Chinese-American-born, Shanghai, China-based Guitarist Lawrence Ku

Lawrence KuThe Marlowsphere (#25)

This week’s blog is the third in a series of profiles of indigenous Chinese jazz musicians from my forthcoming book Jazz in the Land of the Dragon.

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Guitarist/composer Lawrence Ku is one of a handful of jazz musicians performing in China (primarily Shanghai and Beijing) who has had direct experience in the United States. In Ku’s case, he was born and raised in Los Angeles, California. He currently lives in Shanghai, China where he is among the central figures in the growing jazz scene there.

He plays regularly at the JZ Club in Shanghai and is the music director at the JZ School.  He leads his own bands, such as the Lawrence Ku septet (a group focusing on his original compositions). His Red Groove project (a funk/groove band) is part of the Far East quartet (a collaborative quartet involving musicians from Shanghai and Hong Kong), the Toby Mak quintet, the Ale Haavik all-stars and the Shanghai Jazz Orchestra. The Lawrence Ku septet was featured at the Helsinki Jazz Festival in June of 2005.

Previously, Lawrence has resided in Beijing–where he taught at the Contemporary Music Institute and the Midi School of Music–and Boston, where he received his music training at the Longy School of Music (M.A. in composition) and the New England Conservatory of Music. He has studied with such jazz greats as Ben Monder, Charlie Banacos, Jerry Bergonzi, George Garzone, George Lewis and Carol Kaye.

I interviewed Lawrence at the JZ Club in Shanghai.

MARLOW:  How did you get attracted to playing jazz? I know you were born in LA, yes?

LAWRENCE KU:  Yes, I grew up in LA. Sort of standard. I played rock and blues stuff in high school, and then probably at the end of high school, beginning of college I got into jazz. I started listening to Miles, Wes Montgomery, Charlie Christian, and a lot of classical music.

MARLOW:  Give me a year when this all happened?

LAWRENCE KU:  Early 90’s−about the first year of college.

MARLOW:  And you went to New England Conservatory of Music (NEC)?

LAWRENCE KU:  I went to UC San Diego, and right after I graduated I went to Beijing. I spent two years there, and then went back to a small school called Longy (Cambridge/Boston) to do a master’s in composition there. Then went back to China and then I back to NEC for he jazz program.

MARLOW:  How would you describe the jazz scene here in Shanghai?

LAWRENCE KU:  It’s pretty good. It is obviously smaller than a big city in the U.S., but there are some good musicians, and a lot of good foreign musicians. They come here on a contract gig somewhere, and then end up staying. So, the level of musicianship is pretty good, and there are a couple of clubs, especially the JZ Club.

MARLOW:  The JZ Club seems to be the center of the jazz world in Shanghai. Would you describe it that way?

LAWRENCE KU:  I think so. It’s probably the place where the best local musicians play. There are a couple of other clubs that hire foreign musicians for about three months at a time, but it’s six nights a week. But here every night is different and every band is local. Some bands will blow in from Europe and the States and play a night or two. But, mainly it is just local musicians.

MARLOW:  What is it about jazz music that attracted you? Why didn’t you stay in rock or why didn’t you get into salsa or classical
or something else?

LAWRENCE KU:  I did get into classical, but jazz is improvisation, you get to communicate with anybody if you know the same tune.

MARLOW:  My impression is that jazz is appealing to some musicians here in China because of the freedom of it. It’s not restrictive like classical Chinese music, or even European Western classical music.

LAWRENCE KU:  Yes, I think that the improvisation part of jazz music is probably the most appealing thing and the thing that makes jazz
the common denominator in all different types of jazz music.

Lawrence KuMARLOW:  Is this the opportunity for real self expression musically in China?

LAWRENCE KU: Yes. I think every sort of music you can express yourself, but yes, I think with jazz you have more leeway to express yourself in whatever way you want.

MARLOW: What do you think it is going to take to grow the jazz scene here in Shanghai specifically?

LAWRENCE KU:  Definitely more good musicians, and more good local musicians from China. There are few really exceptional Chinese musicians I think.

MARLOW:  I understand there is going to be a school the JZ is going to organize. Are you going to be a part of that?

LAWRENCE KU:  Yes, I am going to be directing the music program there, and right now it is sort of a small scale school with a jazz program. But, hopefully it might build into a more like legitimate school with a degree and everything. That is more of a long term goal.

MARLOW:  How many students do you think you will have initially?

LAWRENCE KU: We don’t know. Right now everything is still pretty pre-promotional, so we are just keeping our fingers crossed.

MARLOW:  How many would you like?

LAWRENCE KU:  I think to start out 100 to 150 would be nice.

MARLOW:  What do you think of the jazz audience here in Shanghai? How would you describe it? Sophisticated, middle class, upper
class, mostly Chinese?

LAWRENCE KU:  I’d say maybe 50/50. I think the Chinese audience is becoming more and more sophisticated. I think it is just a matter of time and the matter of listening to it and becoming accustomed to it, knowing the context. If you ask anybody in the States, even if they don’t listen to jazz, they know who Miles Davis is, but they wouldn’t here. I think it just a matter of getting accustomed to it. I think part of it is the performing, part of it is the education, and then part of it is getting recordings out into the market.

MARLOW:  I have been into a couple of stores, the Friendship store in Beijing, and then we went to a big city store, the City of Books store here and there are no CDs of local Shanghai musicians, other than the Shanghai jazz album that an Aussie put together a few years ago. But, here is nothing else.

LAWRENCE KU: There really aren’t any. There may be a couple of records of jazz bands here. I think there is one. There is JR. Their band is based in Shanghai, and they just put out a record.

MARLOW:  If I were to come back 5 or 10 years from now how would you describe the jazz scene: the same, bigger, smaller? Where do you think it is going to go?

LAWRENCE KU:  I do think it is going to get bigger, because there are a lot of gigs here and a lot of people are coming over and staying over because it is kind of a unique place. It is unusual to have a lot of work as a jazz musician, and this is the one with a ratio of gigs to musicians is pretty good.

MARLOW:  So you think it is going to get bigger. What do you think is going to drive it? A growing Chinese economy, a larger middle class?

LAWRENCE KU: A combination of everything. As more people are educated and listening to it, the interest is going to grow and there will be a jazz audience. The more it’s in the schools, there will be students listening to it. A new Chinese middle class is definitely an audience or potential audience.

Lawrence Ku’s album “Process” was released on the JZ label in 2007.

Please write to me at meiienterprises@aol.com if you have any comments on this or any other of my blogs.

Eugene Marlow, Ph.D.
August 27, 2012

© Eugene Marlow 2012

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