Historic Shanghai

Shanghai is associated with Jazz mostly because “Big Band” dance music was the international style of preference during the city’s romanticized “golden age” in the 1920s and 30s. But Jazz had a relatively short and limited impact in China’s City that Never Sleeps. The recent resurgence of interest in Jazz in Shanghai, while in part inspired by that distant time, is almost entirely disconnected from the old days. But interestingly, the genre’s contemporary evolution in Shanghai is following a trajectory similar to that which it took eight decades ago.

The earliest Jazz in Shanghai was imported along with musicians from the United States, like Whitey Smith, whose band played at the legendary Metropole Club. To attract and retain the market without which the nightclubs could not succeed - Chinese nightowls - the band leaders soon learned to adapt to local tastes and created a distinct sub-genre: Shanghai Jazz.

The Canidrome Band, Shanghai

One change was from performing covers of tunes popular in the West to “jazzed-up” versions of Chinese songs popular in Shanghai. Another adaptation was to simplify up-tempo and complex jazz rhythms for local tastes. And finally, lyrics of some imported tunes were transcripted into Chinese, and often sung in Shanghai dialect. Retained were the instrumentation, fashion and showmanship of American Jazz, but without that “swing” without which, well, you ain’t got a thing.

At the end of the day, Shanghai Jazz resembled Chinese pop music more than the fast, frolicking and experimental style heard “Stateside” (and if you think about it, pop, rock, rap and alternative music have all followed similar evolutions in China during the past three decades).

Shanghai also inspired a sub-strain of “Orientalized Jazz” in the West, which used exoticized stereotypes of China as inspiration for such tunes as “Sing Song Girl” by the Victor Hollywood Orchestra in 1930, which you can listen to here. [Warning to the gangsta rap generation: use parental discretion, as the lyric may be offensive (it refers to the eponymous sing-song girl as “My little yella Cinderella”)].

Today, Jazz is back in Shanghai, but it has a distinctly “cult” following. The center of the Jazz scene is the JZ Club on Fuxing Lu west of Huaihai Lu (Rue Lafayette near Avenue Joffre, for you older Shanghailanders). Shanghai Jazz lovers are also favored with an excellent website, shanghaijazzscene.com.

And now, as the slow-on-the-uptake folks at the Shanghai Tourism Bureau are waking up that it’s a good idea to package the city a little bit for World Expo 2010, an “official Shanghai Big Jazz Band” has been formed. Be forewarned, this nine-piece ensemble does NOT play anything resembling Count Basie or Benny Goodman: it is a straight-up fusion outfit. Which is fine if that’s your thing. But what is “Shanghai” about it? While they must occasionally play to the demand for nostalgic covers of 1930s Shanghai tunes, we are glad to report that some of their work follows in the Shanghai Jazz tradition of localizing contemporary imported influences. They do a wonderful fusion version of the 1930s classic Ye Shanghai, for instance, with a wild drum solo and a scat-rap section sung entirely in Shanghainese.

Now that’s pushing in the right direction! But we would still like to hear some real Big Bands in Shanghai…

Shanghai Big Jazz Band