Jazz Continues to Win Over Music Fans in China

“This music is just too capitalist,” a customer shouted over the wailing jazz saxophone solo at the Keep in Touch cafe here.

Such sour reception is what some might expect jazz to get in the capital of communist China. This line, however, was not an indictment but a wisecrack, quipped by a twentysomething Chinese hipster as he fought his way through the crowds who packed the cafe for a late-night jam session.

The show at Keep in Touch was part of the sixth annual Beijing International Jazz Festival, which kicked off Tuesday and runs through Sunday. From its humble beginnings six years ago, when a suspicious government and an uninitiated audience made for some rough going, the festival has become a popular event among Chinese audiences and international jazz stars alike. This year’s performances have attracted thousands of fans and 17 acts from as many countries, among them such eminent American musicians as bassist Dave Holland and drummer Paul Motian.

Not that jazz is entirely alien to China. In the 1920s and ‘30s, big-band swing was heard in the music halls of bustling Shanghai. But jazz fell out of favor soon after the Communist Party came to power in 1949, and was banned as decadent and foreign during the 1966-76 Cultural Revolution.

Now, the genre is back, surviving a shaky reintroduction in the mid-’80s to win a devoted following among increasingly cosmopolitan young Chinese in today’s fast-changing, market-oriented China.

“Jazz is becoming popular among a growing number of Chinese,” Dong Yongmei, 30, said during the intermission of a Wednesday evening concert featuring the Dave Holland Quartet. Dong, a smartly dressed employee of a French bank here, was first turned on to jazz by her husband when they were still dating in college in 1990. At the time, he was studying Chinese ethnic minority music, but fell in love with jazz after being introduced to it by a foreign friend. He quickly started teaching himself the saxophone. Now, Dong said, “all our tapes and CDs are jazz.”

One of the best bands in Beijing’s burgeoning jazz scene is Touchstone, a quartet fronted by 23-year-old guitarist Lawrence Ku of Los Angeles. Ku, who graduated last year with a music degree from UC San Diego, formed Touchstone with three local musicians in December after a summer studying Mandarin Chinese here.

Ku and his bandmates make their living playing in places such as the Keep in Touch, and teaching jazz musicianship to young students at the Peking MiDi Music School. Band members describe the festival as a great chance for local musicians to interact with jazz players from around the world.

“For Beijingers who make music,” said Touchstone’s 24-year-old pianist, Xia Jia, “this is a great opportunity. It’s the most enjoyable time of the year.”

Even China’s much-maligned People’s Liberation Army is in on the act with its PLA Orchestra. Members of the group, usually found playing at receptions for foreign dignitaries, covered Coltrane classics and swing standards by Duke Ellington and Glenn Miller at its Tuesday night performance.

About 30,000 to 50,000 people are expected to attend this year’s events, taking place in Beijing, Shanghai and five other cities. By contrast, only 8,000 turned out the first year, said Udo Hoffmann, a German jazz enthusiast who has been organizing the event since its inception in 1993.

Holland is upbeat about the future of jazz in China, as the individualistic art form’s popularity grows in what has, until recently, been one of the world’s most conformist societies.

“I’m looking at this as new territory. That’s what’s exciting to me, a chance to introduce the music to the Chinese people and to have them exposed to contemporary jazz,” said Holland, who has played with jazz greats from Stan Getz to Herbie Hancock. “What communicates to the average person, even if they’re new to jazz, is the emotional content. It’s a universal language, this music.”

Touchstone’s Xia agrees. “The distinctive qualities of jazz don’t come from any single nationality,” Xia said. “Precisely because it has this feature of improvisation, any kind of individual from any country can get into jazz.”