Swinging high

In the lead-up to Hong Kong's jazziest season, Rob Garratt looks back on how the local jazz scene has evolved over the years — with a new generation of homegrown players breaking the mold.

By Rob Garratt | HK EDITION | Updated: 2025-10-23 15:12

Share - WeChat

Aaron Parks Little Big band members meet Hong Kong fans who braved the looming Typhoon Ragasa to attend a concert by the quartet in Tsuen Wan Town Hall on Sept 22. CHINA DAILY

A decade ago, no one thought much about Hong Kong's putative jazz scene. But those days are hard to imagine looking at the city's cultural calendar, as we enter the jazziest time of the year.

The next few weeks will see the city welcome performances from a pair of American legends, trumpeter Jon Faddis and vocal star Dianne Reeves, as well as Japanese national treasure Hiromi. Meanwhile, the four-day Freespace Jazz Fest returns for a seventh edition, solidifying its spot in the local psyche.

On the homegrown music front, bassist Justin Siu recently launched an intimate twice-a-month concert series, The Blue Study Live, and homegrown jazz hangout Chez Trente is preparing to host its first multi-day festival, CT Music Fest Vol 3, on Cheung Chau Island.

While once jazz fans waited months between shows, now there is more happening than any listener could hope to absorb. "It's pretty cool. Today people go to see jazz like going to a movie," observes Hong Kong guitarist Teriver Cheung.

Celebrated jazz bassist Ron Carter meets Clarence Chang, a pioneer of jazz culture in Hong Kong. CHINA DAILY

Learning to play

A raft of homegrown gigs takes place all year round. Every week, chilled Central hangout Chez Trente hosts four gigs and jams, while there are at least two more intimate performances at Sai Ying Pun's Coda. However, the game changer might be Fountain de Chopin in San Po Kong. As well as hosting regular gigs, the jazz collective offers Hong Kong's only formal jazz education program.

This enthusiastic, dedicated, grassroots hub "gives a really good push to the young Hong Kong generation", says Chez Trente founder Joe Leung. "Fountain made jazz very popular. A lot of young people are playing it right now."

Pianist Ted Lo, the first Chinese graduate of the Berklee College of Music in the United States, in 1976, is part of the upcoming Freespace Jazz Fest. CHINA DAILY

Fountain de Chopin offers a four-month course, allowing aspiring players to study a song in depth, before playing it together with their peers. "It's important to learn how to play — but it's just as important to jam and make new friends so that you can continue playing," says pianist Bowen Li, co-founder of both Coda and Fountain de Chopin, who estimates around 150 players have already studied at the latter.

"Back in the day if you wanted to study jazz you were like a monk — try hard and give up everything else, "Cheung says. "Nowadays it's become a normal thing to do in Hong Kong — like playing badminton."

Besides hosting regular gigs, the homegrown jazz collective Fountain de Chopin also offers Hong Kong's only formal jazz education program. CHINA DAILY

An inclusive space

In 2000, the city's Leisure and Cultural Services Department made the first concerted effort toward popularizing the genre, by starting the Jazz Up series. So far they have presented eight lecture series and 70 live shows, including the annual Jazz Marathon, begun in 2018.

Since 2019 the annual Freespace Jazz Fest has played a huge role in stripping the genre of stuffy stereotypes with its vibrant programming of free outdoor weekend gigs. "Freespace has become a regular hangout for people," says Cheung. "It's made jazz part of the city's lifestyle."

Therefore, the relatively modest line-up of its 2025 edition is unlikely to disappoint the casual listener, enjoying a day out on the lawns of Art Park. While an audience of hundreds dug deep to see the world's most famous living jazz musician, Herbie Hancock, in 2024, this year's international headliner is British pianist Joe Webb, making his Hong Kong debut. He promises to mix jazz with classical and rock influences, "reimagined from the 1920s to the 2020s".

"Music is for everyone," says the pianist, adding that he hopes his show will encourage more musicians to listen to improvised music. On his last East Asia tour, which included a stop at the legendary Blue Note in Beijing, Webb remembers exchanging notes with fellow Chinese musicians. "We spoke about musicians who inspire us and shared our favorite albums with each other," he says.

Guitarist Teriver Cheung says the annual Freespace Jazz Fest at WestK has played a pivotal role in making jazz a part of the city's lifestyle. CHINA DAILY

Little Big moments

Long before the local government or cultural organizations got involved, music producer Clarence Chang played a pioneering role in bringing legends like Hancock and jazz pianist and composer Chick Corea to Hong Kong. From 2005-19, Chang hosted more than 80 gigs as part of the Jazz World Live Series. "Those concerts were very important in bringing some awareness of what jazz is to people, "says Eugene Pao, often referred to as the "godfather" of Hong Kong's jazz guitar scene.

In 2021, Chang began the Jazz in the Neighborhood series, which is presenting Hiromi's Sonicwonder concert and brought the American quartet Aaron Parks Little Big to Tsuen Wan Town Hall on Sept 22, the night before Typhoon Ragasa struck the city.

Fountain de Chopin cofounder Bowen Li says around 150 aspiring jazz musicians have trained at the facility since 2021. CHINA DAILY

"You could feel the tension in the air," remembers Aaron Parks, who plays piano in the quartet. "At the same time, there was intimacy in the room. Everyone who came had really chosen to be there despite the incoming weather, and that gave the performance an extra layer of focus. It felt like we were all in it together."

Parks' Hong Kong concert was followed by a tour of Shanghai, Hangzhou and Beijing, where his music found a "special resonance". He says that there's "something powerful "about bringing improvised music to fresh markets "where people are open and curious". In Beijing the quartet performed alongside guzheng player Lucy Luan. "I was struck by how beautifully her sound fit within the music we were creating together," Parks says. "Encounters like that expand the possibilities of what improvised music can be."

The "godfather" of Hong Kong's jazz guitar scene, Eugene Pao, credits Clarence Chang with raising awareness of jazz in Hong Kong. CHINA DAILY

Community bonding

Ahead of Parks' Hong Kong show, a raft of local millennial and Gen-Z musicians — including pianists Li, Patrick Lui and Daniel Chiu, guitarists Cheung and Alan Kwan, and harmonica player CY Leo — shared excited endorsements of his influence, a sign of the extent to which live shows featuring international stars can inspire local acts.

However, the enthusiasm on display also underlined how far the local jazz scene has grown in recent years. When Cheung began playing in the early 2000s, "it was just Eugene and Ted Lo and a bunch of expats", he says. "Now I can't keep up with the number of musicians, and all the talent."

Pianist Joyce Cheung joins Ted Lo in a cross-generational performance at the upcoming Freespace Jazz Fest. CHINA DAILY

In between Cheung spent more than a decade in the United States. Following his return to Hong Kong in 2016, he was among the city's first millennial generation of jazz players, alongside Lui, percussionist Anna Fan and guitarist William Lam — a trio of graduates of the elite Berklee College of Music. "Ten years ago, there were usually one or two kids going to Berklee every year," adds Leung. "Now you've got at least 10 kids coming back after studying jazz overseas every year."

"Maybe parents are more open today," ventures the self-taught Pao. "Back in the day they were more conservative, they thought being a musician was a less reputable thing."

Li — who as part of the Bowen Li Trio released the group's debut album, Unemployed, recently — chimes with Pao, confirming that in the early days, playing jazz made him feel "like an alien," whereas nowadays "it's a big community". "Jazz used to be a form of worship, idolizing the stars, but now we have our own audience, our own culture, our own circle — it's way more healthy," he says.