Young musicians offer new take on Chinese instruments
NEW YORK: If jazz is about free-flowing expression, do the instruments have to be Western?
In a cross-cultural experiment, a group of young Chinese artists musicians based in New York is testing the possibilities of fusion by bringing jazz and other Western forms to performances on traditional instruments.
With a concert at Carnegie Hall last week timed for the Chinese New Year, the artists delved into quintessentially Chinese subject matter but through a markedly modern lens.
On “Vermilion Bird,” a composition named for the creature of Chinese mythology that represents fire, composer Li Zong offered jazzy progressions building into fierce glissandi.
Feifei Yang added a more Chinese touch on the huqin, the two-stringed bowed fiddle, while also complementing the jazz feel by playing pizzicato.
The music turned bleaker on “1966,” also composed by Zong, a reference to the start of the Cultural Revolution.
With Zong on piano and Jiaju Shen on the pipa, a plucked lute, “1966” opens minimally but advances with a sense of dread.
Incorporating a musical allusion to a tune from the era, “1966” crescendos into violent territory as Shen hits the body of the pipa.
Zong, a 27-year-old graduate of the Shanghai Conservatory of Music, said he was driven to write “1966” after moving to New York and learning about the brutality of the Cultural Revolution, the bloody 10-year campaign by Mao Zedong to transform China from its roots.
“I was shocked when I first saw the images and videos, so I wanted to express that feeling to the audience,” he said.
“Most of the audience my age didn’t see these images and videos. We hardly get this information in detail. So I hope the music can express that emotion and that mood,” he said.
Fusion is hardly rare for jazz, with legendary saxophonist John Coltrane experimenting with Indian ragas. — Relaxnews