Beijing bebop

Beijing bebop: Once scorned, jazz is suddenly thriving in the Chinese capital

By Shen Lu, CNN

Updated 0321 GMT (1121 HKT) December 18, 2015

Beijing (CNN)When Liu Yuan started playing the sax in the mid-1980s, few people in China knew what jazz was.

"There were only four or five professional jazz musicians in Beijing," Liu recalls. "It was brutal."

Bars and clubs were rare in the city.

Liu says he had to "beg" the few bars that existed to let them perform.

But the music that originated in the U.S. African-American communities in the late-19th century as an emotional reaction to racial oppression has taken root in China's capital over the past two decades and there's now a vibrant and fast-developing jazz scene.

Seeing the potential in the market, New York's Blue Note Jazz Club, one of the world's most renowned jazz clubs, is set to open a branch in Beijing in March 2016.

Steven Li, who manages the Blue Note Beijing project, told CNN that the new club aims to bring in top-level international artists, targeting China's ever-growing middle class and overseas returnees.

read more: http://news360.com/digestarticle/1E_VxrLR_keUhbGiihF8vQ