Scotty Wright: My Hero

These past couple weeks, I've had a chance to spend some time with an incredible musician, teacher and person in general...Scotty Wright. A couple weeks back, I had heard news of an American jazz singer in Chengdu, playing at local 5-star hotel the Shangri-La. As the music communitiy is quite small here, it wasn't long before I met him at a jam session at local ex-pat hotspot Cafe Paname. The jazz group Bossma was backing him up as he tore it up for a full house. I was really impressed at his versatility and endless energy. It's amazing how much better you play when there's someone there who you can feed off of.

Since that gig, we got a chance to play together at the Shangri-La for an Oktoberfest celebration. They actually booked a German oom-pah band from Hong Kong, but they had some visa troubles. Enter: us! The gig was four sets of music for the outdoor section of the hotel's Irish bar: Mooney's. The place was complete with ten course buffet, pretzel trees and an endless supply of "real" German beer. The band was Scotty, myself, Ma Jun (Machine) on drums and a guitarist, whom I cannot remember his name at this moment. In the above video, we are deep in one of our many blues jams. To tell you the truth, Scotty and I were a little worried about the musical content, as we had never played with the two locals before. However, all four sets went off without a hitch. I've found that anywhere you go, if you get four random professional musicians together, they can not only make a show, but it can be a lot of fun!

After about three hours of playing, I had to fun to my night gig at the Music House. By that point I was a little tired, but definitely warmed up to play some real jazz. Scotty showed up later to jam with our two jazz singers: Chi Chi and Fei Fei (they love double names in China). He once again brought down the house with his unique vocal talents and taught us all something in the process. Beam us up Scotty! (ok that was lame)


If you have a chance, check Scotty out!

Shoe Gig

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Yesterday morning, I was up at 6am and off to another Chinese gig. As usual, I had no idea where or what kind of show it would be. My favorite agent, Suky was in charge. Therefore, I donned the usual black and white getup. Upon arrival to his place, he immediately got off on a bad food by telling me that my shirt wasn't white enough. This made me a little grumpy, but after a nap in the car to the venue I forgot all about that. As I awoke, I saw the giant "Lady Shoe Center of China". This is going to be a good one, I thought. There was an expo for all the shoe factories in the area, and I was there to represent one of the companies. It was an easy gig: I popped in my jazz play-a-long cd, jammed a bit, schmoozed with Chengdu's wealthiest, then it was over! I did seem to draw quite a crowd. It didn't look like any other company splurged on a laowei (foreigner) musician and with the huge sound system the rented, it was hard to ignore me. I didn't get a chance to explore the expo center, but it looked like hundreds of carbon-copy displays like the one I was lucky enough to play.
The only downside to my morning was that I left my cell phone in car. Fortunatly, however today I was able track it down. It's amazing how indespensible this little gadget is these days. I had about 20 missed calls and 15 messages. Everyone thought I had fallen off the face of the planet! Well, China....I'm Back!

Mahjong, Baijiu and a Squirt Gun

Last Saturday marked the end of China's National Holiday. Most locals usually make the most of the last couple free days, and the Li's, Yi's and Hu's were no different. I had the pleasure of joining my student and his family (the Li's) for a day trip to Chengdu's North Lake. We were joined by family friends the Yi's, Hu's and little dog Mimi. The North Lake was actually quite beautiful. It looked pollution-free, had no boats and didn't smell like a toilet. There were many Chinese-style gates and gazebos nearby for many photo opportunities. The ground was set up like a resort, complete with mini-amusement park, midway, junk shops and family restaurants. I was happy to find a little squirt gun at one of the junk shops. Now I can discipline my cat successfully! After we explored a bit, it was lunch time. We ate at the center restaurant of the resort. The food was traditional Sichuan and the drink was baijiu. Baijiu is one of the harshest Chinese liquors. I was curious why we were drinking this at lunchtime, but after the first glass, I understood. The next activity on the slate was tea-drinking and finally....Mahjong! Ever since seeing locals playing this tile game in the street, I knew that I had to learn. Today was the day!

All of the Chinese moms took turns hovering over my shoulder, telling my which tile to play. It took a few rounds, but I was starting to get the hang of it. I would characterize Sichuan Mahjong as a cross between dominos and Rummikube. The tiles comtain three suits and are numbered from one to nine. Some of the tiles are difficult to learn because instead of a number they have the Chinese character. It really is a pretty fun game. Especially after you learn some of the associated Chinese words like: 'La' and 'mao' and my favorite: 'Peng!' After i was pretty good at the game, it was hard for the moms to stop giving me advice. Later, I noticed that they weren't always having me play the best tile as their children were also playing, giving them the upper hand. I look forward to bring Mahjong back to the states, look out world series of poker.

CHONGQING!

Sunday was the beginning of China's national holiday and what better way to celebrate than get 9 days off teaching! I wanted to do some traveling during the holiday, but wasn't sure where or how. When I was pondering this question over some jaozi (dumpling), out of nowhere an agent called me with a gig in Chongqing. I had always been interested in visiting this city, as it was near Chengdu, and even LARGER! Prior to 1997, Chongqing was the capital of the Sichuan province. Thanks to the three gorges powerplant project, Chongqing merged with nearby communties Fuling and Wanxian to create a separate municipality. Now Chongqing contains more than 30 million people. It's an interesting place, situated bewteen the Yangzi and Jialing rivers, Chongqing is a mountainous city. You won't find bikes and mopeds like you would in Chengdu as most of Chongqing is located on the Yungui Plateau. The train ride to the city was about 5 1/2 hours from Chengdu. When we arrived we dined on Chonqing's specialty: Hot Pot.

The gig itself was located in the outskirts of the city. Just across the road from the huge residential development were rolling hills of lush farmlands. I thought if it wasn't for all of this pollution (or "fog" as locals called it) it might be a nice place to live. The gig was located on a outdoor stage of the showroom of a huge real estate company. I should mention that I wasn't alone in this venture. Fellow saxophonist and Connectictuan Josh Katz shared the stage with me and Dr. Aerbersold (our cd accompaniment). Over the next two days we had a total of three appearances for about 15 minutes each. The travel and accomidations were all provided, plus a salary. Consequently, we felt very fortunate for this little vacation. Between our shows, another local 'English Rock' - style band played. They were made up of a keyboardist, bassist and singer; all Chinese. Josh and I immediatly saw the opportunity to combine forces, but our manager would allow this. Managers here often see their performers as property; especially foreigners. Neverthless, we were quick to befriend this band and made plans to meet them later Monday night.

We had some fun with a group of bored kids who were brave enough to approach us. The oldest was obviously learning a little English, but fell back into Chinese as Josh demonstrated his knowledge. It was nice to have a little distractions as we had some free time bewteen our shows.

Monday evening, we got a chance to explore downtown Chongqing. Compared to Chengdu, i felt it was much more modern and aesthetically pleasing. We began at a food temple. This was similar to other one I had been in Shanghai and Nanjing, but was still a lot of fun. The temple was built on the side of the plateau near adjacent to the Chang Jiang (Yangzi River). Inside, the place was bustling with all kinds of street food, trinkets and people everywhere. We met up with our agent's friend, then headed to dinner.

Tuesday's performances went like clockwork. After the morning gig, we had a few hours break, so we decided to go to the local amusement park. Although it had similarities to American fun parks: rides, midway, junk food etc, there were some aspects which made me feel a little unsafe. First, cars were allowed to drive through the main streets. This was a bad idea for one: Chinese drivers feel that pedestrians don't exist, two: they're never happy waiting in line. The next danger was a go-kart track located next to a camel riding ring, next to an ATV track, and the fences did not look very sturdy. The park was truly amusing thanks to the "Golden Reception Hall" complete with Western chapel in the center of the park. This seemed like the place to go when getting hitched in Chongqing. Thanks to the cars, tons of people, pollution, 90 degree heat and general uncleanliness of the place after an hour or so, I felt like this:

We played one more performance before grabbing the 5:50 train back to Chengdu. Unfortunately, I had lost my return ticket we had to get to the train station early to buy a new one. It only took a few minutes to find a scalper and bought the same a ticket for the same train at the same cost! A meal of low quality beef noodles and we were off back to Chengdu. During the 5 hours back, I couldn't help to think about how in 10 years or so, Chongqing could be up there with Beijing and Shanghai. After all, 30 million people is nothing to sneeze at.

Busy Weekend - Sat. & Sun.

Here's some highlights from my gigs last Saturday and Sunday.
Saturday
Our gig was in Chengdu this time, only about 2o min. from my home. The venue was a place called the 'Parrot Club'.









I got the chance to play with talented musicians (from L to R) Suky; agent, Kavain; bass, Philip; tpt, vocals, flute, Josh; sax and Me on keys.










After our 15 min. performance, the program continued with a sauntering accordianist. this seemed pretty normal for a Chinese performance, until I noticed he was followed by a group of small children. They eventually sat on chairs on the stage and he commenced to tell stories and play folk songs to them. There was also a model greeting guests.

Sunday
We traveled to SW Chengdu for yet another real estate gig.









It was the usual group: Philip, Fu and myself with the addition of guitarist/mandolinist Alex.











This was an all day gig, so between performances we got a chance to explore a bit. We ate lunch at this mutton soup restaurant...hao chi!










Later, Philip and I explored the local meat and produce market. This was one of the better ones I've been to in China. Everything looked pretty fresh. You could buy anything you need: veggies, slabs of meat, assorted tofu, pickled...anything, roots, noodles, dumplings and more.