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!

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

The next in the series of concerts put on by JZ at the Pudong Oriental Arts Center, the David Friesen show promises to be quite a bit different than the others.  Solo bass, especially upright bass, seems like the most difficult sort of instrument to perform solo on.  Let alone entire concerts!  But I have faith that it will be good, since he is known as a master of the instrument and his solo concerts are purported to be phenomenal.

Plus he’s got Lawrence Ku joining him, so that should change things up a bit as well.  If you didn’t know, Lawrence Ku is Shanghai’s jazz guitar guru whose skills are unparalleled in China.

Friesen will also be performing at the Shanghai Jazz Festival the following weekend, and will give a master class at JZ School. More on that once the times are announced.

For more information, check the JZ Club website or call 021-5403-0187.  For tickets, call 962388.

David Friesen solo bass concert
Sun, Sep 14 at 3:00PM
At: Shanghai Oriental Art Center
Tickets from 100-200 RMB

Who would have thought?

These three fantastic jazz vocalists will do a unique performance this Saturday night at a venue I haven’t been to yet, called Lounge 18. Coco says it’s a fantastic space, which means it should be perfect for the magical evening the group has planned for Saturday. Joining the three singers will be Tinho Pereira, the extraordinary Brazilian bass player who joined Coco and Heidi for their recent show at the Oriental Arts Center, as well as Willow Neilson, an Australian saxophonist who is not playing sax at this show but instead playing Mbira, which is the Zimbabwean thumb piano. It’s quite a unique set of sounds to mix together, and a fantastic set of musicians, so expect an amazing night.

Saturday August 23, 9pm-10:30pm
Lounge 18 (18 on the bund, 4F–18 Zhongshan Dong Lu, near Nanjing Lu)
Free Entry

If you haven’t heard yet, the 5th Annual Shanghai Jazz Festival is happening at Jing’an park this year from September 19-21.  This is the one JZ club puts on annually in the fall, known in previous years as “JZ Festival” or “JZ Fuxing International Jazz Festival”, as opposed to others like “Jazzy Shanghai” usually held in the spring, or the Toshiba Jazz Festival that never made it past the “first annual” in 2004, as great as it was.

This festival has always been interesting and eclectic, bringing in Chinese pop names, well-known jazz greats, as well as other groups from completely different genres.  This year the headliners include European diva Laura Fygi (backed by the JZ all-star big band!), legendary British DJ Gilles Peterson, and genre-bending UK band Incognito.  The entire foreign and local lineup, as well as all the other details can be found on the festival’s website.

My favorite year of all the festivals JZ has put on was the last one at Fuxing park in 2006.  There was a solid lineup, mostly good weather, and some great sunny afternoons on the grass enjoying the music–mostly everything a jazz festival should be.  I think they have got the right idea this year with JingAn park, as the district seems quite supportive of jazz compared to the others.  It’s also a very different sort of place, one that I would never have thought possible for a jazz fest.

It was our good friend Anna Jacyszyn’s penultimate night singing at the newly renovated Ritz-Carlton 2nd floor jazz bar, so I went by last night to hear her and sit in a little bit. Little had I realized, the band is once again playing in their old haunt on the second floor that has been undergoing renovation for at least a few months (6 or more?). The bar was originally scheduled to reopen much earlier than now, but the extension of renovation time seemed to coincide with reports of billowing black smoke from the 2nd floor windows of the hotel around the original finish date. So until just a week and a half ago, the band had been performing in the lobby lounge, which I understand was not as inspiring a performance venue for them.

Anyway the new decoration looks good, the lounge is much more cozy now with a new wooden-slat ceiling and curtains defining the space; now I understand why the feng shui just didn’t feel right before. It was just too wide open and huge of a room. Also the cigar humidor has been moved from the center of attention to a far corner of the bar, giving the room one more spot to view the band without massive pillars blocking one’s view.

They’ve done an excellent job also with the stage and sound system; the stage has inlaid monitor speakers hidden in it, and the main speakers are hidden in the ceiling above the stage. That and some new sound equipment have improved the room sound a lot.

I’d recommend heading down there tonight to show some support for Anna on her final show there and to check out the new look.

The Portman lounge post-Anna?

After Anna J leaves us once again for her native Canada, what will Danny Woody and the boys do? The boys, of course, being Eric Harper on bass and Tom Finlay on piano. According to Danny, they’ll play as a trio through August, adding horn players occasionally to change up the sound a bit. Then a new vocalist will join them come September. Stay tuned for details.

In the past few weeks, Jessica Maurer and others have been performing intermittently at the club undercover style. Carlton has been in Shanghai already for at least a month, with the original plan of organizing a locally-based rhythm section, from what I understand. However, in the end they have flown out musicians from New York (including his drummer Joe who joined him on his last contract at B&J) and they will play for the next three months.

They had a private grand opening party last Friday to celebrate the occasion, and I got to hear the band. They’re quite solid, obviously these guys are very familiar with all the arrangements and have been playing with Carlton for some time. The German keyboardist does a great job covering the horn parts on the keyboard for all the soul tunes. The guitarist, also originally from Germany, has a good sound too. The bassist is from New Jersey.

The new place is huge, check it out if you haven’t made it yet! They’ve done a great job with the setup, so it’s great that finally it can go forward.

Twocities in tune – twocities gallery 50 Moganshan rd bldg O, Fri May 30 7:30-9pm – Free entry