"The Shanghai Restoration Project" is the title of a series of cross-cultural experimental jazz releases by New York-based artist and producer David Liang. Drawing inspiration from 1930s Shanghai jazz bands, eastern and western musical instrumentation, and the modern rhythms of hip hop and electronica, Liang's releases have garnered critical acclaim in the west, and he's been featured on NBC and NPR, and had his songs used by Luis Vuitton and Christian Dior.

His latest CD "Zodiac" was released in January of this year, and it's a twelve-track album featuring songs inspired by the twelve animals of the Chinese Zodiac. It's available on Amazon.com and itunes. The video preview is available here.

SmartShanghai talked with David about Chinese jazz in the west, cultural restoration, and Karaoke standbys.

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Dave: I am a classically trained pianist and I studied jazz for a summer at Berkeley School of Music, so I am pretty comfortable across both genres. I also play guitar and I studied trumpet when I was young. But I was never any good at the trumpet.


Dave: The name comes from my first trip to Shanghai in 1997. My father was born in Shanghai and my parents live there now, but I was born in Kansas and Shanghai was another world. I was really struck then by the fusion between eastern and western culture. I had really never seen anything like that before. I remember going to the Peace Hotel and seeing these old men, playing jazz, but it had an Asian feel and the singer was singing in Mandarin. The sound really struck me. My mum played music and my grandfather played the Chinese flute, so it was familiar. I was also a big jazz fan; I loved Ella Fitzgerald, Miles Davis, all those guys. So this combined two things I was familiar with and loved.


Dave: Recently there has been a lot of renewed attention on China. With the Olympics in Beijing last year and Expo 2010 for Shanghai, you can't go a day without the New York Times featuring something on China. And more often than not it's Shanghai taking the headlines. I wanted to create an artistic project that mirrored this interest. The Shanghai Restoration Project is about a cultural restoration of that east/west fusion that got put on hold after World War II, when China became more inwards focused. But instead of jazz, I wanted to blend those sounds and that feel with hip-hop and electronica.


Dave: I was brought back to thinking about Chinese music when I did a project for China Records, (a joint venture between the China government and a US label). It was to remix old tracks by 5 Shanghai Divas of their day performing those old songs that my grandmother used to hear walking through the streets of Shanghai. I have done a lot of different things musically, in different genres. I have played jazz piano in clubs and I have produced hip-hop for Bad Boy Records (P-Diddy's label). I am open to a wide range of styles of music and I think that has all fed into the Shanghai Restoration Project.

I was surrounded by Chinese music growing up, but having trained in western harmonic techniques through both jazz and classical music I understand why Chinese instruments don't always go over well in the west. There is a different scale and some of the instruments can be kind of shrill. But these sounds had never been packaged properly. When I put out the first record the response was good from the Asian American population, but now my Facebook and MySpace pages contain fans from Turkey, Europe as well as the US. My music has been used by Luis Vuitton and Christian Dior. NBC used one of my tunes during the Olympics and TV show, The L Word, used one of my tunes in an episode. If you don't beat people over the head with influences it becomes completely accessible and refreshing.


Dave: It is my intention to collaborate with musicians in Shanghai over the next few months. It will definitely be a new experience for me. I have only collaborated with artists in the States and Japan before. But there is a new generation of young musicians coming up for whom there is the potential to be artists for a living. That's exciting.




Dave: China is well placed to allow exciting new acts to come to the fore. During the Olympics last year GE here used a Chinese artist for a TV commercial. It was the first time I had ever seen a Chinese language song on US TV (Cao Fang In Summer). Now, when you read the reviews about her you realize people just love her voice. The accepted way to get known in the west is to record and tour and do press. All of that can happen in China too, but there have always been more restrictions ¨C your music needs approval and permits are required to put on festivals. The digital world breaks all of that apart. Internet websites allow people to publish themselves and show off their wares. Today, if you film yourself performing, it is very easy for someone else to see it almost immediately and that¡¯s how a fan base starts. The world is getting smaller and rules that could have prevented artists breaking through before don't apply anymore.


Dave: A lot of kids in China get their music from Karaoke and a lot of people listen to Chinese pop which has a very specific sound. But there are definitely pockets of people listening to very independent music. There's a great site, neocha which gives you access to all these great independent artists in China. But it is hard to find that when you are sitting in the US. The more I explored, the more pleasantly surprised I became about how broad tastes can be in this country.


Dave: Believe it or not I love singing John Denver's, "Thank God I'm A Country Boy". It's not easy to find in Shanghai though. I love country music. I find it honest and refreshing.

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For more Shanghai Restoration Project have a look at the MySpace page here, the official website here, an article on NPR here, and an article at 247gay.com here. Refer to the above Amazon/ itunes links to pick up the album.

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