Author: Alec Sugar
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Jazz for Five: Zhang Zhuoran’s Quartet at Smoke Bar
With an audience of five—the bartender at Beijing’s Smoke Bar, the drummer’s girlfriend buried in her laptop, and three stray listeners—Zhang Zhuoran’s quartet played two long sets as if the room were packed. Jazz has always been about the interaction between musicians, whether or not anyone is there to hear the tree fall. Bassist Zhang Read more
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Celebrating 100 Years of Miles Davis
The nonchalant bassline of “So What” sauntered out of the gate, initiating a call-and-response with the horns, and the Blue Note China Jazz Orchestra leaned into the opening notes of a Miles Davis centennial tribute in Beijing. The sixteen-piece ensemble – four trumpets, three trombones, five saxophones, a pianist, guitarist, bassist, and drummer – was Read more
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Nieve Connects with Clichés
“A sold-out rap concert in Beijing, by an American rapper I’ve never heard of?” I snagged an extra ticket to find out what the hype was about. The floor of the Blue Note had been cleared of its usual dining tables for standing room only. Young people pressed together from the stage to the back Read more
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Shi Yuji’s Quartet Lights Up the Night @ East Shore Live Jazz Café
Does music come from within or do we pull it from the air around us? When summoning a piece, Shi Yuji closed his eyes and swayed, snapping his fingers and quietly breathing to an inaudible beat. The music took shape before it was heard, like a ski lift the quartet was waiting to hop on Read more
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Seamus Blake’s Thoughts on Music
On a late afternoon in Beijing’s trendy Houhai neighborhood, families pushed ice sleds across a frozen pond. Inside the East Shore Live Jazz Cafe across from the pond, Canadian tenor saxophonist Seamus Blake was holding court. Blake is focusing on the music of jazz great Eddie Harris for this tour. The title of his new Read more
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To Rupture or Refine: New Releases from The Mars Volta & Deftones
Some musicians keep reinventing their sound throughout their career, carving a crooked path through new genres and instrumentation, while others continuously improve on a signature sound. The Beatles transformed from the eager pop-rock of Meet the Beatles! to the bouncy psychedelia of Sgt. Pepper’s in just three years. Bruce Springsteen, on the other hand, has Read more
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Cordâme at the Blue Note, Beijing
Blocks away from Tiananmen Square, so near the seat of China’s government that a pedestrian has to cross two security checkpoints just to get there, lies an institution well-known to Western music lovers. A steep staircase leads you down from an austere courtyard into an expansive cavern where young people dine on burgers and fries Read more
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Godspeed You! Black Emperor Takes Beijing
The first snowfall of December 2025 kept many Beijingers at home on a Friday night, but some youth instead bundled up and stood in the cold outside Olympic Park, eyes closed and ears straining to catch the sounds coming out of Fulang Livehouse. Inside, a crowd pressed together shoulder-to-shoulder, jackets still on despite the hot Read more
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Nine Inch Nails Peels It Back
[Author’s note: This is the second of two nearly finished drafts that sat unpublished while I was busy relocating overseas for the past couple months. Better late than never, and who cares?] “Have to say I woke up this morning with a big cloud over my head. Thanks, I needed this.” Trent Reznor’s only words Read more
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Oasis Live `25 and Forever
[Author’s note: This will be the first of two nearly finished drafts that sat unpublished while I was busy relocating overseas for the past couple months. Better late than never, and who cares?] Late one night in a rural town in Wales, singer Liam Gallagher decided to bring some drunken strangers he’d just met at Read more