I got to go check out the new location of the House of Blues and Jazz the other day on Fuzhou lu just near the bund, right across the street from the Captain hostel. It looks like the new space is going to resolve all the issues the last place had while also adding a few nice new features to the entire package. The entire space is quite large, as they’re planning to use a bigger room towards the back as a dining room, where they will serve lunch and dinner. They are planning to be open from lunchtime straight onward through the late night showtime, quite an extension compared to before. Also the new place doesn’t have a big column in the middle of the stage blocking your view of half the band.

Lin Dongfu and Song Lan have spent an extra-long time (and extra-huge amount of money) making the new space just right, using the same wood paneling decoration concept as the last place–in fact much of the paneling came directly from the old building. They have 2 levels again, but this time the second level has a whole section where you can look down onto the band. They had to rebuild the frame holding up the second level, as the original framework was rickety and unreliable. They have replaced all the windows and installed a central gas heating system so as not to have to use air conditioners blowing air to heat the place in winter. The stage is just big enough for a normal-sized band, certainly larger than the last one but in a bit of a strange shape I think. It’s an even square, but because it’s facing both into the bar area in one direction as well as the main music listening seating area, no one side can be considered the front. Instead, the front seems to be the corner that faces both the seating area and the bar area. I suppose we’ll just see how the shape works out once people start playing on it.

Jazz lives again on the bund

I think the bund has nearly come full circle and its time as THE nightlife spot of Shanghai is returning. Number five may have come just a tiny bit too early, but even already then it wasn’t lack of business that shut it down. More and more great spots are opening at every part of the bund as well as on the streets set back from the bund. I’m convinced that it’s going to be the best place to hang out in town once they finish the underground tunnel for cars and get the pedestrian thing happening along the riverfront.

Live jazz has had a hard time maintaining anything on the bund, with number five lasting only 7 months as a full-on jazz club, and other places only featuring live jazz for limited amounts of time. Right when bund 6 opened, Tiandi on the 3rd floor had regular jazz for a good chunk of time–but didn’t seem to get the punters in with much consistency. Glamour bar and New Heights have always had jazz shows now and then, but neither have ever been “jazz clubs” per se, and they’re not trying to be. Now JG has started semi-regular jazz parties, but it doesn’t seem to be trying to become a full-on jazz club either. And of course CJW has been open for a few years now at its Bund Center location, but I would argue that it’s not close enough to the bund to be really considered “at the bund”. Even if the building is called the Bund Center.

So with one of the earliest mainstays of live jazz in Shanghai moving to the bund, it feels to me like a pretty significant symbolic event. Jazz is making the return to its earliest location in town once again, and this time it seems like it can’t fail.

The Speakeasy parties had taken a break over the holidays but now they are back, with a regular twice-a-month appearance at the Jean Georges bar. The party will, as always, feature live 1920s jazz from Five Below (the quintet who first got their name from the time they played regularly at the now defunct number 5 just across the street) featuring vocals from Aussie songstress Marta Taylor.

Five Below, in this incarnation, will consist of JQ Whitcomb on trumpet, Joao Sylvestre on drums, Mark Bai on piano, and Willie Blair on bass. The next Speakeasy after this one will be on March 28.

Jean Georges Bar (Bar JG), 3 on the Bund 4F — Friday, March 14

I’m just back from the penultimate day of the Jazzy Shanghai festival at Fuxing park, and boy what a great set of shows!??  Opening the day’s festivities was Scottish vocalist Carol Kidd, who really got the whole thing off to a wonderful start with a few standards and some less well-known stuff as well.??  She really created a nice vibe right from the start with her positive stage presence, her band was tight and all the playing and singing was all top-notch.??  An interesting thing about her band was the guitarist played a nylon-string acoustic guitar, something you don’t often have in jazz…in fact the only other jazz guitarist I know who plays a nylon string acoustic is Barry Wedgle, who used to play with us back in the early days of number five on the bund.??  In fact, Barry recently contacted me and he is planning to return to Shanghai for the month of June this year.??  Anyway back to the festival: Following Carol’s group was the JZ All-star Big Band, who played a mighty fine show as well (if I don’t say so myself).??  I have to finish this post quickly because the big band is back on in about an hour at JZ club for our regular Saturday night show in fact.??  Following the big band was the band from last night, Vienna Tony and his jazz quintet. ??  They played a good show, better than last night I think, probably because there was a much larger crowd who was more responsive.??  One thing I didn’t mention yesterday was that their guitarist had quite a bluesy electric sound which brings a fusion feel into the music.??  So even though they played quite standard material it was much more lively than I might have made it out to be.

The final group tonight was Cuban pianist Omar Sosa‘s trio.??  This group brought quite a different sound from earlier groups to the festival’s listeners, perhaps a bit challenging and esoteric for many of the audience members.??  It was likely because of this that some audience members left early on in the set.??  The beginning of their set was quite gradual and arhythmic, with the bass player singing and chanting for a good chunk of time before he even picked up his bass.??  He also played lots of small percussion instruments.??  Eventually they broke into various grooves, but I would say they didn’t really play any “songs” per se.??  The entire set was really a set of segues between different soundscapes, at times excited and upbeat and at other times subdued and evocative.??  I enjoyed it quite a lot, as it was so different than not only the rest of what I have heard at the festival so far but from what I ever get to hear in town ever.

There’s one more day yet to come in the festival, that’s tomorrow with the Bruknahm Project.??  Looking forward to it.

shanghaijazzscene.com to open comments to everyone, no need to register

On other news, I’ve had a suggestion from the owner of shanghai club scene.com to open up comments to anyone instead of making everyone who comments register.??  She says this discourages a lot of people from commenting.??  I think it’s a good idea, as I’ve never had very many comments on my blog and this could be why.??  I’m going to give it a try, but I’m afraid it might invite spammers, so if it does, I’ll reinstate the registration requirement.??  I’d like to do this now because I think it is especially important to get comments from people who have also been to the festival.??  I’d like to know what you all think of the festival, and what you think of my review of it.??  Cheers!

But I digress from the bang part of it- I’ve been told that there will be a big party/jam session with free drinks for musicians (within reason, he said) to celebrate the memory of what could have been the best jazz club in town. It should happen on the last couple days before the new guys start ripping the place apart to install the new sushi conveyor belts and puke-green marble paneling (just kidding, I don’t have any idea what they intend to do). Once there’s a date set I’ll post it…

Genevieve Marentette at the Shangri-La

We took the subway to lujiazui around ten before it shut down, and walked first over the Shangri-la hotel where Gigi sings on the ground floor jazz lounge. It’s a pretty strange room, with no stage; the band is sort of just set up near the bar in the back center of the room.

She’s got a pretty ok Chinese rhythm section backing her up, all pretty young guys that read everything they play intently even though they’ve been playing the same tunes for months already. They get the job done: they stay together and even get the arrangements mostly right. I don’t get the sense that any of them really listen to jazz much though, the pianist David has a distinctly pop flavor going on. The bass player Lou does manage to stay in tune, and drummer Sean has a pretty good feel actually.

Gigi herself sounds great in the circumstances. She’s got serious skills, but in this context they don’t get highlighted well. It’s too bad that hotels get these great singers but then won’t pay for a quality band that could really make a special thing happen…but I guess that’s the nature of the beast. Having a jazz lounge is just another service for guests, it only has to be good enough. I’m sure it’s just as much about having a beautiful woman to gaze at as it is her musical and audience engaging skills. But I digress…Genevieve would rock the house with a tight band behind her. She doesn’t just have the minimal skills needed to work with easily (sings in tune, comes in at the right spot, has positive attitude), she also has style and finesse and draws you into the music. Especially if you listen and clap, which wakes up the band.

Trebeka and Oliver von Essen at Pu-J’s

After the Shangri-la we went over to the Jin Mao building where the Grand Hyatt is, but not into the main (tall) part of the building. Pu-J’s is one of the jazz lounges in the building, part of an entire entertainment complex which is the short building connected to the side of the Jin Mao. It says “J-life” on one side of it. It can be quite tricky to find if you don’t know how to get there, because you have to negotiate a virtual maze just to find the elevators, especially difficult if you come through the hotel to get there. Luckily I was already familiar with the place since I used to work there sometimes with Coco when he sang there a long time ago.

It’s another strange room, this time with a stage in the center of the room, partly surrounded by the bar. Psychedelic computer visuals dance neurotically on one wall and glass encased wine-rack-columns line the walkway on the other side, and the stage is pretty high so it feels like you’re playing on a narrow platform. Not an easy gig…especially with the multitude of distractions competing for customers’ attention (and business…need I say more?). So again, if you’re in the area and like good music come down and check these two out because they’re solid.

Oliver is an amazing pianist who has worked with tons of great musicians and produces a lot of original material of his own as well. I’ve had a few chances to jam with him in different contexts and he is top-notch. His extensive experience playing organ gives him ample left-hand walking-bass skills which he uses a lot for this gig. He starts each set with some solo piano tunes, including some originals.

Trebeka is a gorgeous London-based vocalist who has a passionate yet soothing voice. She’s very professional and sounds great, and has the added advantage of a sexy French accent in her lyrics. And you know these musicians are really great because when it’s obvious that people in the audience are paying attention the players respond with some exquisite music.

My first gig in Shanghai was a hotel gig, so I can relate to what these people go through. These hotel gigs can grate you down because you feel like no one is listening because there’s no feedback. Because they’re usually NOT listening. And when nobody listens, it sucks the life out of you because you can’t put out and get nothing back for hours and hours every day and retain your energy. It becomes just a job and you only go through the motions. So it really takes putting out some extra-positive applause feedback to make musicians in that position feel inspired to give you something. So if you’ve been to these places before with groups of drunken work colleagues and didn’t think the music was anything special, it’s time to head back and actually listen. You have until the end of September to go hear Gigi at Shangri-la and until October 25 to hear Trebeka and Oliver at the Jin Mao.

The band split town right after the show, headed for the capitol city to play some more shows up there. Then they will head back to Toronto early next week.

During the World Cup many local bars have seen a decrease in business, except for the major sports bars of course.??  And the sales of TVs and video projectors went up before World Cup quite a bit, so that during this time every bar can be a sports bar.??  It’s the one time of year that even some of the hard core jazz clubs put up a big screen TV to show the games (in a separate area from the stage at least).??  JZ has been showing the games in the roof garden and I hear CJW Xintiandi has a screen outside in front.??  However Cotton Club and House of Blues and Jazz both remain purely music venues, not sure if business is holding up ok or not.

Number five has always been part sports bar anyway so it’s surviving on World Cup business for the time being, however it’s hard to say how things will go after the music license does actually come through.??  The club’s operating capital has run out and it is courting new investors to put in what it needs to make the final push into profit land.??  Until then, World Cup might win priority over jazz until it’s over, and even then without the necessary capital the band can only play as much as business can directly support it.??  And if an investor puts down the dough and doesn’t want to have jazz anymore, well that’s how it will be.
So if you want to invest in number five (and promise to keep the band) send me an email.??  Stay tuned for the next episode of the saga.

Even though the regular band is still not able to take the stage at number five due to license issues, this isolated afternoon event will still happen. It should be a good one too, I checked out the video on Steve Koven’s website and these guys have lots of energy but also musicality. There’s a 50 RMB cover at the door, but once inside all standard drinks will be only 30 RMB each. They will serve from the special sunday brunch menu as well as the regular lunch and dinner menu all day.

3-6pm, sunday june 25 at number five (20 Guangdong rd)

It should be only two weeks before everything is all set, and the band will be back playing every tuesday through sunday from mid-June. Until then, we will have some local musicians filling in, as it is only foreigners they are worried about.

When Five Below returns to the stage we will have Marc Neihof joining us on the bass, Victor Noriega on the piano, and Chris Trczinski will be playing drums. It will be an exciting time of renewed creativity and inspiration…