Nearly 70 groups of artists joined the festival, including both globally renowned jazz masters and smashing young artists of various genres
The seventh JZ Music Festival Shanghai Green Note just ended last weekend in the Expo Garden Park. Nearly 70 groups of artists joined the festival, including both globally renowned jazz masters and smashing young artists of various genres of music. The musicians gave great performance on five distinctive stages. By the river and the bridge, with boats passing through, thousands of music fans enjoyed two days' of jazz in the coziest weather of Shanghai.
The first day started with Jack Prior, a British folk singer, on the Blue Grass stage. His warm voice, fluid guitar, and improvised lyrics gathered quite a few people together. During the show, he taught the audience to sing a simply happy song called 'Love Love Love is Calling Your Name' with him, which was so impressive that even after two whole days' of the festival, the lyrics and melody of that song were still hovering in many people's mind.
On the River Side stage, the French jazz musician Laurent de Wilde played some top classic jazz for us. Beginning with several tributes to Duke Ellington, the three musicians held appeals to all real jazz fans. Followed by them were the new jazz group J3, featuring three excellent young artists. Besides the enthralling saxophone, keyboard, and drum, they also put in some funky vocal sound to their music. J3 finished their last song with the audience participating in the vocal melody part.
The popular soul and R&B singer Tia from Beijing appeared on the River Side stage with her multi-national band Tha Knutz. Their music blends hip-hop, funk, R&B with jazz and soul, displayed by sexy and sweet voice of Tia, drawing lots of people to the stage and swing with the music.
On the second day, Long Shen Dao, the king of Chinese reggae, put on the first show at the Green Note stage. Their reggae music is characterized by abundant Chinese elements, especially the fantastic use of Guzheng, an ancient Chinese string instrument, which makes them so conspicuous among all other reggae bands. According to the vocal, they hope that the listeners could recognize them at once as a Chinese band, and thus bring Chinese music to the world.
The well-received Mongolian band Hanggai returned to the stage of Shanghai after the Black Rabbit Music Festival, with hundreds of fans craving for their performance. Their perfect mixture of Mongolian tune and rock again aroused people's emotion, and the fans gathered round dancing to the drinking song as the tempo went faster and faster.
On the stage of the Earth Lounge, various DJs played their groovy remixes without interval. DJ Gary Wang brought some really cool funk music, leading to people, including quite a few kids, swaying and jiving freely. DJ Youdai did remix versions of several classic hits, such as 'Smell Like Teen Spirit' by Nirvana and 'Axel F' by Crazy Frog, which were appealing to people of any country or age.
Moreover, the amazing views of the Expo Garden Park were also a plus to the jazz music festival. Several abstract sculptures made up of steel were presented around the Bao Steel Stage, while the River Side stage was set up by the Tadiao Café, which was comprised of two large cranes. From every stage, both artists and the audience can see the largest river and the symbolic bridge of Shanghai, with big boats steaming along. Environmental protection was another distinguishing feature of the festival. Not only were there environmental booths and reusable bags were distributed, but also people could get free water if they brought their own water bottle.
Comfortable weather, beautiful scenery, abundant food and entertainment, remarkable music, what more can you expect from a music festival? And that's what 2011 Jazz Shanghai Music Festival provided for all music lovers.
@MusicDish China
