Byreputation, Ling Wei (凌威) doesn’t come across as a jazz fan. But the 56-year-old self-professed “rock ’n’ roller” and owner of the Roxy chain of rock-themed bars and nightclubs says, “I’ve always loved jazz music.”
Roxy Jazz, which opens tonight, is Ling’s second attempt at a jazz club. His first venture, Feel More Jazz, located on Roosevelt Road (羅斯福路), quickly folded after opening in 1991 when construction for the MRT’s Danshui-Xindian line began.
Ling seemed at ease and in a good mood earlier
this week when showing the Taipei Times around
this latest addition to the Roxy brand, located near
the corner of Jianguo South (建國南) and Heping East
(和平東) roads.
He says the club is designed so jazz lovers can have a comfortable place “to share the music.” The space, which holds around 65 persons, feels intimate and homey. The room is filled with plush Ikea sofas and lounge chairs. The stage, equipped with a drum kit, upright piano, double bass and a few amplifiers, is low to the ground and close to the audience. A bar at the back will serve food.
Listening to records is pure pleasure for Ling, a former radio DJ, and he brings that sensibility to the venue. Audiophiles will drool over the room’s boutique stereo speakers made by the German company Duevel, which cost a cool NT$1 million. Ling says, half-jokingly, that another reason for starting the club was to find a home for the speakers.
Live music from local musicians, however, will be the main attraction. Roxy Jazz currently has performers scheduled on average for three nights a week.
Tonight’s grand opening party features a special performance by a one-off modern jazz quartet organized by pianist Andrew Page, the music director of the American Club in Taipei. The lineup includes Taichung-based French bassist Cyrille Briegel, Italian drummer Pietro Valente, and saxophonist and composer Miguel Fernandez of Barcelona.
Tomorrow the venue hosts Taiwanese pianist Amanda Wu (吳苡嫣), who plays modern jazz standards as well as originals sung in Mandarin. She shares the stage with saxophonist Alejandro Chiabrando of Argentina.
When the musicians break, house DJs will spin “classic jazz vinyl,” reflecting Ling’s tastes, which he describes as anything from Blue Note Records.
Ling says he’s optimistic that Roxy Jazz will stand the test of time, unlike The Other Side, a dance club he opened in the East District (東區) in July that folded because of high rent and a lack of a “clear goal.”
Roxy Jazz is open every day from 9pm to 4am and charges a NT$300 food or drink minimum on nights with musical performances.
Sept.16 to Sept. 22 The “anti-communist train” with then-president Chiang Kai-shek’s (蔣介石) face plastered on the engine puffed along the “sugar railway” (糖業鐵路) in May 1955, drawing enthusiastic crowds at 103 stops covering nearly 1,200km. An estimated 1.58 million spectators were treated to propaganda films, plays and received free sugar products. By this time, the state-run Taiwan Sugar Corporation (台糖, Taisugar) had managed to connect the previously separate east-west lines established by Japanese-era sugar factories, allowing the anti-communist train to travel easily from Taichung to Pingtung’s Donggang Township (東港). Last Sunday’s feature (Taiwan in Time: The sugar express) covered the inauguration of the
The corruption cases surrounding former Taipei Mayor and Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) head Ko Wen-je (柯文哲) are just one item in the endless cycle of noise and fuss obscuring Taiwan’s deep and urgent structural and social problems. Even the case itself, as James Baron observed in an excellent piece at the Diplomat last week, is only one manifestation of the greater problem of deep-rooted corruption in land development. Last week the government announced a program to permit 25,000 foreign university students, primarily from the Philippines, Indonesia and Malaysia, to work in Taiwan after graduation for 2-4 years. That number is a
This year’s Michelin Gourmand Bib sported 16 new entries in the 126-strong Taiwan directory. The fight for the best braised pork rice and the crispiest scallion pancake painstakingly continued, but what stood out in the lineup this year? Pang Taqueria (胖塔可利亞); Taiwan’s first Michelin-recommended Mexican restaurant. Chef Charles Chen (陳治宇) is a self-confessed Americophile, earning his chef whites at a fine-dining Latin-American fusion restaurant. But what makes this Xinyi (信義) spot stand head and shoulders above Taipei’s existing Mexican offerings? The authenticity. The produce. The care. AUTHENTIC EATS In my time on the island, I have caved too many times to
In a stark demonstration of how award-winning breakthroughs can come from the most unlikely directions, researchers have won an Ig Nobel prize for discovering that mammals can breathe through their anuses. After a series of tests on mice, rats and pigs, Japanese scientists found the animals absorb oxygen delivered through the rectum, work that underpins a clinical trial to see whether the procedure can treat respiratory failure. The team is among 10 recognized in this year’s Ig Nobel awards (see below for more), the irreverent accolades given for achievements that “first make people laugh, and then make them think.” They are not