Tag: Beijing

  • Celebrating 100 Years of Miles Davis

    Celebrating 100 Years of Miles Davis
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    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

  • Shi Yuji’s Quartet Lights Up the Night @ East Shore Live Jazz Café

    Shi Yuji’s Quartet Lights Up the Night @ East Shore Live Jazz Café
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    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

  • Seamus Blake’s Thoughts on Music

    Seamus Blake’s Thoughts on Music
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    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

  • Cordâme at the Blue Note, Beijing

    Cordâme at the Blue Note, Beijing
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    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

  • Godspeed You! Black Emperor Takes Beijing

    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