These two jazz vocalists are among the best Shanghai has to offer, and their show this afternoon will see them accompanied by a very strong rhythm section as well. Part of a series of monthly jazz concerts put on by JZ Club at the Oriental Arts Center, the show will also feature pianist Steve Sweeting, bassist Tinho Pereira, and drummer Ronnie Williams. For more info and tickets: JZ Club Culture.sh.cn Smart Shanghai......

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......

Just a quick update on what's happening in the coming few weeks here in town. Once again, the Speakeasy party will be tonight (April 11) featuring Five Below with Marta Taylor on vocals at JG Bar, Jean George in 3 on the Bund, 4F with music from 11pm-2am. Free entry. This party, currently held every second Friday, is turning into a great hangout with more and more people dressing up in the 20s garb to......

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......

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......

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......

Yet another weekend has arrived, and seems a lot of people have been talking about the opening of the Shelter. They are holding a 'soft opening' tonight and hosting Dex, from the Underground Resistance, tomorrow. For those of you who are in the mood for more of a visual than some dude spinning on the decks (or laptop), there are plenty of live shows to choose from. Just down the street from the Shelter are......

The JZ Festival came to a roaring close today, unfortunately with a much lower afternoon turnout due to the rain but once again a satisfying mix of music, fully dug by those of us who did attend. But we skip ahead -- first back to details of yesterday's festival. Saturday Saturday was a very successful day for the festival, drawing medium-sized crowds again in the afternoon and selling out completely the evening portion. The......

One of Shanghai's greatest vocalists will be moving away for good, we are sorry to say. Arlene has been here about as long as your correspondent, over 4 years, and we've worked together a lot. She's a great singer and she'll do well wherever she ends up (first she's going to Dubai to play with jazz pianist Billy Marcus, who used to play in Shanghai at the Portman jazz bar, and then she's moving to......

The next JazzArt concert is upon us once again! And this time, featured will be the JQ Whitcomb sextet, playing original compositions and fun music from their regular Thursday repertoire as well. It is the first of a whole slew of great concerts and jazz performances happening this month, many of which haven't made it into the magazine listings. So expect to see more news right here over the coming days reporting on them. JazzArt,......

Due to multiple requests (total of two, and one was me) here is more golden week festival news. The previously mention Hop Festival has gotten an official name...so....let it hence forth be referred to as the Yue Festival. Ticket prices are set at 140rmb for students, 280rmb advanced purchase and 360rmb at the gate. Rock-ing has also released their ticket prices and they range from 280-880 depending on how special you want to feel. For......

These are definitely the dog days of summer and as in summers past, live shows have dried up with the heat. Ironically enough Shanghaiist has chosen to skip town and head to even hotter Hong Kong where PK-14, Hedge Hog, New Pants and the Re-tros will be playing in the cramped but intimate Fringe Club on Sunday. For those of you stuck in Shanghai and hankering for some live music check out Etienne (Gypsy Jazz......

The JazzArt concert series got off to a fantastic start with a packed house enjoying two sets of Lawrence Ku's original music on this past Sunday. His group of seven musicians featured the cream of the crop on the Shanghai jazz scene, nearly all of whom are also faculty at the JZ school — including EJ Parker, Alec Haavik, Andy Hunter, Chris Trzcinski, the author of this post, Lawrence himself, as well as the amazing......

Enduring eight straight days of work ahead of the Golden week? Take this opportunity to let off some steam and get out and hit what Shanghaiist thinks that Shanghai has to offer before you either vamoose out of town or bunker down to avoid the May 1st Holiday crush. Today, April 24th Indie legends, Sonic Youth play at the Shanghai Concert Hall from 8pm tonight. Contact the promoters to find a spare ticket on 6474......

"Sax in Shanghai" (not to be confused with a certain blog) is a concert and workshop given by the London-based National Saxophone Choir and it will take place on Thursday at JZ Club from 5-8pm. The event, organized through the JZ School, will feature about 20 saxophonists who regularly play with the NSC as well as any and all sax players who attend the workshop. During the workshop, which runs from 5 to about 6:30,......

One of our favorite Hammond organ players, Steinar Nickelson, is coming back to Shanghai for a few weeks. Another fantastic Norwegian musician, drummer Håkon Mjåset Johansen, will be in town also for only a few days and will play a short concert with Steinar and — shameless plug alert — the writer of this post at JZ Club this Monday night (the 26th). We will play one set, performing a selection of original compositions written......

Having just spent some time in Denmark ourselves, we were delighted to discover that some great Danish musicians would be arriving in Shanghai to play so soon after our return. These guys are quite well-known in Denmark and Europe, having recorded and toured around the world a bit. When we asked our Danish friends about these guys, they said that drummer Emil de Waal is famous as a player of every kind of music, not......

Lyrics to “Nothing to My Name” (一无所有) were already echoing in our head when we passed through the door of JZ Club on Monday night for Cui Jian's show: 我曾经问个不休 你何时跟我走 可你却总是笑我 一无所有 I have asked you endlessly, When will you go with me? But you always laugh at me with, Nothing to my name The place was packed, mostly with Chinese in their 20s and 30s. We saw just a few foreign faces scattered......

We are told he played to a packed house for two hours straight. Look for a show report soon on Shanghaiist. Also on Shanghaiist Cui Jian to play live at JZ Club, Jan. 29......

Yes, that Cui Jian. The godfather of Chinese rock. The one some call "China's Bruce Springsteen." The guy they put on the cover of the first Chinese Rolling Stone. The guy who last year shared a Shanghai stage and accompanied (kind of) Mick Jagger and the Rolling Stones. Yes, that guy is playing an intimate gig Monday night at JZ Club, and we wouldn't have known about it had we not walked past the place......

Last Saturday night, Shanghaiist fancied going to this new place we heard of — the bar where you can drink cocktails with Absinthe — called Tara 57. Located on Fuxing Lu, just next to Boona 2, and opposite JZ Club, this “cocktail lounge”, as they call it, is a very small place. And that is actually a good thing — it's very cozy. Even more (and this is important for us), there is a coat-rack,......

Good Boonna Café: We miss bohemian charm like we miss an old-fashioned milkshake. Luckily, Boonna Café (open in two locations; Boonna 1 is on Xinle Lu, Boonna 2 on West Fuxing Lu, directly across from JZ Club) has both in spades, not to mention attentive waitstaff, a Mac G4 (how often do you see one of those in a coffee shop?), and no cell phone rings set to the blare of (bad) Korean pop. Yet.......

Stop reading. Call JZ Club. Find out how you can buy tickets for tonight's Sparrow Quartet gig. They were excellent last night at a packed Cotton Club. It's so nice to see skilled musicians (including one who many consider to be the best ever at his instrument of choice) having a great time making music together. And Abigail Washburn, Bela Fleck, Casey Driessen and Ben Sollee really did seem to be having a great time......

The good and the not-so-good from the previous several days The good: Wikipedia unblocked: Half-assed fact-checking (and hyperlinking) made possible once again. Live in Shanghai website: A surprisingly good source for Shanghai neophytes. And, um, the navigationally impaired.Time Passage: Drinking a few beers and rolling some dice at Time Passage is a fine way to spend a Saturday evening. Two gripes: Get at least one decent beer—Tiger makes us hurt the next day. How about......

Today is the first of three days of jazz music in Fuxing park, and if you aren't into jazz then perhaps the enticing prospect of being allowed to sit on the grass field is enough reason to show up. Yes, folks, you heard it right- an outdoor music festival on a lawn, in China. The last time they had a music festival here, the grass was covered with some protective hard lego-like pieces of plastic......

The NOTCH Nordic-China music festival kicked off last Wednesday at the Rojam disco with some electro-pop and other synthesizer-laden grooves. The second night of the festival, also at Rojam, featured more ambient effects-based groups and group improvisation. The final show of the festival took place last night at JZ Club, featuring a solo saxophone performance as well as an impressive violin-bass-drums trio. Rojam becomes a sit-down concert venue We weren’t able to attend the Wednesday......

There's a lot of treats in store for jazz listeners over the next couple weeks, starting with the Juno award-winning David Braid sextet dropping into town on Saturday to play at JZ Club. Then the Norway-China ("NOTCH") music festival kicks off during the October holiday week, with concerts taking place at JZ aand Rojam. Most of the shows, including Bugge Wesseltoft (who played two years ago at JZ Club) will be at the Rojam disco......

Blame it on the World Cup, but it’s a testament to the steady improvement of the Shanghai music scene that we now consider a weekend with four live shows “slow.” We unfortunately missed the Beijing rockers, Camel, at Live Bar on Friday night, but heard from reliable sources that they put on a fun, up-beat, pop-punk set. On Saturday, Hackbuteer played a wild show worthy of a crowd of 400 people at Yuyintang, except that......

Shanghaiist was in the mood for jazz last night, so after a simply delicious dinner at Simply Thai, we headed up Fuxing Lu to JZ Club. Unlike the bluesy house band at Cotton Club, JZ tends more toward roots jazz and improv jams, so we were surprised when we showed up to find jazz fusion/electro/drum & bass combo This Is Junglecat setting up on the stage. Led by vocalist Jess Meider and drummer Mico, the......