By Zou Yue
GUITAR, keyboard, base, drum… welcome to the world of jazz. Jazz guitarist Zhang Xiongguan said he started playing when in high school.
“Like every kid in high school, I liked pop music, rock music,” Zhang told me after a show at the Jazz at Lincoln Center. It is the only overseas branch of the New York-based jazz club.
“And I didn’t actually hear any jazz before I was introduced to my professor at the Shanghai Conservatory,” he said. “Jazz to me, it’s so fresh. It’s like nothing I’ve heard from rock or pop music before.”
Jazz arrived in China in the early 1920s and came out a great success. The east China metropolis even established its own jazz band, with all members Chinese.
The evolution of jazz in China experienced ups and downs that ran parallel with the country’s social, economic and political evolution through the years. Now, the music is witnessing a rebirth in the Chinese city where it was first introduced.
“When I was a student here, about 15 years ago, there was already local Chinese musicians playing jazz all around the city. And they’re still playing now. But the younger generation is coming up,” Zhang said.
Professor Murray James Morrison came to China in 2007 and now teaches jazz at NYU Shanghai. A saxophonist himself, he is impressed by the development of jazz in the city. “The growth that I’ve witnessed in the last 13 years is nothing short of incredible. Like its year-over-year improvements, and it’s multi-culture improvements.” “The scene here, I think in Shanghai, maybe for most out of the cities in China with like a bustling jazz scene, is extremely eclectic,” Morrison added.
For Zhang Xiongguan, the city that he lives in means inspiration. “When it comes to composing, I think it really matters where you came from, where you live, and the background you have. And the audience you have in the city you live in,” said the young musician.
Professor Morrison said cities like Shanghai also provide musicians opportunities to work with talents from other places. “It’s Chinese musicians working with other musicians in cities like Shanghai and Beijing and elsewhere, and just working really hard on their craft,” he said. “So it’s a kind of like cultural fusion, like jazz was since the beginning.”
Jazz involves a blending of different cultural elements, but it is no more than an interplay of musical notes.
Also in Shanghai, there is a much larger experiment of fusion – of people, money and ideas. It happens here in Disneyland, the first American theme park on the Chinese mainland.
“We decided that we were going to focus on what we call authentically Disney and distinctly Chinese. For example, the castle that’s behind us, it’s the tallest castle in the world, but at the tallest peak of it, there is a peony flower at the top,” Joe Schott, president and general manager of Shanghai Disney Resort, told me.
“A peony flower, that’s a Chinese flower,” I replied.
“That’s right. The second spire down has a magnolia flower (city flower of Shanghai) to celebrate Shanghai,” said Schott, an American who started to work at Disney when he was 18.
Disney’s efforts have paid off. It received its 10 millionth guest within 11 months of opening in 2016.
“I think this is the good outcome of China-American relations. And also this is a good example of Chinese culture and American culture working together, to bring the people the colorful world,” said Lin Songtian, president of Chinese People’s Association for Friendship with Foreign Countries.
Localization also enabled Disney to better weather the storm caused by COVID-19. The Shanghai resort reopened in May, the first among Disney’s parks.
Schott said the introduction of mobile services facilitated that process. According to Statista, China has been the world’s largest smartphone market since 2012. Official data show China has more than 1.6 billion mobile subscribers, that’s larger than the country’s entire population of 1.4 billion.
Schott told me he was impressed by the fast-pace and innovation that he has watched in China. “We introduced a new function electronically, on a digital app… 80 percent adoption, overnight, one day, adopted from manual process to electronical process, amazing!” he said.
– The Daily Mail-CGTN news exchange item
