Results tagged “livejazz”

Luckily for us here in Shanghai, U.S. President-Elect Barack Obama's inauguration happens at around the midnight hour. That means, basically, that it's completely acceptable to drink to this historical event

JZ Club has started hosting concerts at the Shanghai Center Theater (the one in the Portman Ritz-Carlton building) and the next one is tomorrow (Friday, that is). This show is featuring Bob James, the smooth jazz pianist who recently recorded his album "Angels of Shanghai" here in town with a number of local traditional intrumentalists. There's more information about the project on Bob James' website.

George Benson and Al Jarreau this Saturday

Concert promoting "The Color of Love" at twocities gallery this Friday

These three fantastic jazz vocalists will do a unique performance this Saturday night at a venue we haven't been to yet, called Lounge 18 (18 on the bund, 4F, 18 Zhongshan Dong Lu, near Nanjing Lu). Coco says it's a fantastic space, which means it should be perfect for the magical evening the group has planned for Saturday. Joining the three singers will be Tinho Pereira, the extraordinary Brazilian bass player who joined Coco and Heidi for their recent show at the Oriental Arts Center, as well as Willow Neilson, an Australian saxophonist who is not playing sax at this show but instead playing Mbira, which is the Zimbabwean thumb piano. It's quite a unique set of sounds to mix together, and a fantastic set of musicians, so expect an amazing night.

Smart Shanghai

Friday night was the first of five nights of racy burlesque performances by the Atomic Bombshells at the Glamour Bar. It was the perfect cure for those "boring Olympic opening ceremony blues", at least until China's own Olympic team paraded onto the screen--at which point nothing could draw the crowd's attention away from the big screen. Luckily that won't be an issue for the remaining 4 nights of shows.

It was our good friend Anna Jacyszyn's penultimate night singing at the newly renovated Ritz-Carlton 2nd floor jazz bar, so we went by last night to hear her. Little had we realized, the band is once again playing in their old haunt on the second floor that has been undergoing renovation for at least a few months (6 or more it seems). The bar was originally scheduled to reopen much earlier than now, but the extension of renovation time seemed to coincide with reports of billowing black smoke from the 2nd floor windows of the hotel around the original finish date. So until just a week and a half ago, the band had been performing in the lobby lounge, which we understand was not as inspiring a performance venue for them.

These concerts keep getting better and better. The twocities in tune concerts have traditionally featured Steve Sweeting on piano joined by a vocalist, and the last one we heard with Jasmine Chen on vocals was off the hook. This time, Steve is going all-out and bringing in bass and drums to join him and vocalist Coco Zhao to make the final concert in the spring series a show-stopper. Playing bass will be Scott Dodd and on drums will be Charlie Foldesh.

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 these guys are pretty big names, and so the cover will be 100RMB each of the nights. As usual, the show will start at 10pm.

Hopefully you'll catch this post in time to get down to Glamour tonight for Norwegian jazz band The Core. They played last night there already, and will do again tonight for their last show here in Shanghai. We'll be there tonight, as we had our own shows to play last night.

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 fit into the Speakeasy atmosphere each time. With legendary barman Markus Bernthaler and his staff of bartenders serving up some great drinks, it makes for a fine evening.

Steve Sweeting knows how to bring creativity out of vocalists. Having worked with a number of local singers in Shanghai since he moved out here almost two years ago, he has produced a number of concerts and even a few albums already with many of Shanghai's best singers. His popular ongoing vocal-piano duo concert series at Twocities Gallery "Twocities in tune," has always been well-attended, as they tend to premier new music and ideas. Even people who have heard these singers before are amazed at these concerts because there's always plenty of completely new stuff.