Jazz Do It

I am a hard-core jazz fan, and to me, last Sunday's 'All That Shanghai Jazz' concert, was simply marvelous.

Save for some distracting lack-lustre vocals from the girls, the nite was an exhilarating musical roller-coaster ride with some of China's best young musicians, including flamboyant male vocalist Coco Zhao Ke.

While improvisation was kept to a minimum, these fresh blood gave grand old Shanghai jazz a refreshing revival through lively and energetic expression, at the same time retaining the Big-Band charm of the golden era.

I particularly enjoyed the rendition of trumpets and violin, which were also clearly the star instruments of the night. However, if you explored a little deeper into the ritzy excitement of the night's music, you will be utterly smitten with the stoic piano performance, and whole-heartedly captivated by the deep soulful pizzicato double bass.

It was a pity that the musicians did not have more solo time to demonstrate their exceptional skills and creativity in improvisions. Perhaps they should cut down on the vocals, as the original Shanghai-style stage singing really did not do justice to such brilliant music-making. The exception being Coco's smooth, strong but sensual voice, which held the whole performance together and made it memorable. I'll give him a standing ovation if I was watching in a warmer audience.

Although Shanghai oldies are familiar tunes to most, jazz is still not widely appreciated in Singapore, and that might account for the lukewarm reception. I noticed a large number of older audience who probably bought tickets without realizing that the oldies were to be done with jazzy, and hence rather offbeat arrangement. I have a feeling they would be left quite unimpressed by the noisy and messy music, while the real jazz-lovers could have missed this fabulous outing due to its Huayi - Chinese Festival of Arts 2005 branding typically associated with traditional Chinese heritage.

Who would have thought jazz is quite so universal?