China in 4, no.3

The four cities had specific tourist sites supplemented by pagodas, temples, palaces, restaurants.  Beijing featured Tien'anmen Square, Forbidden Palace, Mutianyu Great Wall, Temple of Heaven, Birds nest, old Hutong alleys and a Chinese Opera and another historical performance dedicated to a revered female emperor, Wei Zetian (Second Zhou Dynasty, ~690 CE).  Zi'an was the first capital of CHina featuring the Summer Palace and Terracotta Warriors (~210 BCE) which were only discovered in 1974.  Amusingly we met a surviving farmer discoverer and his family and then cast our own little warriors to take home.  Zhangjiajie is pretty much a tourist town in Hunan with wondrous quartz-sandstone mountains made increasingly famous by the film series Avatar.  I missed my much-loved chili-rich Hunanese feeds given a health issue with one of our group, Fran from Melbourne, but she was lovely so no worries.  Finally Shanghai, modern and business-like, just for a day or so after a very late flight, so taken pretty easy.  This is modern China, after all, so we took the maglev (300kph) to the airport.

China in 4, no.2

Our group was originally 16, meeting up in Beijing, going on to Zi'an by fast train (300kph).  We split up after Zi'an, leaving 7 to fly (5 hours) to Zhangjiajie then Shanghai by plane (2 hours) and out.  The formal component was only 11 days and physically and nutritionally demanding, meaning plenty of big meals and plenty of buses to carry us around more locally.  It was great fun running into mother and daughter Sonia and Mailee (NZ) in Shanghai after losing them earlier.  And this was a great, amusing group: Canada, Aust, NZ, Indonesia, India, Brazil, England and more.  And several muso-relateds who were such fun to chat with: Mailee, once a jazz student, now a NZ indie session bassist and sports broadcast staffer; Julie living in Boston and seeing a raft of the best jazz players (one gig she spoke of was drums with 4 basses, Ron Carter, Victor Wooten, Steve Bailey, Justin Chancellor!!!) at Berklee and regularly seeking out jazz venues when she travels;  Virginia of London who works in marketing and management of musical acts including Placebo and whose company had first brought Nirvana to the UK (!!!).  Lots of chatting in this group for a tragic like me.  Also with Heinz and Maria who met at ANU while she did her PhD and he worked as a post-doc. Close to home!

China in 4, no.1

It was just a quick trip to China.  China, huge as it is with a history going back thousands of years?  Yep.  A cousin of Megan's was going and we joined in.  It was easy, being a guided tour, but a set of 12-hour days and regular 15,000 steps and one steep 999 step staircase cultural outing thrown in.  Four cities, some very significant historical or natural sights and some great guides to inform us.  Saves on reading too much.  Upmarket hotels, too: considerably more than my normal selections.  We didn't have too much time to ourselves during the formal tour, but we arrived a day early and explored some of Beijing with cousin Tom, finding a backstreet bar set up by a Cordin Bleu-trained chef.  Classy and an opportunity to chat with English-speaking Chinese women who inhabited this place.  The people were lovely, although most didn't speak much English and my Chinese struggled to express "thank you" by the end of the trip.  One other thing of wonder was the quiet streets, virtually all scooters, bikes, cars were electric so the street sounds were just occasional toots.  China is a fascinating mix of the past and the future.  Not many police but lots of cameras, many for the roads.  Australians can just register and enter for 4 weeks.  Perhaps the biggest issue was getting around the local apps, WeChat, Alipay, Amap.  Western net services, Gmail, Facebook, WhatsApp, were sometimes unavailable but mostly accessible using our eSims.

Jaminagin

Tuesday night, Smiths jam.  Megan's busy and less classical so I've got to a few jams recently.  And enjoyed them immensely.  Tonight was Greg Stott with Chris Pound and Gus Henderson for a very lovely host band.  Playing several tunes by the greatest composer of the C20th, suggested Greg, only partly in jest.  I remember sitting behind Greg and Mark Sutton, perhaps James Luke, at the Burt Bacharach gig at the Royal Theatre at the National Convention Centre early Nov 2015 and being stunned by the string of lovely melodies and huge hits, so many that the Look of love, Alfie, Wives and lovers, Walk on by, I say a little prayer and the like were just dumped in one of two huge medleys.  Beautiful playing and beautiful tunes from the hosts.  Then a string of the recurring jammers, plenty of singers, Nitya on soprano, a good friend Alysa who I got to play with, perhaps an oversupply of ballads, given the singers.  I was hoping for at least one take on Giant steps, something more up, but feeling the ballads through is a challenge in itself, changing feels and intensity over time and solos.  So great fun once again, and if you are interested, follow the link below to read my report on the Burt Bacharach gig with not a little admiration for Burt's compositions.  Greg, I can only agree: perhaps not the greatest composer but a pop composition genius.

Greg Stott (guitar), Chris Pound (bass) and Gus Henderson (drums) hosted the jazz jam at Smiths.

Burt Bacharach in Canberra  /  Setlist