China’s music festival market has exploded in recent years, with events encompassing rock, jazz, EDM, and more being held across the country almost every week of the year. The traditional period for festivals has always been the public holiday to mark International Labor Day however, and so this week’s photo theme is China Music Festivals. We’ll be bringing you shots from some of this season’s major music fests — traversing punk, jazz, pop, and electronic music.
Today is International Jazz Day, so we’re starting with JZ Spring in Shanghai. Not many festivals could get away with holding events in the heart of one of the country’s biggest cities these days, but JZ has the relationships with the local government — and the reliably safe, family-friendly musical programming — to pull it off.
JZ Spring is actually a spin-off event from the JZ Group’s flagship JZ Festival, the longest-running jazz festival on Mainland China and one of the biggest of its kind in Asia. That event is usually held in September or October, but for the May holiday JZ also throws up a number of stages around Shanghai’s Jing’an Temple — in the main park and outside various shopping malls in the area — hosting a collection of locally-based jazz artists, and the odd international act.
It’s a bit of a stretch, but JZ are also claiming this as the “100th anniversary of Shanghai jazz”, based on 1918 being the birth year for Jimmy King, who led a — if not the — famous jazz band back in swinging (concession era) Shanghai’s heyday.
If you’re looking to celebrate International Jazz Day with some more contemporary Shanghai jazz, here are a few acts worth checking out from the JZ family:
Photos: JZ Music/Lefu Culture
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