Smart Shanghai’s MP3 Monday’s blurb for Johnathon Parker’s release decried the need for a jazz writer in Shanghai. To quote “To be sure, jazz in Shanghai is a widely celebrated and flourishing phenomenon — at least it seems like it from an outsider’s perspective…jazz in Shanghai seems to conducted according to a real communal, collaborative mindset — a real diverse array of mutually supportive international talent — with a steady influx of new visiting and resident musicians at places like the JZ Club and House of Jazz and Blues,… as well as the yearly JZ Music Festival, which is the only real outdoor music festival in town…I guess jazz writing in the city is more to blame (with the exception of Mike and Mache at Layabozi.com) — the lack of it, and it’s an under-represented art form, it seems, in the cultural focus of Shanghai” http://www.smartshanghai.com/articles/nightlife/mp3-monday-jonathan-parker

Realizing a need and having extra energy as a result of a long period of sobriety, I have decided to champion the cause of my fellow musicians whom have all chosen to call Shanghai home.

Who am I you may ask? My name is Willow Neilson. I am a local musician/composer/ and now writer, performing alongside many of the people who have been and will be mentioned in posts on this site. Conflict of interest I hear you say? Very possible, but I promise I will try to convince other writers to sing my praises instead of turning this respectable jazz site into any sickening self congratulatory homepage of narcissism, as tempting as that may be.

What can you expect from the site in the future? There will be a featured artist monthly who will be interviewed and will provide a list of their top ten favorite albums, I feel this will demonstrate the diversity of our music scene and will also provide a source of new musical exploration for the readers of this post as we have musicians ranging from Africa to Norway who can enlighten us to their influences. There will also be local CD reviews, an updated listing (so my friends will stop calling me to ask what is on around town tonight like I am the movie guide or something) and many other delights as the ideas present themselves.

It is my hope that if you love jazz music you will regularly visit this site to stay abreast of upcoming music events. If you are involved in the local music industry and have some important news you would like shared, please contact me through the site.

The Shanghai jazz scene has gained added momentum this year. A landmark event for one of Shanghai’s groups was their performances at the “Blues to Bop” Jazz Festival in Lugano, Switzerland in late August. The second Shanghai group, after Coco Zhao’s Possicobilities, to be featured at an international festival, which possibly represents a growing interest in the constantly expanding music scene of Shanghai.

The Afrosonic Orchestra is a “party band” with a focus on grooves from the entire breadth of the African diaspora, from US funk and soul to African Afrobeat ala Fela Kuti. Bandleader Theo Croker’s description of the ensemble follows, “Afrosonic Orchestra is a twelve piece Afro-Funk-World-Soul-booty shaking-genre bending-mind blowing-barrier crossing-dynamic explosion of sound and energy. Its very existence defines the 21st century, defying musical, ethnical, stylistic, and racial barriers. The Shanghai-based collective features members from around the globe on five continents including the US, China, Brazil, Norway, and Australia.”

The twelve members of this group represent some of Shanghai’s most exciting players such as Steiner Nickelson, Alec Haavik, Irwin Hall, Leonardo Susi, EJ Parker, Alex Ritz, Willow Neilson, Lawrence Ku and representing China in very fine form are Erica Lee and Hu Dan Feng. American vocalist Dee Dee Bridgewater’s daughter China Moses also joined the band for the last two shows of the festival.

The crowd response to the band was enthusiastic to say the least, the fun onstage antics that had been developed by the band over their many performances in Shanghai elicited joyous reactions from the Swiss onlookers. The horn sections dance moves were echoed in the crowd whilst Theo’s ode to Dizzy Gillespie’s mock African ‘Abakua’ call and response to the audience had them screaming back to us. Towards the end of each show the entire crowd was jumping up and down along to Theo’s composition “Realize” and an encore was always guaranteed.

There is rumor that the band will be invited back to Lugano to perform again next year. Afrosonic’s previous performances had people dancing on tables in Hong Kong and has been rocking Shanghai clubs regularly, hopefully the Lugano performances will mark the beginning of a new series of performances for the group, taking their individual blend of Afro funk to the rest of the world. Please see the links below for videos from the festival-

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jdxyt9UWhnA&feature=youtu.be

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oxXdZf6EAio&feature=youtu.be

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-PxRIeg0WDw&feature=youtu.be

Of course, there is a tradition of old songs from the 1930s jazz era of Shanghai but outside of the old men performers that still survive within the Peace Hotel it is far from apparent. Whilst many musicians from other countries have benefited from the guidance of elders in their musical tradition, musicians such as vocalist Coco Zhao had to seize any opportunity for musical information available to them, “I remember back in the 1990s, we only had very limited resources for us to listen to and play jazz. We had to ask our friends to bring back all kinds of CDs, tapes and books from overseas so that we could read, listen and learn.”

Coco Zhao also talks about the limited image many local Chinese associate with Jazz, “Whilst jazz music is happily making its home in China with all these foreign and local musicians, there is also misunderstanding from the audience. Many listeners still associate jazz with scenes from 1930s old Shanghai, and for them, jazz is probably just a way to display their social and financial positions.”

The types of jazz that the Chinese public are given exposure to are often very limited and Coco Zhao suggests his hopes for more open-minded acceptance of the artform’s more artistic possibilities against its current constrictions. “If Chinese television, radio, magazines and newspapers are only willing to play and promote commercial and easy listening music, then Chinese listeners will never be able to understand and accept new sounds. And the risk-taking and self-challenging musicians will never have their chance to let their music be heard across the country or even across the world.”

I feel this is an important historical article for Chinese jazz and very well written by Coco, who wrote it in English himself without the aid of a translator. Coco’s group Possicobilities was one of the first Chinese lead jazz groups to gain international recognition and upon hearing their CD “Dream Situation” it is no surprise why, with masterful arrangements by Peng Fei and Coco’s velvety vocal tones it a true aural pleasure. Please read the full article below-

http://www.asianculturalcouncil.org.hk/en/welcome/features_detail/16

Tower of Power, headlining JZ Jazz Festival

This year’s JZ jazz festival features probably the most spectacular line up of any Shanghai music festival to grace this city ever, to my knowledge. The headline acts featured in the outdoor festival are Tower of Power, probably one of the most famous funk bands in history, Jazzanova Live, the live band of two of the most interesting producers of modern electronic music production, Roy Ayers, the most famous Vibraphone player of the 70s and Jojo Mayer, the most celebrated live drummer specializing in ‘Drum n’ Bass’ (the London style of fast beat electronic music).

The master hall features the great McCoy Tyner, best known as the pianist for John Coltrane’s most famous quartet of the early 60s, Kenny Garrett, once a sideman of trumpeters Miles Davis, Freddie Hubbard and Woody Shaw and Take 6, arguably one of the most virtuosic vocal groups in the history of jazz.

This year’s festival is a long way from its early beginnings as a small event in Fuxing Park that then featured mainly artists living locally. I see it as a huge achievement on behalf of the organizers to secure such high caliber and exciting acts and I feel it is masterfully programmed featuring music that displays the breadth of contrasting jazz styles alive in the world today. It is also great to see the festival expanding to five stages from it’s earlier three at Century Park.

Besides the fantastic artists visiting from the US and Europe, the festival features both Chinese artists and foreign artists living locally. I must apologize for my ignorance regarding many of the Chinese acts but the home grown group most exciting for me is Hang Gai, a group of Mongolian musicians based in Beijing who blend their traditional throat singing and horse head lute with rock instrumentation. A definite must see.

Also featured from the middle kingdom is a Chinese artist I consider the only truly great vocalist of Chinese popular music, Li Jian. His voice contains a magical sonority capable of giving you goose bumps or making you feel like something is caught in your throat as his voice causes emotions to well up within you. Having seen him live twice, he is definitely China’s saving grace amongst a large number of pop stars that are comparatively talentless.

From amongst the foreign artists living locally one of the standout acts is definitely Noukilla, a group comprising musicians almost all solely from Mauritius performing popular songs from their home and neighboring Renyon Island. This group covers many songs from groups such as Sabouk and make sure you look out for their beautiful rendition of the song “Bon Die.” They are guaranteed to get your hips shaking to their funky yet complex native grooves. Their performance last year had the audience dancing intensely.

For those wanting a jazz sound more similar to their collection of blue note CDs at home, I thoroughly recommend seeing Toby Mak and Lawrence Ku at the In Theatre on the Sunday. The slot billed Lawrence Ku I hear through reliable sources is actually “The Far East Quartet” one of Shanghai’s longest running jazz ensembles, featuring Australian trumpeter and composer Toby Mak, guitarist Lawrence Ku, HK based bassist Peter Scherr and drummer Chris Trzcinski from the US, a definite must see for those wanting to witness an instrumental modern jazz ensemble with original jazz compositions by each member of the group. They recently recorded an album whose release I eagerly anticipate after seeing their earlier performances at JZ which aroused cheers from the audience.

Toby Mak’s own band features players from the US, Brazil and Australia, Nick McBride on drums, Curtis Ostle on bass, Sean Higgins on piano, Willow Neilson on saxophone and Leonardo Susi on percussion. As well as being a virtuoso on the trumpet, Toby’s compositions are reminiscent of 60s blue note groove-jazz king Lee Morgan, pure toe-tapping unpretentious jazz at its best.

There are a countless number other artists of fine quality playing at the festival but this post would turn into a jazz festival version of war and peace if I were to list them all, for more information please visit the festival homepage at-  http://www.jzfestival.com/en/

See you there this coming weekend October 15 and 16!

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!

JZ Club has started hosting concerts at the Shanghai Center Theater (the one in the Portman Ritz-Carlton building) and the next one is tomorrow.  This show is featuring Bob James, the smooth jazz pianist who recently recorded his album “Angels of Shanghai” here in town with a number of local traditional intrumentalists.  There’s more information about the project on Bob James’ website.

leaning on the piano

Performers:
LI li – pipa
LIU zhen – erhu
LU cong – dizi
MA jiajun – erhu
Gene JACKSON – drums
Bob JAMES – piano
Tetsuo SAKURAI – bass
Jack LEE – guitar
XIA tao – gu qin

Tickets are available at JZ Club or through Smart Shanghai, and are 100, 200, 300, 400, or 500 kuai.  There will also be tickets for sale at the door.

Start time: 7:30pm (2 sets of approx 1 hour with 15 minute break)
Friday 21 November 2008
Shanghai Centre Theatre
1376 Nanjing Road West, Suite 710
Tel: 6279-8600

If you can’t go tomorrow or would rather see Bob James in a more intimate (read: crowded) setting, you can also see him on Saturday night at JZ Club.  However, for this show he will only be performing with his quartet and not the “Angels”.  I don’t know why not, if the big band can pack 17 people onto the stage every other Saturday night why can’t they fit a couple of guzhengs and pipas up there?

Saturday 22 November 2008
Jz Club
46 West Fuxing Road
Tel: 64310269
Start 9:30pm (2 sets of about 1 hour with 20/30 minute break)
***Please note the unusual start time***

Bob James Quartet

Gene JACKSON – drums
Bob JAMES – piano
Tetsuo SAKURAI – bass
Jack LEE – guitar

This Friday there are plenty of parties happening for Halloween.  But for those of us who want to enjoy some live jazz, one of the best parties to hit will be the twocities in tune concert, the next installment of the excellent series featuring the musical adventures of Steve Sweeting and various vocalists.

They say in the City Weekend listing: “Free with costume. Well, free anyway, but why not have some fun?”

Fri, Oct 31 at 7:30PM
At: Two Cities Gallery, 50 Moganshan rd bldg 0
Shanghai
http://www.cityweekend.com.cn/shanghai/events/32222/

Sam, Akira, and Jordan

It’s been a few years since Sam’s last stint at Blues and Jazz, and now the Boston-based guitarist and singer is back with the “classic trio” (plus one more) to rock the new location.  The rest of his classic trio I speak of, in case you weren’t around when they played either of the two stints at the old House of Blues and Jazz, around 2 and 4 years ago, are drummer Akira Nakamura and bassist Jordan Scannella, famous for laying down extra-solid grooves in many styles all night, every night.  And as a bonus, they’ve added keyboardist Todd Marston to the mix this time, who arrived this week to give Sam some extra chordal support.  Sam is a solid guitarist, but having a keyboardist should leave him a bit more space to focus on the vocals sometimes.  I have to get back down there soon to check them out as a quartet, because I’m guessing that it has compounded the greatness of this already amazing group.

Sam and his band play the hell out of blues, rock, funk, and soul, but I might be leaving something out because they are pretty darn versatile.  If you’re lucky, you might be able to get Jordan to show off his mad freestyle skills, for example.  And don’t be surprised if they bust into some reggae grooves or drum n’ bass.  And I believe there’s plenty of original music getting performed by these guys, though they don’t hesitate to pay homage to the greats of these genres.

The group is doing a 3-month contract I believe, finishing out the end of the year before something else happens in there.  When I went to hear them early last week, there were at least a few dozen people in there, so I guess that means the new location of the club is starting to catch on pretty well.  Not to mention they’re hiring groups that really know how to get the crowd going, like Sam Hooper and the hard-working showman who just finished his contract, Carlton J. Smith.  Hooper’s band has quite a different sound than his predecessor Carlton, but both have been invited back to the House multiple times so they’re all doing something right.

They are also keeping the Sunday night jam session tradition alive, so bring your axe down on Sunday if you like to play funk, soul, blues, jazz or something else you can jam with other people on!

This past weekend, the Shanghai Jazz Festival held in Jing’an park for the first time was an overwhelming success, with tickets selling out for each of the three days. Enough hype was created to make the entire thing a highly desirable destination, with hundreds being turned away at the gates expecting to be able to buy tickets on the day of. Luckily, the water stage offered some free music for the unlucky souls who weren’t able to get into the main festival grounds, with bands playing all afternoon Saturday and Sunday.

The water stage had a great mix of styles, as did the entire festival; generally it featured smaller groups and locally-based favorites like Abraham Carmona, Coco Zhao, Erica Li, and perennial visitors from Japan–the band called YAA (Yokohama Artists Association).

Of course it was the main stage’s eclectic mix of local and foreign jazz, funk, blues, rock, and pop groups that managed to draw such massive crowds all weekend, and listeners stayed around even through the (luckily short-lived) rainstorm Saturday afternoon. Sunday’s hot and humid weather didn’t keep anyone away either, and in the evenings the temperature was ideal.

Highlights

Friday night’s opening ceremony was just that, the symbolic gesture of cooperation with the JingAn district to put the entire thing together. The bands that night played short sets, with just a few tunes from Rolf Becker’s JZ All-star Big Band before and after the ribbon-cutting ceremony, a few tunes from the Shanghai Latin Project, and then a longer set from Tian Square, a Beijing jazz group. But of course, the main draw Friday night was Gilles Peterson’s DJ set, which didn’t disappoint. He got the crowd dancing through his hour-long set, and it felt too short when it ended. I guess it’s always good to leave everyone wanting more.

Saturday was packed full of shows, and the rain only managed to interrupt the water stage’s schedule. I’m sure I missed some great bands during the time I was playing on the water stage Saturday afternoon, so please leave comments if you caught the bands on the main stage at that time. That would have been the Rhythm Junks, Xiao Juan, and Tuan Jie Hu Groove.

I did get to hear Bai Tian’s sextet start the day off on the main stage, which was excellent. Bai Tian, or Mark Bai, has been establishing himself in town as quite a skilled composer and arranger in recent years, and his set at the festival got the day started right in spite of the quick but heavy rain that hit during his set. That evening, after the 3 bands I missed, I witnessed Joanna Wang hypnotizing the packed field of fans with her gorgeous singing before Incognito rocked the house with their funky soul grooves. Incognito’s show was probably the most fun I had all weekend. But it didn’t end there, because the after party at JZ club saw plenty of musicians jamming together late into the night. After Andy Hunter and I got the show started with one sextet set, Alec Haavik and Toby Mak continued with another set which segued into a crazy jam. I saw some musicians from the Rhythm Junks jamming, as well as most of Alexandre Cunha’s band at one point (who played at the festival the following day) and then later on most of Incognito played a few long, rocking funky jams. That pretty much capped the evening, however I couldn’t keep my eyes open to stay any longer but I believe more jamming ensued subsequently. There was also a killer trumpet player jamming with them at the end, a woman who must have been playing with a band whose set I missed because I didn’t recognize her from any of the sets I saw. Anyone know who that was?

Sunday was generally a bit louder, though it started with a low-key set from Lawrence Ku’s guitar trio. Things got rolling when Sugar Mama and Eugene ‘Hideaway’ Bridges each did a half set with Greg Smith and the Cotton Club band, doing some rockin’ down home blues. Zhang Ling’s band from Beijing followed with an even more rocking set, and then things turned a fresh direction when Alexandre Cunha’s band came on with their tight, rhythmic Brazilian jazz. Cunha’s group was my favorite among those who played on Sunday, perhaps because it was such a nice contrast to all the other groups that played that day. Li Quan, a local favorite, followed with some better-than-average jazz-pop songs before Laura Fygi did her festival-closing set backed up by the JZ all-star big band led by Rolf Becker. She brought down the house with her solid voice, voluptuous dancing, and suggestive commentary. I have seen her perform at other events to a CD backing track and always been disappointed, but she really was fantastic with the live big band. That band creates some intense energy onstage.

Now what?

As great as the festival was, there were plenty of problems. Since most of them were small, it didn’t detract much from the overall great vibe; however I hope that they manage to set up some ways to receive feedback about it so that many of the issues are resolved for next year’s event. As I understand it, this year was really a sort of test year for the Jing’an district government to see how it went so they can perhaps increase the scale for coming years.

I’ve already put together a list of suggestions I’d like to give them to improve for next year, including things like selling food inside the festival grounds (or at least letting you re-enter the gate to buy the food outside!  To their credit, they did in fact finally allow re-entry on Sunday), not running out of beer at the drink stand, more trash cans around the field, etc.  If you have suggestions, leave them in a comment and I’ll pass them on to the right people also!

Was browsing the culture.sh.cn site and happened across this jazz piano recital coming up at the Oriental Arts Center at the end of the month.  Sounds interesting, judging from the pianist’s bio it should be a good concert as he has played with many great musicians and lived and worked in New York for many years.  Hopefully he will come jam at the club after his gig, then we can hear him really tear it up with a rhythm section.

Details:

Jazz Piano Recital by Franck Amsallem
Sept. 28th, 2008 19:45 (Sun.)
Venue:
Shanghai Oriental Art Center – Performance Hall
Ticket Price (RMB):
300, 180, 120, 60 Yuan