Jazz and erhu do gel

What comes to mind when you think of jazz? A rendition of blues, swing or syncopated rhythms? For me, I’ve always stereotyped it as elevator music or music that can put me to zzzZZ. Now what about Chinese orchestra? I’m sure the image of erhu, pipa, guzheng clanging operatic or traditional music would surface. I got a taste of the combination of both last night at a concert, yes both. The ensemble of two groups of musicians showed me how grossly outdated and wrong I was with my stereotypical opinion.

Our local Chinese orchestra performed jazz pieces together with an American trio jazz band at the concert. With cleverly arranged pieces, they proved to the audience that eastern and western music do mix, erhu and jazz can gel. As the erhu, pipa, and recorder soloists took turns to spar with the jazz band, this audience who went in on a free ticket couldn't stop applauding at the end of every piece. I could see that not just me and the other audience were enjoying the performance, the musicians too were having a ball of a time themselves playing music they don’t normally play. They even performed a classic Bach piece, Prelude in D minor and I loved that arrangement the most, almost wanting to jump up to give them an ovation but too shy to do it because no one else did.

I have to admit I went to the concert half-expecting to fall asleep but the performers didn’t dish me any single moment of boredom. I was totally enthralled by this rare, untypical performance. It’s not just the audio-visual enjoyment I experienced but the revelry of different cultures putting aside their differences, coming together in the sharing of what was common to them, their belief and love for music. If only we humans could apply this to every aspect of our day-to-day living. I do hope to see such a day in this world, in time (or lives) to come.

Five thumbs up for this marvelous performance!