Results tagged “jazz”

Shanghaiist lists all the live music performances you might want to check out from now until Sunday this week. For fun things that aren't live music, take a peek at our Pencil This In (out every Monday!)

Dee Dee Bridgewater, the illustrious Jazz singer, has been one of the premier artists in Jazz for the past forty years. From her early days performing with major Jazz legends and winning Tony Awards on Broadway to her more recent work on Billy Holiday, NPR and beyond, Dee Dee has been shaping and defining the way people all over the world understand and appreciate Jazz. To kick off this weekend's JZ Jazz festival, Dee Dee will be gracing Shanghai with a performance this Friday at the Yunfeng theater, sharing the stage with a big band of both local and international musicians. We had the chance to chat about her accomplishments both on and off the stage, her views on Jazz from the past to the present, and her unbeknown love of Chinese art.

2 days…3 stages…37 bands…20 DJs….What better than the hard facts to advertise an event as noteworthy as the upcoming JZ Shanghai Music Festival? From October 16th to the 18th, Pudong Century Park will play host to a constant stream of artists set to fill the city with music. Don’t be fooled by the festival’s name- one might be quick to assume that a jazz festival would be monopolized by the baritone sax and Louis Armstrong tribute performances, but each of the three stages actually specializes in a subset of music.

This week: Chill out with some live jazz, rock out with some funky beats at Shelter, then cheer on Shanghai Shenhua before eating some good ol' American grub at the Bulldog.

Earnshaw Books, your favorite purveyor of China-related reading material, is pleased to announce that it will host an evening of conversation, books and live jazz to celebrate the release this month of two new tomes - Shanghai Story Walks by Yvette Ho Madany and I Sailed with Chinese Pirates by Aleko Lilius, featuring a new foreword by Paul French.

What does Shanghai have in store for you this week? You can chill out at the Shanghaiist Happy Hour on Tuesday, watch Optimus Prime and Megan Fox battle for your attention on Wednesday, prove your smarts at Thursday's quiz night, then end the week listening to Spanish jazz.

Earnshaw Books will host an evening of conversation, books and live jazz featuring Graham Earnshaw to celebrate the release of Tales of Old Peking, authored by Shanghaiist contributor Derek Sandhaus!

Ray Harris "an exceptionally talented keyboard player who pushes Jazz into the electronic slip stream with an experimental fusion of jazz, funk and soul" (Will Page, Straight No Chaser) is performing at Jz Club, Shanghai this Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday night.

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 (Friday, that is). 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.

At: 4/F, 3 Zhongshan Dong Yi Lu, near Guangdong Lu, 广东路17号, 近中山东一路, 4楼.

These three fantastic jazz vocalists will do a unique performance this Saturday night at a venue we haven't been to yet, called Lounge 18 (18 on the bund, 4F, 18 Zhongshan Dong Lu, near Nanjing Lu). 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.

Friday night was the first of five nights of racy burlesque performances by the Atomic Bombshells at the Glamour Bar. It was the perfect cure for those "boring Olympic opening ceremony blues", at least until China's own Olympic team paraded onto the screen--at which point nothing could draw the crowd's attention away from the big screen. Luckily that won't be an issue for the remaining 4 nights of shows.

Is there anything that won't work in China? This latest video from Arnaud Kamphuis of Daedalum Films explores Shanghai's growing jazz scene and China's exploding demand for jazz. Interesting was the refrain echoed by several of the foreign musicians interviewed that there was no way they could be doing the same thing back home without having to do music that they can't stand. Here, they're in a position to select gigs, travel lots for work, do music on a full-time basis and not have to worry about having another day job — and most importantly, make a comfortable living for themselves.

In March we introduced you to the "mother" of Chinese opera, Kunqu. This weekend Shanghai residents will have a chance to see if this ancient performing art can be transformed into something — how shall we put it — easier on the ears by blending in a touch of Jazz.

Photo from jessielein

These concerts keep getting better and better. The twocities in tune concerts have traditionally featured Steve Sweeting on piano joined by a vocalist, and the last one we heard with Jasmine Chen on vocals was off the hook. This time, Steve is going all-out and bringing in bass and drums to join him and vocalist Coco Zhao to make the final concert in the spring series a show-stopper. Playing bass will be Scott Dodd and on drums will be Charlie Foldesh.

They're not coming to play together, but rather in two separate shows happening this week. Swiss trumpeter Erik Truffaz is performing Thursday (tomorrow) at JZ Club with his band, and Saturday is Mike Stern's show. Each of them are bringing a quartet, ostensibly touring to promote new albums. Mike Stern's quartet consists of Bob Franceschini, Lincoln Goines, Lionel Cordew. Erik Truffaz is bringing Marcello Giuliani, Marc Erbetta, and Patrick Muller in his band. Both of these guys are pretty big names, and so the cover will be 100RMB each of the nights. As usual, the show will start at 10pm.

In fact TTing has already been open for nearly four months, but has yet to do a formal grand opening. Like any fledgling business in Shanghai, it's their first year so they're still struggling, but slowly the place is building a following — not just for the jazz-pop band performing in the main room but also for the pool tables and VIP nightclub vibe happening downstairs.

Since we didn't make it to Saturday's show at twocities, we made a special effort to go hear the Canadian piano-cello duo this afternoon at Glamour Bar, and enjoyed it. The two players are both quite virtuosic on their respective axes, not to mention well versed in both the classical and jazz realms. And though there were plenty of jazz and classical influences present in the music, most of it was generally unclassifiable, eclectic melanges of various world rhythms and tonalities. Overall lots of fun... it made us think how (even more) exciting it would be to hear the two leading a larger ensemble playing the same music.

Our bad for not publishing this earlier, but tonight at the twocities gallery there will be an amazing show by the piano-cello duet of David Braid and Matt Brubeck. If you can't make it tonight, there's still hope as they play tomorrow afternoon at the Glamour Bar. We think both rooms are going to be perfect for this duo, each usually have an intimate quiet setting focused on the music. Of course the Glamour Bar is a bar, but since they are playing at 4pm as a special concert, it should be much more music-focused than that room usually is later in the evening.

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 (that is, until they told us it was only a temporary hiatus). 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.

Price is 888rmb per head inclusive of performance + a 388rmb value wine card and selection of food from

Continue reading "Wine and Jazz at a new venue in Hongqiao"

Lin Dongfu and Song Lan have spent an extra-long time (and extra-huge amount of money) making the new space just right, using the same wood paneling decoration concept as the last place—in fact much of the paneling came directly from the old building. They have 2 levels again, but this time the second level has a whole section where you can look down onto the band. They had to rebuild the frame holding up the second level, as the original framework was rickety and unreliable. They have replaced all the windows and installed a central gas heating system so as not to have to use air conditioners blowing air to heat the place in winter. The stage is just big enough for a normal-sized band, certainly larger than the last one but in a bit of a strange shape we think. It's an even square, but because it's facing both into the bar area in one direction as well as the main music listening seating area, no one side can be considered the front. Instead, the front seems to be the corner that faces both the seating area and the bar area. We'll just see how the shape works out once people start playing on it.

We know he's meant to be quite a bit more brilliant in concert than we saw the other night, but it seems as though a few things conspired to make Harry Connick's Shanghai show this past Sunday less great than it really should have been. For one, the role that the rest of the band played was way too small — it seems that we heard more from Bjork's brass section the week before! And when they were playing, you could barely hear them as the piano and voice were so much higher in the mix and the horns got drowned out. We fell asleep at the beginning of the show, with all the solo piano and mellow vocals happening. Then it was the same 2 or 3 players taking horn solos all night, and there was only one trumpet solo in the entire show! It makes you wonder what the heck was going on for this to happen, after all the hype about this great big band.

A last-minute add to the program over at JZ, the Copenhagen-based group called Jazz Kamikaze who have been getting rave reviews will be playing this thursday night at JZ Club. In fact, when Shanghaiist was in Copenhagen last February, we didn't hear the band but got to jam a bit with some of the players in it. They were great, very creative and vibrant musicians. And killer players! So we're expecting a great show from them.

Not that free jazz hasn't landed plenty of times already here in Shanghai, in fact all too often jazz bands that come through town are a bit too "free" for most audiences. But such is the nature of that beast called free jazz...it's certainly not for everyone. But in any case now it has begun to have its own regular performance by a locally-based group, so those of you who do like this unique musical genre can come support it. The group, called Blue koi collective, is led by Italian pianist Gabriel Meirano and performs every other Sunday night for the first set at JZ Club. That's starting from 9pm, and playing for about one hour. The group's next performance will be this coming Sunday, February 24, and after that the next one is March 9th.

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. We don't know what the place has in mind, but what is confirmed is that they are cutting off drummer and bandleader Al Gordon and organist 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 tomorrow, Thursday, January 31 instead of the end of April as originally agreed.

Alcohol companies (especially in Shanghai) are known for their lemming like approach to parties (maybe it is the incestuous nature of their cliques). The latest trend is in throwing expensive "invite only" parties like the Hennessy Artistry series and this weekend’s upcoming Smirnoff party featuring Hard-Fi and DJ Sasha (gag). Just like at the Hennessey party, we loser expats aren't overly welcome (at more than one of these parties we have been told that our extra invite shouldn't be given to a laowai). About the only way in is to be Chinese and register or be part of that trendster socialite clique who relies on being invited to these things to help keep their massive egos inflated. Don't think too much about it though, because this weekend there are plenty of other great shows where everyone is welcome ... and not a bottle of Smirnoff or Hennessy in sight.

BLUES ROOM GRAND OPENING: Tonight (Wednesday Dec 12TH), 8-11pm, FREE vodka cocktails and snacks. Live jazz. Be there! RUBY RED WHITE BORDEAUX TASTING: Something special for wine aficionados this Friday (Dec 14th, 7.30pm): Ruby Red is holding a tasting of 6 Bordeaux white wines - 3 dry whites and 3 Sauternes, including Chateau D'Yquem and Lafaurie Peyrageuy!! A fantastic opportunity to taste these famous wines. Given the wine quality to be offered, the cost is...

It's criminal to live so close to the fantastic JZ Club and actually get to the place as infrequently as we do, but we're determined to mend our recidivistic ways after spending a thoroughly spot-on Sunday afternoon there this weekend. There are few other places you can just blunder into from the street and, without spending a groat (though yesterday the Guinness proved too much of a draw) to be blown away by some great...