It has been a little now since I last updated this blog, so I guess I’ll try to bring you as far up to speed as possible. The month of May saw a lot of changes around the city, not only with the climate and weather, but with musicians coming and going. The Igmar Thomas Quintet finished up their residency at the House of Blues and Jazz and have now been replaced by the Boston-based blues singer and guitarist Greg Luttrell and his trio. I have gone to see them several times and have been consistently impressed with their musicianship.
Heading westward from the Bund, you’ll find a new club that just had its soft-opening yesterday called Sound Blue. It is located in the trendy Taikong Lu area on Sinan Lu and I think it has potential to be the most “legit” jazz club in the city. Opened by local saxophonist Simon Wu, the club was constructed and designed in the style of the cozy and intimate jazz clubs of Tokyo and serves some tasty Japanese cuisine. Out of all the music venues in Shanghai, this club definitely feels the most like a real jazz club – the small room and tables pushed up in front of the stage I think will be quite conducive to audience/performer interaction. The house band is also top-notch and definitely commanded everyone’s attention last night (and it wasn’t just because I sat in on saxophone for a few tunes). The line-up is Jennifer (sorry what is your last name?) on voice, Curtis Ostle on bass (subbing for Michael Brownell until July), Mark Bai on piano, and Alex Ritz on drums. Alex is another Oberlin alum who graduated with me back in 2008. He arrived in town two weeks ago and will be playing at Sound Blue until the end of August. Here is a link to his Myspace page where you can hear sounds of his drumming and arrangements: http://www.myspace.com/alexritzmusic.
Another recent development on the music scene has been the resurrection of the JZ All-Star Big Band. After about a 6 month break, pianist and classy gentleman (according to Layabozi) Nicholas Boloukus has grabbed the metaphorical conductor’s baton and leads this group of musicians through some nice hard bop era big band music. You can hear them and myself play at JZ Club this Saturday at 11pm. We will be performing several songs from the Phil Woods songbook as well as a couple of Boloukus’ originals arranged for large ensemble. Please note though that after this Saturday we will take a break from performing until August, on account of many musicians in the band taking vacations.
As for myself, I have no idea what I am doing for work this summer. For the last three months I have been freelancing, which actually is a synonym for unemployed and sometimes homeless. It’s been a little difficult to save any money – pretty much everything I earn I end up spending. But as of right now there are several contract gigs which I might be able to get my hands on. This could be good, since I should really be trying to save some more money, but it will also bolt me down to Shanghai for the immediate future. I am still trying to find a couple of weeks where I can fly home to DC and catch up with friends, but being the whore for money that I am, these contract jobs will probably trump any vacation I was thinking about…
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