The sixth annual Taipei International Jazz Festival closes its seven-weekend run with concerts tonight and tomorrow at Da-an Forest Park (大安森林公園).
The festivities start this afternoon with parades performing Afro-Cuban and New Orleans traditional marching music, played by students from the festival’s jazz learning camp. Percussion shakers will be passed out to any spectators that wish to join in.
The event culminates in concerts tonight and tomorrow, featuring nine guest artists from the US and Europe, as well as several Taiwanese musicians.
The performers, including American pianist John Beasley, Belgian vocalist David Linx and German guitarist Joachim Schoenecker, have spent the past week teaching at the Taipei International Summer Jazz Academy, the annual weeklong camp connected to the festival.
But the concerts won’t just be lessons in jazz improv, they will be “more artistic than educational,” says Hsieh Chi-pin (謝啟彬), a jazz violinist and one of the festival’s founders and organizers.
Since it began in 2004, the festival, which was founded by Hsieh and his wife, pianist Chang Kai-ya (張凱雅), has been tied to their interest in promoting jazz as music with substance.
“It’s not about a beautiful girl or a sexy saxophonist standing on stage,” says Hsieh.
To break down this misconception among local audiences, Hsieh and Chang set up a foundation for jazz with a unique Taiwanese flavor.
In camp sessions over the years, they have encouraged students to compose original songs inspired by their surroundings and adapt classic Taiwanese folk songs for jazz performance.
“We have a Western standard, but we also try to fuse it with material that people are familiar with,” says Hsieh.
One former student, bassist Jeremy Lin (林后進), composed a song about Zhongxiao Fuxing MRT Station (忠孝復興捷運站), which Hsieh says received a strong response from the audience at a festival show earlier this month. The Anne Paceo Trio, which performed several weeks ago, also pleased its audience with a rendition of a well-known Taiwanese folk number.
The festival has also watched its audiences mature. In earlier editions, emcees had to coach attendees on basic etiquette such as clapping after solos. This is no longer necessary, says Hsieh, adding there has been “less talk” on stage at this year’s festival.
Better yet, audiences nowadays seem more genuinely interested in hearing a “fine jazz music program,” he says.
Despite the art form’s American roots, Hsieh and Chang have tried to stress jazz’s current diversity.
While most of this year’s performers were from the US and Europe, Hsieh says he is glad to have included in this year’s program the a.s.k Trio, which played last week and is composed of a South African, a Japanese and a Dutchman.
“Jazz has an identity in every country,” says Hsieh. “Jazz isn’t just American standards, like Broadway [songs]... anything can be jazz and many people can play jazz.”
Festival notes:
What: Final concerts of the Taipei International Jazz Festival
When: Tonight and Tomorrow at 7pm, afternoon jazz parades run today and tomorrow from 4:30pm to 6:30pm
Where: Da-an Forest Park (大安森林公園)
On the Net: blog.yam.com/tijs2009en/article/21438676; www.taipeijazz.com
On April 26, The Lancet published a letter from two doctors at Taichung-based China Medical University Hospital (CMUH) warning that “Taiwan’s Health Care System is on the Brink of Collapse.” The authors said that “Years of policy inaction and mismanagement of resources have led to the National Health Insurance system operating under unsustainable conditions.” The pushback was immediate. Errors in the paper were quickly identified and publicized, to discredit the authors (the hospital apologized). CNA reported that CMUH said the letter described Taiwan in 2021 as having 62 nurses per 10,000 people, when the correct number was 78 nurses per 10,000
As we live longer, our risk of cognitive impairment is increasing. How can we delay the onset of symptoms? Do we have to give up every indulgence or can small changes make a difference? We asked neurologists for tips on how to keep our brains healthy for life. TAKE CARE OF YOUR HEALTH “All of the sensible things that apply to bodily health apply to brain health,” says Suzanne O’Sullivan, a consultant in neurology at the National Hospital for Neurology and Neurosurgery in London, and the author of The Age of Diagnosis. “When you’re 20, you can get away with absolute
May 5 to May 11 What started out as friction between Taiwanese students at Taichung First High School and a Japanese head cook escalated dramatically over the first two weeks of May 1927. It began on April 30 when the cook’s wife knew that lotus starch used in that night’s dinner had rat feces in it, but failed to inform staff until the meal was already prepared. The students believed that her silence was intentional, and filed a complaint. The school’s Japanese administrators sided with the cook’s family, dismissing the students as troublemakers and clamping down on their freedoms — with
As Donald Trump’s executive order in March led to the shuttering of Voice of America (VOA) — the global broadcaster whose roots date back to the fight against Nazi propaganda — he quickly attracted support from figures not used to aligning themselves with any US administration. Trump had ordered the US Agency for Global Media, the federal agency that funds VOA and other groups promoting independent journalism overseas, to be “eliminated to the maximum extent consistent with applicable law.” The decision suddenly halted programming in 49 languages to more than 425 million people. In Moscow, Margarita Simonyan, the hardline editor-in-chief of the
RSS