(Beijiing This Month)
Updated: 2006-08-23 16:06

A famous Harlem photo stands on the wall beside the amplifiers at the CD Jazz Cafe. It was taken on the day all of New York's famous jazzmen came together in a group photo that captured a golden era of the genre as much as the aged inner-city enclave that's produced the doyens of black American culture. One of the younger geniuses produced by that culture, jazz maestro Wynton Marsallis, played at the CD Jazz Cafe several years ago. His appearance made the front page of the China Daily. That front page hangs next to the Harlem photo in the café.

The CD Jazz Cafe is a fan's jazz club, one of those places that gestates but which cannot be created. The CD Jazz Cafe, tucked in beside the main gate of the Agricultural Exhibition Centre on the East Third Ring Road, has the atmosphere of a true fan's hangout. Decorated with jazz memorabilia, it was lovingly created by a former Chinese traditional instrumental player and rocker Lin Yuan.

Diplomats and their children brought many of modern jazz techniques to Beijing two decades ago, playing in hotel bars for themselves and a few keenly interested locals. Later, China's rock godfather Cui Jian and his band picked up jazz in late-night clubs while touring the USA in the 1980s and 90s. It was out of those trips that the CD Jazz Cafe was born. Liu Yuan, who leads the Liu Yuan Quintet every weekend night at the CD Jazz Café once played in Cui Jian's band. On weekend nights his band plays high-class takes on jazz standards as well as tunes composed by Liu himself.

Up to the early 90s, Beijing's jazz scene was limited to occasional overseas groups playing to expatriate audiences in hotel bars. Today eight bars in the city offer jazz of varying degrees of talent and regularity. Starbucks shops around the city have copped on to the coolness of jazz, playing standard albums such as Miles Davis' Kind of Blue and John Coltrante's A Love Supreme almost ad nauseam. And music shops around the city offer an ever-bulging range of CDs and concert DVDs. Several jazz fans chatting with this writer in a large CD shop opposite the Lido Holiday Inn professed themselves astonished at the range and quality of the recordings on offer.

"I've picked up albums that have gone out of issue and concert recordings that are not so easy to find in music shops in the west," said Joel Hammett, a university lecturer from Boston.

Near the South Gate of Chaoyang Park, two bars that stand almost side by side offer Latin bands and straight jazz. The dance-hall-sized and easily named Latinos hosts bands from Latin America who play for fans of salsa, son and rumba. Cuban styles usually predominate here, but the band currently providing the beat is an eight-piece group from Venezuela. A Saturday night visit will inform a fan about what's hot and happening in this joint. A two-minute stroll up the street takes you to the Big Easy, sitting incongruously amid its neighbours. This two-story bar and restaurant appears to have been lifted right out of New Orleans, like a Mississippi-style river boat described in Huckleberry Finn adventure stories. With a resident American singer and a mix of local and expat musicians, the Big Easy swings to jazz standards, with some blues and soul mixed in on alternate nights. Keep an eye out for local blues man Zhang Ling and his Rhythm Dogs. They play blues at the Big Easy every Friday at 10:30 p.m. and Saturday at 9.30 p.m.

CD Jazz Cafe
Location: Agriculture Exhibition Hall main gate, Third Ring road, Chaoyang District
Tel: 010-65068288

Latinos
Location: Chaoyang Park south gate bar street, Chaoyang District
Tel: 010-65079898

Big Easy
Location: east of the south gate of Chaoyang Park, Chaoyang District
Tel: 010-65086776

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