I’ve just heard an interesting rumor–that Brown Sugar, the well-known Taipei jazz club, is planning to open a branch in Shanghai’s tourist center Xintiandi. The huge space recently vacated by former rock/pop live music venue The Ark seems to be the landing pad targeted for the club’s first Shanghai location. If it does open in that space, it will be quite near to Shanghai’s other Taiwanese-owned jazz club, CJW, which also originated in Taipei before opening 2 locations in Shanghai (one of which is closed now) and most recently one more in Beijing.
Posts Tagged ‘Shanghai’
Another Taipei jazz club to open a branch in Xintiandi?
Thursday, September 11th, 2008Quintessence – Coco, Zhang Le, and Heidi
Thursday, August 21st, 2008
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
Jazz Festival all set for September
Tuesday, August 19th, 2008| September 19, 2008 1:00 pm | to | September 22, 2008 10:00 pm |
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.
Remodeled Portman jazz bar opens again
Thursday, July 31st, 2008
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.