Looking back over the jazz year in Hong Kong, the most memorable gigs included two recent ones: the Asian Jazz All-Stars Power Quartet's late-November performance at the Academy for Performing Arts, and the Ned Kelly's Last Stand 40th Anniversary Night earlier this month.
The Hong Kong Arts Festival usually presents at least one of the jazz highlights of the year, and having taken a one-year break from performing that service in 2011 looked set to come back strongly in 2012, with Charlie Haden and Quartet West. Unfortunately Haden was in poor health, and was obliged to cancel the performance. There was a jazz element to the Arts Festival concert by violinist Nigel Kennedy, who chose to present the music of Bach and Fats Waller in the same programme.
Also part of the Arts Festival programme were two performances by Dr John, which brought a few rays of Louisiana sunshine to a chilly Hong Kong February.
At Grappa's Cellar, Allen Youngblood presented two concerts in a new programme following on from his successful Allen Youngblood Presents series, this time called "Kinetic Soundscapes". The music was of the high standard his performances at the venue have consistently maintained.
Also at Grappa's, the Victoria Jazz Band led by trumpeter John Hubbard continued to hold down its now long-established regular gig on the first Wednesday of every month from 8pm to 11pm, and that arrangement continues into 2013. Other regulars at the venue included big band The Stray Katz, and its Dixieland spin-off the Dixie Katz.
Jazz performances are still a regular part of the Fringe Club's musical programme with performances from new bands and established ensembles such as the Saturday Night Jazz Orchestra.
The recent opening of the club's new Cabaret Theatre Bar, which at present has Saturday Night Jazz Orchestra vocalist Elaine Liu's striking black-and-white portraits of local jazz musicians hanging on the walls, gives the club a more intimate and jazz-friendly performance room than it previously had.