LIVE JAZZ IN Hong Kong is enjoying a revival, not long after having been written off by many as one of the cultural casualties of Sars. The news of its passing may have been exaggerated, but the epidemic certainly shortened the cast list. A number of players who kept the flame burning through the first couple of years of the new millennium took Sars as a cue to move on, says pianist Allen Youngblood (one of the few to stay and work through that whole dismal period).
'We lost Mark Henderson on trumpet, Flynn Adams on bass - he's in Shanghai now - Guy Le Claire on guitar,' he says. 'Part of it was because of Sars, but also because it was just getting tight around here. A lot of the guys have kids in school, and they've got to make some money. That's why a lot of people keep going to Shanghai, where there are six or seven jazz clubs.'
Le Claire now lives in Guilin, Guanxi province, but still visits for gigs. Pianist and harmonica player Dave Packer moved to France. Pianist Ted Lo and guitarist Eugene Pao, although still resident, have maintained uncharacteristically low profiles in recent months.
Filling the gap, however, has been a mixture of old hands and new arrivals, and the word around town is that jazz is back. I test the theory on a sweltering Thursday night in Central. In Old Bailey Street, I find a place where the music promised to be as cool as the drinks. Halfway across Hollywood Road, you can hear the call of Blaine Whittaker's alto saxophone luring passersby into the casbah-like shelter of the Bohemian Lounge.
This is the sort of place you find in Paris. It's a relatively new jazz gig, but one that already has a loyal following, and attracts some of the city's top players. And it's not the only place in Central that's once again using jazz to pull in punters.
Just a few minutes walk away, at the San Marzano Pizza Express, French saxophonist Oliver Smith is leading another small group through a regular Thursday night residency. Had you been in the area on Tuesday or Wednesday, more live jazz would have been on offer at Gecko in Ezra's Lane.