It’s been quite a year so far. Teaching full time for Duke Kunshan, working on my own indie doc film, and hosting another film made by a Shanghai TV station. In contrast to 2020, where I sojourned for several months in Acton, MA with only my parents and daughters and the quietude of nature to accompany me, life in China has been pretty much normal.
Of course there are still all sorts of precautions being taken here in China to avoid spreading the virus, but given the heavy hand and the constant tracing and quarantining efforts of the government here in the PRC, we’ve had a great deal of comparative freedom to enjoy our social lives. I think people in America are only now beginning to enjoy the social freedoms that we’ve been experiencing pretty much ever since I returned and got out of quarantine last September.
At the beginning of this year, I set some goals for the year 2021— you know, New Year resolutions. Some of them I was able to sustain for a while, but others fell to the wayside. Basically, in addition to a pretty heavy teaching load, the process of making my jazz doc took over all my spare time for the past few months. It’s been a huge learning curve and a great learning experience, and I have no regrets, but I certainly would do many things differently next time I want to make an indie film like this.
To catch folks up on what happened with my jazz doc since I screened V20 at the end of April: I got some really good feedback and advice from several people, including my old friend the publisher Graham Earnshaw. The gist of it was that I have to do more fieldwork to catch up on the scene and how it’s developed in recent years, particularly since the pandemic began early in 2020. So during the month of May, I attended several jazz concerts in different venues, including JZ, Jazz at Lincoln Center, and the Wooden Box, and I conducted interviews with several Chinese and non-Chinese musicians and others in the scene. These included trumpet players Toby Mak, Fu Hwa, and Li Xiaochuan, saxophonists Nik Xue and Wilson Chen (Chen Jiajun), and big bandleader Rolf Becker. The upshot is that I have a much better understanding of what’s happening in the jazz scene and where it’s going in the future.
The main thing that’s happening now is that Chinese musicians are really taking over the scene and dominating it these days, both in terms of their musicality and in terms of their presence in the scene. Foreigners still play an important role, and many of the old stalwarts, such as Toby Mak and Alec Haavik, not to mention Greg Smith and the old Cotton Club band, are still here doing interesting things, but the Chinese musicians are playing a much more central role in the scene than they were ten or even five years ago.
There are many reasons for this development, including the strength of the music conservatory jazz program in Shanghai and the tendency for young Chinese musicians to go abroad to further their educations. Of course the pandemic has also played a big role, since it has virtually isolated China from the rest of the world and prevented musicians from coming to China from abroad. So those who didn’t choose to stay in China are locked out, and those who did stay in China are getting more gigs than ever before.
The new lineup at the Wonderful Bar in Kunshan: Jonny, Chris, and Naomi.
In addition, I’m continuing to keep up with local music scene in Kunshan and continuing to hang out and play music with the Filipino musicians in that scene. Something similar has happened with this scene, in that the Filipino musicians who left China during the pandemic have found it nearly impossible to return, while those who stayed are in higher demand now. One musician, a singer and guitar player named Chris, who recently joined the Wonderful Bar, told me that around 70 percent of the Filipino musical community in China returned to their homeland last year. While those who stayed here are now in higher demand, many of the bars that hosted Filipino cover bands have dried up and/or shut down over the past few months, because of low business. One reason for this is because so many foreigners left China and haven’t been able to return, and since these live bars cater to foreign communities, they have lost their mainstay. This has also forced them to change their styles to try to attract and support a more Chinese customer base.
From what our informants in the scene tell us, another thing that’s happening is that the scene in Suzhou has shrunk, and many musicians from the Suzhou scene are moving over to Kunshan or elsewhere. This was certainly the case with Robert, Flash, Chris and some others who are now in the Kunshan scene.
I continue to frequent the Eagle Bar, and sometimes I play keyboards with the band. We now have a set of songs we regularly play together, which we’ve played quite a few times. These include the Simple Minds hit song “Don’t You Forget About Me,” Radiohead’s “No Surprises,” “Shout” by Tears for Fears, and a few other New Wave-style songs from youthful days.
Robert, Melody, Flash and Ryan at the Eagle Bar in Kunshan, celebrating Flash’s birthday in May
It’s quite amazing to find that nearly every time I go see Robert and Melody and Flash and Ryan at Eagle, they are playing songs I’ve never heard them play before. Under Robert’s leadership, they are constantly practicing new songs and expanding upon their repertoire. And they are tighter than ever, with three-part vocal harmonies on some songs. I wonder if this is somewhat unusual among the Filipino cover bands. On the other hand, I can understand why they do this. First, it’s always a good thing to have more songs under one’s belt, since that makes a musician more valuable in the cover band industry. Second, I think they get bored just covering the same songs, as do I. Personally I like to play new songs I’ve never played before and expand my own repertoire. I still need to sit down with Robert and Melody and talk through these questions with them and find out what their own thoughts are on these subjects.
I’ve also been playing music pretty frequently in Shanghai. I joined my old friend and filmmaking partner Jud and another Shanghai expat named Johan to form a band. Sometimes another dude from the Boston area named Tom joins us. We’re calling ourselves the Swamp Stompers now. We mostly play old classic rock tunes, and since we’re all on guitar it’s a bit limited what we can do, but sometimes when we jam at clubs with the local musicians I play keyboards.
Swamp Stompers Tom, Johan, Jud, and honorary Stomper Wek
For a while we were playing regularly at the White Horse pub in Pudong, but that place changed management, and the band we were playing with left for other places. They had a fantastic guitarist named Wek (?) who is up there with Robert in terms of his musical skills. He ended up moving over to the Manhattan bar, and we’ve been over there to see him a couple times. But mostly we find cafes or bars to play in and we just jam and pick songs to play or practice. Places with outdoor seating mostly. I have to admit that I’ve been over-indulging a bit lately in these musical sessions. After playing songs on piano and guitar by and for myself all last year while sojourning in the USA, I’m finding it much more rewarding to play with, for and among real people for a change.
Another thing that happened this year is that I was rolled into full-time faculty position at DKU. Actually that happened last year, but this year we consolidated it with a new contract and I’m going forward as an Associate Professor. This gives me some more freedom and flexibility in the summer to pursue my own projects. In addition to working on finalizing the jazz doc (hopefully I’ll have the next version done in another couple months) I’ve also revved up an old doc project on art. More on that later.
In addition to the docs, I also have a few articles to work on this summer and some book reviews to write. So I’ll have to pull back on the jamming and put my efforts into these writing and film projects. Meanwhile, I’m going on a major expedition in June, taking me to far-flung regions of China that I’ve never been to before. More on that anon.