Sometimes good things happen by accident.
The Captain and I had discussed meeting for happy hour at the hotel (free snax and drinks) and then going out to find some live music. I slept ’til 8 (that’s in the evening, mind you) and he had already done the whole happy hour thing. He decided to stay in but I needed to eat and wanted to check out the scene anyway.
There were 6 places I found online for jazz and blues type of stuff in Shanghai. It appears my sleuthing turned up pretty much everything in Shanghai. Granted, 6 places to hear jazz in one city is great, though Shanghai is a pretty big place.
Anyway, I decided on the House of Blues and Jazz and, it turns out, it was Blues jam night. The house drummer is great – a Japanese guy named Akira Nakamura who studied at Berklee School of Music in Boston. The band was the Sam Hooper group (http://samhooper.com/). Good stuff… but even more impressive was the quality of people who came and sit in. None of them were really bad and most of them were quite great. The other drummer that sat in, an Aussie, was excellent. Really enjoyed the evening.
The people I played with .. was quite the mix of nationalities. A Brazilian bass player and (separately) an Aussie bass player, a vocalist and keyboard player both from somewhere in South and/or Central American (I don’t exactly recall where… maybe Brazil but maybe elsewhere?!?). The Brazilian bass player was amazing.
Anyway, it was mostly blues (we actually did a latin tune), but afterwards the drummer (Akira) told me where a jazz place was that he thought had jam sessions on Monday nights (actually every night late). So I’ll probably check it out tomorrow night. Fun fun fun 🙂