizhen sing and play her guitar. Unfortunately, I had to rush off to another gig myself so I wasn’t able to hear what her music was like. I’m sure it was great.

Sunday

The festival’s final day began with a rain shower, which is never a good way to start a festival day. Even though the rain abated by the time Frog’N'Stein started their 3pm set to open the afternoon’s shows, all the people who had intended to come to the festival looked out their windows at the cloudy skies and wet sidewalks and thought, “I have to work tomorrow”. So most of them didn’t show up, but the music refused to be quashed and continued through the afternoon and evening. The rain stayed away until about 7pm too, which meant that all those people could have come down and had a great time completely dry. Now they’ll have to wait till next year.

Frog’N'Stein is a French funk band, who got the party started as best they could with the limited partygoers. After their set we heard from Beijing’s electric jazz trio Dew, a tightly-coordinated unit headed by pianist Xia Jia. Then, Finnish DJ Vladislav Delay took over the smaller stage for a slightly shortened set of moody, dark electronic textures. Finishing up the afternoon was Yannick Rieu Trio, a Canadian group who we also heard at the Beijing jazz festival two weeks ago. Definitely one of the highlights of the festival, his group played a unique type of jazz replete with sensitivity and communication among the players. Although their instrumentation was the same as Saturday’s final afternoon trio (Sax, drums and bass) their musical style was totally different. It was very free, but not in the squawking, honking sense of the previous day’s trio. It was based in a harmonic framework as straight-ahead jazz is, but allowed to move in many different directions. They have played in Shanghai a few times before, so if you missed them this time keep an eye out for their next appearance in town, as they’re bound to come again.

And for a completely anti-climactic end to my story of the festival, I will admit that I don’t know what happened for the final evening’s performance. The rain started coming down as I left the venue to return a borrowed instrument, and that was right at the time when they would have started letting people into the venue to hear the final two acts–Shanghai Latin Project and Cui Jian. Were they rained out completely? Or did they persevere and rock through the rainstorm? The question remains for now. In any case, the JZ Festival went pretty darn well overall, and I’m proud of Ren and the crew who put it all together. It was better than last year’s in many ways, and hopefully next year it will be even better. The i-mart artists who sold their wares were a fantastic addition, and the location of the venue–while not a grassy park–offered a great selection of food options inside and outside the concerts. The New Factories is really shaping into a cool area, so hopefully this made a few more people aware of it. Overall, I call it a major success.

I heard some great bands who have been out here before, or musicians who have come to China but brought different groups to perform this time around. Some of these included Pekka Pylkkanen’s group (called the “Tube Factory”), Martin Schack (who played with Sinne Eeg for a 3-month stint at Blues and Jazz here a while back), who brought an instrumental quartet out in which he plays the Hammond organ, and Steinar Nickelsen (whose Hammond B-2 organ Martin was borrowing for his show as well). Steinar brought a trio out called “Excess Luggage” which included piano and drums together with the organ.

Also got to see American saxophonist Donny McCaslin, who was excellent, and some other cool Scandinavian jazz, and of course all the Beijing jazz family like Xiao Dou, Beibei, Zhang ying, Liu Yue, Liu Yuan, Xia Jia, the Junglecat crew, and all the rest.

The festival was in a big park and seemed quite well-organized. They had a pretty good food selection and some other good vendors and sponsor stands. It had two stages that sometimes were too close to each other, with the occasional disturbing loud jams booming over the quiet introspective parts of a jazz show on the other stage…but managed not to clash too much of the time.  There were also stage sound quality issues for some groups (including ours, unfortunately), like feedback and less-than-ideal monitor mixes; however the LED screens along side each stage were super-slick and had great footage of every group.  I’m hoping they release some of that footage to the groups that played.

Now it’s a countdown to the Shanghai festival(s).  There’s some shows in the Yue festival that are going to be solid, like Ozomatli, but the JZ Festival promises to have some great music too.