MP3 Monday: Jonathan Parker
By Morgan Short, Feb 14th, 2011 | In Nightlife
MP3 Monday is a weekly SmartShanghai column, serving up mp3s from bands living and making music in China (or coming to China, or thinking about coming to China, or whatever). Copyright holders: if you would like your song removed, please email us here, and we'll honor your request promptly.
Don’t usually -- actually don’t ever, really -- feature jazz music on the super terrific MP3 Monday column, which is more a circumstance of my inability to talk about jazz and discuss it in a meaningful way rather than a reflection on the jazz scene in this city. It's a function of ignorance, really. To be sure, jazz in Shanghai is a widely celebrated and flourishing phenomenon -- at least it seems like it from an outsider’s perspective -- arguably, even more than that local rock shit, which is at times subject to fractious egoism, and a sort of depressing, counterproductive competition mentality, especially if you view it on a national level.
But that jazz in Shanghai seems to conducted according to a real communal, collaborative mindset -- a real diverse array of mutually supportive international talent -- with a steady influx of new visiting and resident musicians at places like the JZ Club and House of Jazz and Blues, the JZ School getting the kids young, and as well as the yearly JZ Music Festival, which is the only real outdoor music festival in town. And very large and successful and adored by all.
I guess jazz writing in the city is more to blame (with the exception of Mike and Mache at Layabozi.com) -- the lack of it, and it’s an under-represented art form, it seems, in the cultural focus of Shanghai. Or maybe I don’t have the right stuff book-marked, I don’t know.
Anyways, that’s all a rather long preamble to introduce this week’s soup de jour, which is American saxophonist Jonathan Parker, who is perhaps very emblematic of the positive work coming out of Shanghai’s jazz community. Parker was living and performing in Shanghai for two years before relocating to New York, but before he left he recorded some original material this past September with a few other jazz players around town -- Lawrence Ku, Theo Croker, Alex Ritz, and more. He released a full album of material “The Jonathan Parker Group” in December of 2010, which is available on BandCamp right here. Music is modern jazz... cool-ass modern jazz.
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On the first track, “Clearyisms”, Parker is joined by Andres Boiarsky on tenor sax, Theo Croker on trumpet, Mindy Ruskovich on trombone, Curtis Ostle on bass, Sean Higgins on piano, and Alex Ritz on drums.
On that second one “Minimum Wage” is Lawrence Ku on guitar, Sean Higgins on piano, Curtis Ostle on bass, and Alex Ritz on drums.
Pretty neat stuff. A nice change of pace for Monday... Here’s that BandCamp link again for the full album.
Keep up with Jonathan in New York at his main webpage right here. He's getting some nice reviews for his work in New York, written by people more qualified than I, and you can read them on that page as well.
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willow, Feb 16th, 2011
Nice, many people in the scene here already miss JP and DAMN RIGHT Shanghai has a good jazz scene, like a beautiful pearl in the muck of an epidemic of BOOM BOOM BOOM techno DJ clubsPlease sign in or register to comment