As Shanghai gets over virus lockdown one thing missing is jazz, a part of Chinese city’s music scene since the 1920s

Just as everywhere else, the coronavirus has hit music in China’s biggest city, where the jazz scene had been flourishing before Shanghai went into lockdown

With no concerts on the horizon, live music is one of the only things that isn’t getting back to normal, says a bilingual jazz writer and self-taught aficionado

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A band plays at JZ Club in Shanghai. The city’s jazz musicians have been badly affected by the coronavirus pandemic, with event cancellations and venue closures – and no one knows when that will change. Photo: In Pictures via Getty Images

Published: 5:00pm, 19 Apr 2020Updated: 5:00pm, 19 Apr 2020

Jazz put down roots in Shanghai as early as the 1920s, the Chinese city’s cosmopolitan character and booming nightlife an ideal setting for a new American music that was starting to sweep the world.

Though the music has had its twists and turns there during the last century the recent years have seen a resurgence. Three major venues champion the art form (JZ Club, Jazz at Lincoln Centre Shanghai and Blue Note China), and young musicians and listeners increasingly are drawn to it. Favourites the Old Jazz Band continued to perform at Shanghai’s Fairmont Peace Hotel, as they had done for decades.

But, just as everywhere else, the coronavirus has injured music and life in China.

An email interview with Shanghai jazz writer Hu Jiaowei – who contributes to the allaboutjazz.com website and other publications – illuminated just how much.

A jazz band playing at the Peace Hotel in Shanghai, China. Photo: Corbis via Getty Images

“Covid-19 totally caught us unprepared! Just like other places on this planet,” she wrote.

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