价日。。。Christmas Eve

This blog is dedicated to the Crown Plaza, for their hospitality this past Christmas Eve. I was not a guest at the hotel, but a guest musician for the Christmas Festivities. With my usual cohorts, Fu and Philip, we performed for three separate functions then raced to the MGM to close their show. Preceded by few drawn out rehearsals, it was a quite busy day. After the whole thing was over, it still didn't feel like Christmas. Maybe that's because I live in China. Maybe it's because they call Christmas: French Epicurian Holiday. Well, anyway, here's some pictures from this crazy day. enjoy!

The Tree Made of Rolls

<--It's us! Philip! -->

Now, to end this blog and blogs to come: some of my favorite Chinese dishes! Today, a delightful, breaded, deep-fried, pork-stuffed, eggplant dish prepared in the manner of Sichuan-style fish. It's... 鱼香茄饼（yu xiang qie bing). This is a picture from a restaurant in between my home and school. A must eat if you visit Chengdu.

圣诞快乐中国 Merry Christmas China! & 乐山大佛 Leshan Giant Buddha

China's Sichuan province is famous for many things, but Le Shan's Giant Buddha may be the most spectacular. This past weekend I had a chance to visit this mountain city to play a gig. Although we did not have a chance to climb the peak to see the 500 ft. Buddha, this blog gives me a chance to show some of my pictures when I visited it in May 2005. The gig itself went off without a hitch. This gig was one of the, as termed by Josh Katz, many Lao Wai (老外) gigs that we play.

As Christmas approaches, there have been many more opportunites for shows. As it looks now, I won't enjoy the traditional relaxing time with my family. Instead I'll be caught up in the rush of playing 3-5 shows each day moving from hotel to bar to real estate gig.

I think it is interesting that a lot of the young Chinese population is beginning to celebrate Christmas. In most big chain stores, you can find the aisles packed with tinsel, fake christmas trees and all kinds of tacky ornaments. On the way to dinner with one of my students, he was asking me how I celebrate Christmas in America. I told him that most Americans families come together and celebrate their own Christmas traditions (decorate the tree, hang lights, go to church etc.) Christmas in China is basically a largely commericial holiday. It gives stores a chance to attract people with special decorations, hotels and restaurants to have special food and parties.

Merry Christmas!

The Band

The much anticipated "Relish" party.

萨克斯管独奏，合奏音乐会 - Prof. Li's Saxophone Orchestra Concert

November 29th marked the return of Sichuan Conservatory of Music (四川音乐学研) saxophone professor, Li Yusheng's Saxophone Orchestra. The concert was held in the SCCM's Xinhua Concert Hall (新华音乐厅) and also featured Mr. Li's students, Master degree student, Mei Song (梅松） and high school senior Han Xiao (韩笑）。 I was also very proud of six of my students who participated in the Saxophone Orchestra.

梅松 - Feld Soprano Sonata

As a member of the 2007 SCCM Saxophone Orchestra, I was happy to see the improvement of the group. The ensemble is now made of of all students of SCCM, as opposed to the previous ensemble made up mainly of teachers and graduates. The concert opened with Han Xiao playing Bach's Cello Suite #1 in G Major on Alto Saxophone. Next, Mei Song perfomed the ever-difficult Sonata for Soprano Saxophone by Jindrich Feld. He finished the first half of the concert with Combelle's lyrical Concert Piece #1. After a long intermission, Han Xiao opened with Pierre Max Dubois's First Concerto for Alto Saxophone and Orchestra; memorized. The rest of the program belonged to the SCCM Saxophone Orchestra: Giuseppe Giordani's , sections from Carmen; Bizet and a rousing encore of the Ouverture from Mozart's The Marriage of Figaro.

韩笑 - Dubois Concerto Mvt. III

Overall, this was a very enjoyable concert as all of the saxophonists played at a very high level. I was especially impressed with the soloists, Congratulations!

Success!

Last night, Nov. 22nd, was my faculty concert at the Sichuan Conservatory of Music. After months of preparation, in a flash it was over! The venue, Nie Er Concert Hall, was very nice. It's a smaller than SCCM's Xiao Yinyue Ting, but the sound was quite nice. I opted to put the piano at small stick rather than full due to the the low ceiling.

The Concert was a success! I was pleased to see an almost full attendance with many of my friends, colleagues and students. Thank you all for coming! Musically, I was also very pleased. Besides sweaty profusely from the spotlights, I felt very comfortable. Also, I want to send a special thank you to my wonderful pianist, Xiong Liang. 都谢谢！

Now, I am thinking about my next concert in the Spring. Who knows....saxophone w/erhu, souna, guzheng...the possibilities are endless! Once again, thank you all who attended last night. It was you who inspired my performance. Those of you who missed it, I plan to post videos as soon as they are available to me.

Come One, Come All! 不见不散！！！

The Offical Concert Poster

The Offical Program

萨 克 斯 中音萨克斯独奏 (1973) 伯哈德 海顿
Solo for Alto Saxophone and Piano Bernhard Heiden (1910--2000)


圣安东尼奥—奏鸣曲 （1995） 约翰 哈宾森
San Antonio - Sonata for Alto Saxophone John Harbison
I. 召唤 The Summons (b.1938）
II. 成排起舞 Line Dance
III. 成队起舞 Couples Dance


迈 (1978) 洛亚 罗达
Mai Ryo Noda
(b.1948)


绒毛小鸟奏鸣曲（1995） 塔卡施 犹史马蔟
Fuzzy Bird Sonata Takashi Yoshimatsu
I.跑，小鸟 Run, Bird (b.1953)
II.唱，小鸟 Sing, Bird
III.飞，小鸟 Fly, Bird


嬉游曲 （1964） 罗杰 布崔
Divertimento Roger Boutry
I.不太快的快板 Allegro ma non troppo (b.1932)
II.慢板 Andante
III.急板 Presto

黄龙溪 - Huang Long Xi

Nimen hao! (hello all) First of all, my apologies on this delayed blog post. The end of October and beginning of November have been quite busy for me (plus my internet was down for a while). These days, I have been preparing my students for the midterm exam, playing gigs, learning Chinese and preparing for my recital on top of all that. The SCCM saxophone midterm exam was last Wednesday. Luckily, only 2nd, 3rd and 4th year students were required to play. That meant I only had to hear about seventy scales and etudes. Most of them played quite well. I was pleased to hear a good balance of Ferling, Lacour (progressive etudes) and Mule (18 etudes) Etudes. The Thursday and Friday after the exam were teacher work days and sport competitions for the students. I thought this would be a good chance to see a little more of old Chengdu. My friend, cellist and teacher, Karen Liu accompanied me to the ancient town of Huang Long Xi on the Friday.

After a breakfast of baozi and milk tea, Karen and I hopped the 12:30 8 元(about $1) bus from the Xinnanmen station to Huang Long Xi. The bus was packed as I assumed other teachers and students were taking advantage of this little holiday. In about 50 minutes, we arrived and were immediately greeted by merchants selling flower wreaths to worn on the head (a local custom to take the tourist's money I suppose). After a million '不要!'s (don't want) we continued to the main entrance. My first impression, was that Huang Long Xi looked similar to many of the ancient towns I had been to before. However, there were definitely some specialties which made it unique. For example, every shop sold these corn husks with smoked beans inside. They were terrible. We did pick up some mint candy and sesame pastry which was pretty good.


The reason Huang Long Xi was so popular was due to the temple street. Supposedly there were three temples on one street. This was something I had to see. Sure enough! Smack in the middle of town, there was a street with one big and two small temples. The big one was special because it had a Banya tree. According to the sign the tree was over 6000 years old. I would have posted pictures, but after taking many videos my camera's battery ran out. Learned my lesson. The other interesting place was an ancient Chinese courthouse complete with gallows, guillatine and pictures of when they made a movie there. Someone there said that almost 200 films have been made there!

Huang Long Xi is located at the juncture of the Jin and Luxi rivers. Although the water isn't that clean, you can still take boat rides at your own risk. The town is said to be about 1700 years old, which to American standards is pretty amazing. After a few hours of exploring the winding streets we were hungry. The whole time there we saw and smelled all kinds of interesting foods. The speciaties there were dried seafood and tofu. Because we were planning a big dinner, we chose only the seafood for lunch. They prepare the little dried seasoned shrimp, crabs and fish by deep frying them, then dusting them with more salt and spices. The flavor was pretty good, but it was kind of strange eating the whole crab, shell and all.

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

,

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.

Busy Weekend - Friday

I've only been back in China for a little over two weeks and it seems like all of my free time is spent with gig-related activities. Don't get me wrong, I'm not complaining! Usually a couple shows more than covers my rent and utilities for the month. Since Friday, I played four gigs; 3 on sax and one on keys. Each brought it's own surprises, frustrations and tasty tidbits of insight into Chinese culture.

The madness began Friday afternoon at the a high-rise on Renmin South Road. As I headed up to the 18th floor, I double checked my gear: sax, neckstrap, reeds, play-a-long cd...ok, I'm set. I was greeted by a woman who looked Asian, by spoke English without an accent. This was helpful, as my chinese is not up to snuff when dealing with business matters. She told me that the gig would be one of the strolling saxophonist type. Zai jian Jamey. Fortunately, only about 20 people showed up. The event was the opening of a French architect's Chengdu branch. I played about 10 min. as people came in, waited out the program, then played one more tune after. Easy! Ok...got the money, on the the next show.

It was the second anniversary of local ex-pat hotspot "The Bookworm" (coffee house/library/bar). Philip had arranged the whole night: three sets, four musicians, one ipod. Keyboardist Fu, the ipod and myself played all the sets while Philip was in and out dealing with his other nightly haunts. Our featured vocalist was Aussie and Bookworm mini-celeb, Lauren. We opened the show with Philip, Fu and myself. After a few tunes, Phil left Fu and I to fend for ourselves. No problem. By the second set, a good crowd, mostly made up of Brits, had developed. This set would be Fu, myself and Lauren. She had five tracks and i had six, all on the ipod for easy control. As we got up on the stage, the already slighty intoxicated audience began chanting 'lau-ren, lau-ren'. This seemed to give her some courage as I put on the first tune. Everything seemed good as she started singing. Then she stopped...but the singing didn't. It turned out she put the wrong track on the ipod; WITH the vocals. She was a pro though, on to Nelly Furtado's 'Like a Bird' and the audience had forgotten the little mishap. The next 45 minutes went smoothly enough as I played a few jazz tunes with Fu. Lauren finished off the set with 'Son of a Preacher Man' and 'Imagine'. I just wished we could have had a rehearsal. Philip got back from his rounds at about 11pm, just in time for the last set. By this time the party was in full swing. After a rousing 'Happy Birthday' song and thanks yous from Peter the owner, people began dancing and carousing rather fiercly. Philip had planned for this and programmed uptempo dance numbers for the last set. We played for about another hour. As the audience was quite inebriated they really seemed to enjoy us. At once point a couple Chinese girls got up on stage and became the band dancers. This was definitely the most fun of the whole evening. I finally got out of there around 1am. It was a pretty busy day with teaching 5 students in the morning and the gig in the afternoon. A good warm-up for the weekend; Real Estate gigs on Saturday and Sunday. Blog to come. Now i must sleep.