shanghai jazz scene .com

Well, as we reported a while back, the word on the street was that the live music was going to stop completely at the Blues Room. Fortunately, that has proven untrue, with a new band playing three nights a week. The new group playing there, headed by Willow Neilson, features various musicians and vocalists on different nights. The core group, however, includes Erica Li on vocals, Steinar Nickelson or Sean Higgins on organ, and Nicholas McBride on drums. The trio’s name is “Three point strike”, possibly a reference to the burgeoning kung fu prowess of the band leader. They rock out with a mix of not only jazz but also funk, afro-beat, soul, and R&B flavors among other musical stylings.

Three point strike is playing three days every week: Thursday (from 10pm to 1am), Friday and Saturday (11pm to 2am), and I believe they have ditched the Southern soul food menu and are serving the same food as the City Diner upstairs.

The Blues Room. 146 Tongren Lu.

Live music now every Thursday, Friday and Saturday night.

Is the Blues Room going to change its entire concept because they’ve decided this live music stuff doesn’t make enough money? Or maybe they have other ideas about how to go about it. I don’t know what the place has in mind, but they are cutting off Al Gordon and Bill Heid’s performance contract a few months earlier than they were originally signed up for, which means the duo’s last day performing there will be this Thursday, January 31 instead of the end of April as originally agreed.

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.