Beijing's jazz fans have been enjoying an acoustic bash as bands and musicians from home and abroad performed at the Beijing Nine Gates Jazz Week. The festival, now in its second year, has brought the Chinese jazz world into the spotlight again and provoked thoughts about the development of the music style in China since it arrived in the 1920s. CRI reporter Ning Yan takes a closer look.
Jazz is no longer an American privilege.It has for many years maintained a foothold in China while getting more and more integrated with other musical forms, both modern and traditional.
And Chinese jazz musicians are not only playing imported masterpieces, they are also creating something of their own, and introducing what they love to the Chinese public.
Accomplished bass player, Hung Yong, could be regarded as one of the most representable jazz musicians in China. He is also the organizer of the Nine Gates Jazz Festival which debuted last year.
"My goal is to let jazz walk out of the doors of clubs and make it known to more people on the street. Such an experiment actually prompted each band involved to further reorganize their present works and create new pieces, which are especially designed to ensure the cohesion and consistency of the concert programme. Jazz may have originally stemmed from clubs, but its being played in concert halls has prompted a certain refinement in this musical genre."
The Nine Gates Jazz festival was named after the nine ancient city gates of Beijing. For this year's event, 16 jazz bands from Beijing, Shanghai and countries like the United States, France, Russia and Austria have staged a jazz music banquet to Beijing audiences. They were able to get close to such celebrated foreign musicians as the French jazz violinist Didier Lockwood.
Didier Lockwood has been one of the opening performers for this year's festival. The violinist has cooperated with Ma Xianghua, an artist playing erhu, the two stringed fiddle, in the show which evoked waves of applauses.
Many have come to the festival to pay tribute to legendary artist Didier Lockwood. Michelle is one of them. The French woman has been working and living in Beijing for more than 20 years. And she is happy to see Lockwood back in China where jazz is flourishing.
"I think they are making a lot progress now. And did you see the mixture of erhu and violin? It was wonderful."
According to Huang Yong, the initiator of the festival, however, inviting jazz musicians from other countries to play for Chinese audiences is only aimed at strengthening cultural exchange and sharing inspirations. The chief goal remains putting Chinese jazz musicians in the spotlight and arousing public attention to their growth and maturity.
And it's also a process to discover problems and find a way out. As Huang Yong observes, most Chinese jazz bands still lack a good grasp of what it means to stage a complete concert performance. Huang Yong describes it mostly as a problem of song arrangement. But this arrangement isn't specifically designated to the sound texture. It involves the selection and setting of a special play list for each concert.
"When performing in clubs, musicians tend to be too relaxed and get immersed into endless jam sessions. However, when performing on concert stages, musical works have to be concise and direct, to represent the bands' best achievements. They have to rearrange their works, pruning the unnecessary parts away, as well as introducing new works, mindful of the whole concert."
Huang Yong says jazz is the kind of music of real artistry of the present time. It's no longer a simple name for a musical genre. Rather, it's for describing a way of active thinking, and the courage of exploring the possibility of music making. But this food for thought and music for the soul remains a luxury to the general public in China. The urge to introduce jazz to common folk via jazz festivals like the Nine Gates manifests the current situation on the receiving end. Meanwhile, the reality is that the number of jazz musicians and their bands are relatively small in China.
That poses a serious question to people like Huang Yong. And the answer, he says, should start with better jazz performances.
"It's only when people can feel the influence of music that jazz and related businesses will have a possible further development. Only by recording and releasing more jazz records, publishing related teaching materials and periodicals, will the influence of this musical genre be further enhanced. Only then can we, gradually, expect society to understand this musical genre, even introducing and approving it in the national educational system."
The artist says the case was no different in the United States about half a century ago, when heated debates were made as to whether jazz should be included in school education. Later, a wide-reaching jazz education policy benefited the US in almost all aspects of the music industry.
Huang Yong says if China can adopt the education of jazz music in schools, we can expect a faster-paced change of musical quality and potential interest in China.
He also believes jazz music will one day capture the Chinese audience, saying it's only a matter of time. In a nation as huge as China, jazz music with its power and philosophical background will definitely find a footing.
"The gap between the jazz music made by Chinese musicians and by musicians from other countries is not as wide as that of the pop music category. There are many talented jazz musicians that have created precious works of fresh ideas. And each festival constitutes an overall improvement in the standard of jazz music in China. Right now, most jazz musicians are at the stage of fusing their own ideas and cultural backgrounds into this musical genre. Innocent as some of the works may seem, it's a process of great importance to the development and localization of jazz in China."
To people like Huang Yong, 'jazz' is more an adjective than a noun. It refers to a mode of thinking, creativity and technique.
Introduced to China in the early 20th century, jazz has had a glorious past. And now, it's awaiting an even brighter future.
