Liu Yuan is a Chinese musician. He is recognized as one of the two most prominent jazz musicians in China, the other being the saxophonist Du Yinjiao

Du Yinjiao

Du Yinjiao is a Chinese saxophonist.He began his musical career in a music regiment of the People's Liberation Army. In the 1980s he became interested in jazz music, which was at that time virtually unknown in China...

.

Biography

His father was a player of the suona

Suona

The suona ; also called laba or haidi is a Han Chinese shawm . It has a distinctively loud and high-pitched sound, and is used frequently in Chinese traditional music ensembles, particularly those that perform outdoors...

, a traditional Chinese wind instrument, and this was also Liu's first instrument. At about the age of eight, he began his performing career, playing in a government-run children's musical group.

He continued his suona studies at the Beijing Art School, graduating at age 19, at which time he entered a danwei (work unit) called the Beijing Song and Dance Troupe. With this group, Liu had the opportunity to travel, both inside and outside of China.

In 1978 and 1980, the troupe toured Europe, performing in Romania

Romania

Romania is a country located at the crossroads of Central and Southeastern Europe, on the Lower Danube, within and outside the Carpathian arch, bordering on the Black Sea...

, France, Switzerland

Switzerland

Switzerland name of one of the Swiss cantons. ; ; ; or ), in its full name the Swiss Confederation , is a federal republic consisting of 26 cantons, with Bern as the seat of the federal authorities. The country is situated in Western Europe,Or Central Europe depending on the definition....

, and other nations. While in Romania, in a city near the Hungarian

Hungary

Hungary , officially the Republic of Hungary , is a landlocked country in Central Europe. It is situated in the Carpathian Basin and is bordered by Slovakia to the north, Ukraine and Romania to the east, Serbia and Croatia to the south, Slovenia to the southwest and Austria to the west. The...

 border, Liu and some friends went to a cafe where they heard jazz performed live for the first time:

"There was a music group that performed," he recalls, "in a cafe where we went to eat one night. It was jazz. They had a sax, and things like that, and it was jazz. And we said..." Liu sucks in his breath at the memory. "...aiyo!"http://www.webcitation.org/query?url=http://www.geocities.com/CollegePark/Housing/7534/chinajazz.html&date=2009-10-25+06:58:41

Liu became enamored of this form of music, and, in particular, the saxophone. In 1984 he was able to purchase a saxophone and, over time, gradually acquired skill playing jazz. Jazz recordings were scarce, and at first he had only a single tape, by Grover Washington, Jr.

Grover Washington, Jr.

Grover Washington, Jr. was an American jazz-funk / soul-jazz saxophonist. Along with George Benson, John Klemmer, David Sanborn, Bob James, Chuck Mangione, Herb Alpert, and Spyro Gyra, he is considered by many to be one of the founders of the smooth jazz genre.He wrote some of his material and...

, to study.

Also in the 1980s he was a founding member of the band of China's first rock star, Cui Jian

Cui Jian

Cui Jian is a Beijing-based Chinese singer-songwriter, trumpeter and guitarist. Affectionately called "Old Cui" , he is considered to be a pioneer in Chinese rock music and one of the first Chinese artists to write rock songs...

 (a fellow performer in the Beijing Song and Dance Troupe), for which he also acquired fame. He also contributed an instrumental piece to the 1992 Taiwan

Taiwan

Taiwan , also known, especially in the past, as Formosa , is the largest island of the same-named island group of East Asia in the western Pacific Ocean and located off the southeastern coast of mainland China. The island forms over 99% of the current territory of the Republic of China following...

ese movie Dust of Angels soundtrack

Dust of Angels (soundtrack)

Dust of Angels is the soundtrack to the Taiwanese motion picture of the same name directed by Hsu Hsiao-ming . It features ten Taiwanese-language and instrumental rock and ambient music songs by performers considered to be alternative or avant-garde in the Taiwanese music scene at the time...

.

Liu favors the tenor

Tenor saxophone

The tenor saxophone is a medium-sized member of the saxophone family, a group of instruments invented by Adolphe Sax in the 1840s. The tenor, with the alto, are the two most common types of saxophones. The tenor is pitched in the key of B, and written as a transposing instrument in the treble...

 and baritone saxophone

Baritone saxophone

The baritone saxophone, often called "bari sax" , is one of the largest and lowest pitched members of the saxophone family. It was invented by Adolphe Sax. The baritone is distinguished from smaller sizes of saxophone by the extra loop near its mouthpiece...

 as his primary instruments, though he also uses a modernized version of the suona for some songs in Cui Jian's band, in which he still performs. He made use of a modernized large keyed suona in the 1985 song "Nothing to My Name

Nothing To My Name

"Nothing to My Name" is the English title of a 1986 Mandarin-language rock song by Cui Jian. It is widely considered Cui's most famous and most important work, and one of the most influential songs in the history of the People's Republic of China, both as a seminal point in the development of...

" (一无所有; pinyin: Yì Wú Suǒ Yǒu), as well as on Cui's 1994 album Balls under the Red Flag (Hongxi xia de Dang).

In May 1999 Liu became the manager of a jazz club called CD Cafe (or CD Jazz Cafe) in his home city of Beijing, where he performs regularly with his Liu Yuan Jazz Quartet. He began performing at the Cafe in the mid-1990s, when public performances by Cui Jian's group were effectively banned. Weekend jam sessions by the quartet frequently ran until 3 am or later. His quartet included a talented jazz drummer from Japan, who was an alumnus of the Berklee School of Music.

In 2006, Liu partnered with childhood friend Li Yongxian to open the East Shore Jazz Cafe, a jazz bar in Beijing's Houhai

Houhai

Houhai is a lake and its surrounding district in central Beijing, one of the three parts of Shichahai. In recent years it has become famous for nightlife because it is home to many popular restaurants, bars, and cafes....

 district. The venue plays host to jazz artists from around China and abroad, and he still performs there himself on weekend nights.

Liu's given name is frequently pronounced "Yuar" (the Beijing dialect

Beijing dialect

Beijing dialect, or Pekingese , is the dialect of Mandarin spoken in the urban area of Beijing, China. It is the phonological basis of Standard Chinese, which is used by the People's Republic of China, the Republic of China , and Singapore....

pronunciation of "Yuan").

External links

• "Liu Yuan, the CD Cafe, and Jazz in China" by Tara Shingle Buzash