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MP3 Monday: JZ Shanghai Festival

Skiddle-bap-boo-dap-dip-doop! Jazz! - By Morgan Short, Oct 12, 09

So yeah. Big JZ music festival this weekend. Herein ye shall find some mp3 samples of some of the performers. And here's the logistical information again:

Put on by the JZ Corp., this year's incarnation of the annual jazz festival runs for three days, starting with a kick-off performance by Dee Dee Bridgewater this Friday night. That concert takes place at the Yunfeng Theatre, and the Grammy-winning American vocalist will be performing with the JZ Big Band, with Shanghai's big jazz names (Coco Zhao and Laurence Ku among others) in support.

Here's something from the beatific Dee Dee:



On the following two days, the festivities move to Century Park in Pudong for the three stages of jazz, rock, pop, dance, world music and more, running from 1pm to 11pm on Saturday and Sunday. Tickets are being sold separately for the Dee Dee Bridgewater kick-off performance (available here) and for the weekend-long festival (Saturday and Sunday passes, as well as 2-day passes available here).

On all three nights, after parties and such rage long into the night, at the JZ Club and Cotton Club. Here is the weekend festival line-up:



Diverging from a singular jazz focus as seen in the JZ Festivals of yesteryear, this time around concert organizers are casting a larger net, with a rock/pop stage, and an electronic stage. The rock stage is peppered with acts performing in broader funk, rock, reggae, and world music-ish genres, and features as well a few Chinese rock luminaries like Cui Jian, who is pretty much The Man around these parts. Acts on these two stages are staggered, so be prepared to do some migrating.

Here's one from Cold Fairyland, Shanghai's most beloved world music-ish band, who are opening up the Sunday show on the rock stage:


And here's one from London-based jazz/rap group US3, rounding out that Sunday night on the same stage:



Also new this year is that stacked "Electrograss" stage, which takes its name from the Electrograss festival, a separate dance music festival which has occurred twice before in Shanghai. At the JZ Shanghai Festival, that's the dance music stage and it features pretty much all the DJs and soundsystems in Shanghai (and a few Beijing-based DJs), performing in drum n bass, reggae, hip hop, techno, house, and more. That ones there for the kids who are probably not adverse to an evening at JZ, but are probably more down for what's usually on at The Shelter up the street.

So that's it. It's this weekend.

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