Blue Notes with Robin Lynam

Jazz in Hong Kong seems to be dancing into the Year of the Snake to a Latin beat.

There was a Brazilian element to two memorable gigs last weekend, while this Saturday Grappa's Cellar goes Afro-Caribbean. And at the Hong Kong Arts Festival in March, we'll have the Brazilian-influenced jazz of bassist Esperanza Spalding. More on Spalding closer to her concerts on March 15 and 16, but first let's look back a few days.

Singer Ginger Kwan assembled a fine band for the Fringe Club launch of her Kwantum Leap album, with Brazilian guitarist Orlando Bonzi contributing highly effective rhythm guitar work, and some sharp solos that reminded me of Larry Carlton's contributions to Steely Dan's classic mid-to-late 1970s recordings.

If you haven't seen Bonzi live in Hong Kong, you can get a good idea of what he does on YouTube. One clip shows him jamming with Andy Summers, best known as guitarist with The Police, but who since the late 1980s has played more jazz than rock. Summers' most notable foray into Latin jazz to date has been his 2005 album of acoustic guitar duets with Victor Biglione, Splendid Brazil.

Another guitarist who moves easily between jazz and rock and has a penchant for Brazilian beats is Eugene Pao, and last Sunday he, singer Angelita Li and vibraphonist and harmonica virtuoso Hendrik Meurkens played a warmly tropical show on a chilly January night at the Youth Square Y-Theatre in Chai Wan.

The show, organised by promoter Clarence Chang as part of his Jazz World Live Series, was not as well attended as it deserved to be, but those who did turn up had a great night. In fact they were reluctant to leave. The Brazilian Fantasy Band, which also included Bob Mocarsky on piano, Cameron Reid on drums and Scott Dodd on bass, was called back for encores.