It seems terribly wrong to admit – and I do so freely – that I know next to nothing about “Chinese jazz”. Is there an obligation to? No. But I am naturally curious. So filling an empty tank in the knowledge department by listening to this compilation is a good enough reason for spending time with it.
The project documents in a slightly grandiose manner the work of modern Chinese jazz musicians and composers, it comes over as having a strong debt to American jazz overall, featuring artists such as trumpeter Li Xiaochuan, guitarist Zhang Xiongguan and bassist Wang Chenhuai. Opener ‘Arc Light’ is pleasant enough but could be from anywhere. As indeed ‘One is Too Many’ – a pretty ballad – could masquerade as a Pat Metheny tune easily enough. It’s not an album full of Chinese music matched and fused like a folk jazz amalgam. For examples of that I’d go hear Nils Petter Molvær’s fine collaboration on the EP Symbiosis with Chang Jing, a guzheng (Chinese zither) virtuoso.
Li Xiaochuan
Put together partly by Blue Note Records’ Don Was and people on the ground in China, it’s quite a subdued record in extended parts. ‘Haven of the Wandering Desert’ I found quite weak and skipped happily enough without much of a backward glance. But ‘Song for My Family’ is perfectly OK with some nicely captured bass and tentative piano.
The Chinese government’s perspective on jazz has fundamentally transformed over the past century, shifting from an era of passionate commercial adoption to an absolute political prohibition, before finally settling into today’s highly strategic, state supported institutional embrace.
I liked the last track ‘Where It All Began’ best. It has people like The Sofia Session Orchestra & Choir featuring Eugene Sun on guitar and piano, Yongheng Wu on drums, Brandon Lin on bass and trombone, Noah Hocker on trumpet and David Diao on flute.
The realist in me sees this as primarily a Universal – who own Blue Note – marketing exercise rather than a considered artistic one to expand its footprint in China along with a similar initiative involving classical imprint Deutsche Grammophon. But putting that theory aside what’s here is OK but not particularly exciting.
Chinese jazz instead needs a huge artist to emerge – like the equivalent of a Lang Lang – to cast light on what the nation can offer. In the big success of Laufey who has some Chinese heritage you can see the potential. But the wait for someone like that, an instrumentalist rather than a singer – and rather than a second volume in this series – continues.
