Somebody’s got to do something about Chinese pop music. We just taxied in from the airport to our hotel in Chengdu, and the cabbie, who seemed like a hip enough twentysomething, had an FM radio station on that played a rotation of simpy romantic balladry, twiddling girl-pop and fourth-rate boy band. Of course I couldn’t understand the lyrics, but I’m certain that’s a good thing. On TV it’s the same thing – sugary, derivative, synthetic and dated sounding goo. Commentary in the Shanghai and Beijing press like Time Out suggested there were a handful of good and emerging local bands who seemed to favor a punk or metallic sound. I didn’t catch any of that, but I did see some solid jazz in Shanghai and some excellent jazz in Beijing. Shanghai’s jazz joint is called the Cotton Club, with a house band fronted by a white guitarist but livened up by a couple of really excellent Chinese horn players. They played groove-oriented R&B flavored tunes that took a Motown turn when their vocalist, an American black woman who went by “Mama” took the stage. So that was cool, but I was really impressed to stumble upon a jazz bar along the busy lake shore in Beijing. The white pianist was really quite amazing (he was playing Bill Evans’ “Waltz for Debbie” when I came in, which is a sure way to my heart) and he was backed by Chinese guys on bass and drums. The drummer was especially tasty and sounded like he’d listened a lot to the recently departed and ultra-great Max Roach. Their singer, a white American woman, was quite good and mixed standards with stuff she and the band had written. The place was full with a mix of Chinese and Westerners, and folks really tuned into the music. I’d like to take our cab driver there and see what he thought.
Everything after the jump is personal, non-musical travel journal for friends and folks who care. We’re having an amazing time here.
