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Get jazzed about jazz

By Noah Buchan
STAFF REPORTER
Friday, Jul 27, 2007, Page 13

Thierry Gutman on drums and John Ruocco on sax.

When the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) fled to Taiwan after the civil war, conservatism was the order of the day, and even in the arts, emphasis was put on the classics rather than the contemporary.

Now Taiwan is playing catchup, and one effect of this has been the gradual emergence of a jazz scene. That it is now established as part of the cultural mainstream is more than proven by CKS Cultural Center playing host to a jazz festival in late August and early September, the Taichung Jazz Festival in October, and first up in this summer of jazz, the Taipei International Jazz Festival (TIJF), which begins this weekend.

In its fourth year, the festival - which drew over 20,000 people last year - is much more than the two free concerts featuring international jazz musicians in Da-an Forest Park today and tomorrow.

"The artists come here for twelve days and have a heavy teaching schedule," said Hsieh.

Lasting one week and using a workshop format, the Taipei International Summer Jazz Academy (TISJA), which organizes the event, has invited seven international and two local jazz musicians to teach, lecture and jam with the 90 local musicians accepted into the academy. At the end of each day there is a two-hour open jam where students working with different instruments have an opportunity to play together.

Bart De Nolf on bass PHOTOS: COURTESY OF TIJF

"Most international artists at the National Concert Hall or Taichung Jazz Festival stay for one day or one night - [some] not even 24 hours - and then they leave," said Hsieh Chi-pin (謝啟彬), a professional jazz violinist and co-founder of the festival.

Deborah J. Carter sings

Having artists stay for one day, says Hsieh, provides an opportunity to hear great jazz but does little to increase jazz awareness.

"It works very well because our background is classical music [where] you need discipline," he said. "But in jazz you are searching for freedom and being expressive. So we need to find a balance," Hsieh said.

Jazz began making inroads into Taiwan in the late 1960s and early 1970s - brought in with the American GI's stationed here - but was confined to a peripheral role in the television and entertainment industry and didn't flourish as it's own unique art form.

Peter Van Marle on bongos and Fabien Degryse on guitar.

"They all looked like American big bands," Hsieh said.

Though the jazz pub Blue Note opened in the mid-1970s, it was only in the early 1990s when Brown Sugar brought in international jazz acts to play in a bar setting that jazz starting coming into its own. For local musicians, however, Blue Note still stands as a monument for providing local jazz artists a venue to play.

"I played at Blue Note for one year. It really helped me get off the ground," said Borking Liao (寥柏鈞), a professional jazz drummer who says the Jazz Academy is a perfect venue to meet and jam with professional musicians.

The 26-year old has played drums for nine years, four of which have been devoted exclusively to jazz. He manages to earn a living playing - a rarity among jazz musicians because there are no agents in Taiwan devoted specifically to jazz and few gigs to play.

Liao studied plastic arts rather than music because universities don't offer courses in jazz. Indeed, though modern music has made it on to the curriculum at high school and university, classical music is still the standard taught for performance.

The lineup of international jazz artists performing today and tomorrow largely hails from Europe.

Dutch trumpeter and first time faculty member Saskia Laroo has played with jazz professionals such as Winton Marseilus and Maceo Parker. Also hailing from the Netherlands is Latin and jazz pianist and currently faculty of Belgium's Royal Conservatory in Brussels Peter Van Marle. This is his third year participating in Taipei's jazz festival.

Three Belgian jazz impresarios have been invited back. Jazz guitarist Fabien Degryse has recorded five albums under his own name, and has been a faculty member of the Taipei International Jazz Academy since 2004. Bart de Nolf is on bass and has played with the likes of Kenny Wheeler, Lee Konitz and Bud Shank. Belgian jazz drummer Thierry Gutmann who has worked with a number of European jazz greats, is active in the pop and jazz scene and is assistant professor at Belgium's Royal Conservatory. This is his second year participating in the Jazz Academy.

Amsterdam-based US national Deborah J Carter will croon to a number of standards and Europe-based American John Ruocco is on saxophone, flute and clarinet.

Rounding out the academy are Hsieh and his wife Chang Kai-ya (張凱雅), who trained at the same school in Brussels, the latter in jazz and Latin piano. They both teach in the music department at Shih-Chien University in Taipei.

With the increased popularity of jazz combined with greater numbers of international artists playing in Taiwan, Hsieh envisions jazz becoming a deeper part of Taiwan's cultural scenery.

"Maybe the schools can [start] professional programs and students can start [learning] jazz as soon as they enter the college," Hsieh said. "That's our goal."

What: 2007 Taipei International Jazz Festival

Where: Da-an Forest Park, Taipei

When: Today and tomorrow at 7:30pm

Admission: Free

Details: www.taipeijazz.com

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