Comparing his bar with Brown Sugar, a club noted for bringing over international acts, Tsai says he focuses on local talent by providing them a place to jam. Hsieh and Chang will play the venue on Sept. 3.
Hsieh says creating an infrastructure for jazz, however, isn't limited to the classroom or gigs. In addition to a Web site (www.chipin-kaiya.com), a project begun in 2000 to promote jazz by writing about the local and international scene, Hsieh also published Urban Jazz for two years before it closed.
Hsieh contrasts Taiwan with Japan's larger and more established jazz scene. "You go to Japan [and] you have swing journals and all kinds of different jazz music and the market is bigger," he said. "The audience, musicians and students buy the magazine[s] and they won't only see the international scene but local musicians."
Though this year's Taipei jazz festival and academy were a great success, Hsieh says there is still a long way to go before Taiwan reaches the kind of jazz consciousness seen in Japan.
"Most people have become lonely in a way because when you listen to jazz for longer and longer you develop your own personal taste. And somehow you cannot share the music you love because the community isn't big enough," he said.
Be that as it may, it is a community that is growing, helped in large part by Hsieh's infectious love of jazz and his energetic promotion of the genre.
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