JQ’s big 30 birthday concert this Thursday
Tuesday, March 10th, 2009| March 12, 2009 8:00 pm | to | March 13, 2009 4:00 am |
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!
” here in town with a number of local traditional intrumentalists. There’s more information about the project on 