Concord-based saxophonist Jeff Chan and his group Turn of the Century will perform at Asian American Jazz 2002. Photo courtesy of Asian American Jazz.
Asian American Jazzfest Nationwide
By Titania Leung Inglis
Special to AsianWeek
Until Chicago inaugurated its own Asian Pacific American jazz festival six years ago, San Francisco had long boasted the only such festival in the nation. Now in its 21st year, the San Francisco festival returns this fall with three new spin-off festivals in Philadelphia, Los Angeles, and San Jose, Calif., and a renewed commitment to community building across geographical, generational and ethnic divides.
Jazz greats from Chicago and Los Angeles will join a panoply of Bay Area musicians for Asian American Jazz 2002/San Francisco, which runs Sept. 20 to Oct. 6. In an effort to involve the local community, this year’s festival will also include an open house at Chinatown Beacon Center, two community roundtables with the artists and two free concerts at Romeo 5 Art Cafe & Bar.
Under the direction of saxophonist-composer-activist Francis Wong and nonprofit arts presenter Asian Improv aRts, the festival has taken on a more community-oriented outlook in the past two years, says festival organizer Leon Lee. This year’s theme, “The Spirit of Improvisation,” reflects both the nature of jazz music and the ad hoc way immigrant Asians developed communities in America.
Wong says the APA jazz movement began in these improvised communities of Japantown, Manilatown, and Chinatown as early on as in the mid-1920s. As these hard-built communities and neighborhoods fell prey to redevelopment, artists and activists moved in to give voice to the residents’ concerns. Today, Lee hopes the festival can contribute to these historic communities by supporting artists and by drawing more people, and thus more commerce, to multicultural Japantown.
Manilatown perished a quarter-century ago with the fall of the I-Hotel, but Chinatown is joining in the festival this year with an open house Oct. 3 at Chinatown Beacon Center. Concord-based saxophonist Jeff Chan and his group Turn of the Century, who perform Sept. 27, will be among the musicians discussing and playing their music at the community center.
Alison Satake of the Beacon Center says she hopes the open house will be a first step in bringing more contemporary arts to Chinatown, a community whose arts scene she describes as “very traditional-based.” The open house heralds the center’s upcoming series of arts workshops for families and youth, slated to debut later this year.
This year’s festival also highlights jazz’s roots in the African American community by honoring the renowned Chicago bassist Malachi Favors Maghostut. He will perform Oct. 5 at the Japanese Cultural and Community Center of Northern California with fellow Chicago bassist Tatsu Aoki, the executive producer of Asian American Jazz/Chicago.
“Malachi is in many ways synonymous with Chicago jazz,” says festival director Wong, noting that the bassist’s style is innovative, yet rooted in music history. “He represents the best traditions of the music.” Maghostut, a staple of the Chicago jazz scene since the 1950s, played for four decades with the experimental, African-influenced Art Ensemble of Chicago.
Extending beyond San Francisco and Chicago, this year’s Asian American Jazz festival is also reaching new audiences across the nation. The festivals debuting in San Jose, Philadelphia, and Los Angeles were the fruit of Asian Improv aRts’ development into a national organization, says Wong. “It was a combination of our relationships and new opportunities in these cities. The San Francisco festival was the model for the festivals in other cities through its programming and the idea of building a community,” she adds.
In addition to its ideas, the original festival is also contributing some of its key players to its offshoots: Wong will be traveling to Los Angeles and Philadelphia to perform with Jon Jang’s “Up from the Root” project, and a collaboration with Melody of China, which Wong describes as “a celebration of the Chinese diaspora,” will be performed at the San Francisco festival.
“Between being an internationally acclaimed musician, having a family with two kids, producing the festival, and running Asian Improv aRts, I don’t know how he does it all,” says Lee admiringly of Wong, whom he describes as “a visionary musician and activist.” But Wong refuses to take credit for his enormous contributions, insisting, “Well, we all do it together.”
Wong hopes the festival will help increase the public’s awareness of APA involvement in jazz, which he dates back to the early 20th century.
“Asian American jazz comes from the desire of Asian Americans to contribute to the shaping of American culture. And jazz is one of the best traditions to come out of American culture,” Wong muses. “It combines traditions of spirituality, community, innovation, and freedom.
“Asian Americans had bands and played this music before [World War II] and in the camps,” he adds. “Now we’re passing the music on to the next generation.”
Asian American Jazz 2002 runs Sept. 20-Oct. 6 in San Francisco; Sept. 27 and 28 at Swarthmore College near Philadelphia, Pa.; Oct. 18 in San Jose, Calif.; Oct. 19 at California State University, Los Angeles; and Oct. 24-26 at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Chicago. For more information,call 415-353-5732 or visit www.asianimprov.com/aaj2002/sanfrancisco/sfindex.htm. Advance tickets for San Francisco shows go on sale Sept. 20; call 877-243-3774 or visit www.jmstore.com.
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