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.

Seemed like it was a long way off, but hey, here it is already: this weekend, the seventh iteration of the ever-popular JZ Shanghai Music Festival down at the Expo Garden Park. Bigger than ever -- and, indeed, building off the more populist and expanded approach that had organizers drop the word “jazz” from the title of the thing last year -- this year’s festival features more than 100 bands performing on six stages, covering musical bases from jazz and jazz off-shoots to blues, rock, international traditional music and electronica.



Read on for strictly the details -- who, what, when, why, how come, snuh?, meh? -- and some MP3 tunes to get you jazzzzzed up for it. Skiddle-de-bap-do-dap!

The Basics

JZ Shanghai Music Festival (Green Note)

Yes, it’s 100 bands and six stages but its split up between two sections and two venues.

The main festival is this weekend on Saturday and Sunday at Expo Garden Park. That’s two full days of music from 12pm noon to 11:00pm on both days, on five of those aforementioned six stages. That’s called the “Green Note” portion of the JZ Festival, and will host the lion’s share of those 100 acts. In addition to the “Green Note” main stage -- featuring among others the headlining acts, Roy Ayers, Tower of Power, Jazzanova, Jojo Mayer & Nerve -- there’s also four more secondary, smaller, themed stages, with a bunch more stuff, including an electronic stage with DJs plying electronica. So it’s standard festival rules: you’ll be meandering around to a couple different stages checking out whatever.

If your affections run along electronic lines as well as live music, the background on that electronic stage is that’s it’s been curated by Ben Huang, one of China’s most well-known DJs (house / techno) and promoters. He’s put together a line-up of local faces for two days of dance music -- these names will be familiar to you if you’ve done hard time on Shanghai’s clubbing circuit: Mia, Razor, V-Nutz, Siesta, Kamikaze, Teng Boon, Icenine & Cavia, Youdai, Thomas Cher, and more. Music is all over from techno, house, hip hop, and beyond. Anyways…

Click here for the full two-day schedule of the JZ Shanghai Music Festival.

***

JZ Shanghai Music Festival (Master Hall)

The “Master Hall” portion of the festival is the aforementioned sixth stage of this thing. In addition to the two-day, outdoor concert is a nightly concert series at the Shanghai Center Theater from October 18 to October 23.

So, basically, what you have is the two-day festival this weekend, and then after that, starting on Tuesday, October 18 -- a week from tomorrow -- is a whole additional week of nightly performances featuring acclaimed international bands and musicians. The acts booked for the nightly concert series at the Shanghai Center Theatre represent five additional concerts to the outdoor thing, so don’t get burned out on the weekend concert, because there’s a bunch more stuff all week after that.

You can view the whole schedule right here for the Master Hall concerts. They’ve got McCoy Tyner, John Pizzarelli, and more. Basically, five acts in which the press write-ups make ample use of words like “legend”, “seminal”, “acclaimed” “multi-award-winning” and the like.

So that’s nightly. Running the week after the outdoor festival from October 18 to October 23. At the Shanghai Center Theatre.

The Tickets

After our little break for Golden Week, SmartTicket is back up and running and accepting orders for all facets of this thing. It breaks down as follows:

For the two-day, outdoor festival this weekend -- JZ Shanghai Music Festival (Green Note) -- both single day tickets and two-day passes are available. They’re 150rmb for one day and 200rmb for both days. Pretty simple.

Click here to order JZ Shanghai Music Festival (Green Note) tickets.

***

For the nightly indoor concert series -- JZ Shanghai Music Festival (Master Hall) -- you’ll be picking and choosing which night(s) you want to go, and ordering by seat section. Depending on how up close and personal you want to get with the performers, tickets are 200rmb to 1000rmb. Unfortunately, cheap seats are already sold out for some of those. Alas…

Click here to order JZ Shanghai Music Festival (Master Hall) tickets.

The Location(s)

We’ll deal with the simple one first -- the “Master Hall” venue. The Shanghai Center Theatre is at 1376 Nanjing Xi Lu, in between Tongren Lu and Xikang Lu, basically right in the center of Shanghai, in The Portman. (Taxi print up right here.) Closest subway stop is Jing’an Temple.

***

Okay, the harder one. The two-day outdoor festival this weekend is being held at the “Expo Garden Park” in Pudong, a first for the JZ Festival, which was hitherto in Century Park for the last couple years.



The main entrance for the festival at Expo Garden Park is at the corner of Shibo Avenue and Chang Qing Bei Road. Looking at the map above, it’s that red star at the opposite end of the park from Mercedes Benz Arena, which is that silver, flying saucer-looking thing.

Getting there by cab:

Coming from Puxi, you’re going across Lupu Bridge – glorious, glorious Lupu Bridge -- then taking the exit of Yaohua Road 3. That gets you there pretty easily. Remember: get to Shibo Avenue and Chang Qing Bei Road, at the opposite end of the park from Mercedes Benz Arena, which is at 1200 Expo Avenue.

Getting there by subway:

Subway is cheaper of course, but a little more inconvenient because it doesn’t drop you within walking distance of the concert venue. However, this is what you do. Get yourself to Yao Hua Road Station on Metro Line 7 / Line 8 (it’s a transfer station for both those lines). From there, you’ll be catching a free shuttle bus which takes you to the concert direct, which is about 10 minutes away. On both days of the concert, it will be leaving every 15 minutes (11am to 10:30pm). Catch the Shuttle Bus at Exit 1 at Yao Hua Station.

Getting there by bus:

Nuts to the bus, man.

***

And here's some tunes... check out the JZ Festival main page right here for more on these and everyone else on the bill.

***

Roy Ayers (Green Note Stage, October 16, 8pm)

A classic from Roy released back in 1976. Sampled by a load of people since then -- Mos Def, PM Dawn, Common, Mary J. Blige...

Doesn't this tune make you want to get super baked?

Note: SmartShanghai does endorse pulling sweet, sweet, bong rips, like pow.

*

Tower of Power (Green Note Stage: October 15, 10pm)

Expansive soul/funk from an expansive group -- Tower of Power. Soul vaccination is that soul satisfaction.

*

McCoy Tyner (Master Hall Concert, October 21)

"Post bop" from the famous jazz pianist, McCoy Tyner. This one is from his first album released on Blue Note back in 1967. Tyner describes this one as "the sound of a man alone. A man reflecting on what religion means to him, reflecting on the meaning of life."

*

John Pizzarelli (Master Hall Concert, October 22)

Prolific American guitarist, John Pizzarelli -- he's got 23 albums, and appeared on 40 more -- does The Beatles. Bringing a classic sound to some... um... classic sounds. He's rounding out the whole festival on the last night at Shanghai Center Theatre.

***

Shanghai JZ Music Festival is this weekend and all next week. Click here for tickets to the outdoor portion and click here for tickets to any of the nighly concert series shows next week.

More info at the festival main page: www.jzfestival.com

No comments yet

All Nightlife Articles » All Articles »

All Dining Articles » All Articles »

All Art & Stage Articles » All Articles »

All Activities Articles » All Articles »