Jazz hunting in Beijing

Corbett | May 7, 2006 11:48 PM

It was my night off and I was needing to hear some live music, so I ventured out to explore the local Beijing jazz scene. My first stop was just around the corner (remember in BJ, around the corner can be a 20 minute walk) at Chaoyang Park's south gate. In a fancy new complex there called Palm Springs, there's a loungy jazz bar which was supposed to be pretty good. I saddled up to the empty mood lit marble bar and ordered an expensive Belgium beer. It was Saturday night, and the place only had like 8 people in there, mostly a scattered tall cute girl here and there sitting with a middle aged man in a Nautica polo shirt. The music started and all I could think of was finishing my beer and getting the hell out of there. It was your typical awful hotel lounge band singing "You are the sunshine of my life....whoa whoaaaaaa..." Then the singer came on and I ran out.

My next stop was across the street at a New Orleans type of place called The Big Easy which was a completely different story. It was crowded and the band was grooving. The black lady singer was belting and putting on a great show, and the band supported her really well. That was a good fun set, and a good Samuel Adams beer.

After that I cruised down to the CD Jazz Cafe which was supposed to be a cool place, but they were renovating, so I popped over to Sanlitunnanlu to check out Browns Pub which supposedly had jazz bands. They had a DJ and the crowd was office expats, so I U-turned and went up the street dodging the annoying "Ladybar?" and "Nice massage?" hawkers getting in your face, and rambled over to The Tree for one last beer. That's when I ran into Kaiser who I hadn't seen in years, sitting with a visiting English journalist named Dave, and we ended up the evening in good conversation with a couple of hearty Kwak beers in funky glasses.

Category: Mr. Asia

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