Hong Kong Dragon Club - Take Out (2000) {Kaisonic Experience, Inc./Xien}

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Hong Kong Dragon Club - Take Out (2000) {Kaisonic Experience, Inc./Xien}

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Recording sessions in Hong Kong tended to involve a standard group of studio musicians, who frequently jammed and experimented with different styles of music. With a foray into jazz, Hong Kong Dragon Club was born. Producer K.K. Wong set out to capture the unique combination of Chinese folk melodies played on traditional instruments with modern instruments infusing the rhythm and flow of jazz. The result is Take Out, a 10-track CD, at its best when the traditional tunes soar beyond the anticipated contemporary jazz format.

The Dragon Club players bringing strange and delightful new sounds to this recording include Hsin Hsiao-Hung on erhu (a long-necked, two-stringed instrument played with a bow), Cheng Man on guzheng (a Chinese zither), Wong Ching on pipa (a plucked four-string instrument similar to a mandolin), Li Tak Kong on yangqin (a dulcimer type instrument played with tiny bamboo mallets) and Choo Boon Chong on di (a bamboo flute).

They're joined by Guy Barker on trumpet, Nick Ledesma on drums, Rudy Balbuena and Nilo Aristorena on bass. David Packer, who arranged and conducted the tunes, also plays harmonica, keyboards and percussion.

The opening track, "Beautiful Island," features strings that seem to sing a melody, adding a unique flavor to the bass heavy jazz. The faster-paced "Green is the Mountain" aims to create the image of a beautiful mountain in Taiwan while retaining a smooth radio-ready jazz sound. In these first two tracks, the old and new blend so effortlessly, I was wondering why they had bothered to feature folk tunes and unusual instruments. Not to worry.

In "A Place Far Away," Packer's fresh harmonica and Barker's dazzling trumpeting evoke images of early jazz stylings, and then step aside for the pipa and the erhu (I think). "Watering Flowers" and "Azalea" provide Choo Boon Chong a chance to explore the possibilities of a five-hole bamboo di.

"Three Gorges of Yang Guan" is my favorite track, with a sultry melody that warbles from the bow and muted trumpet. Another highlight, "Needle Work," features several of the traditional stringed instruments in intricate solos. The final piece, "Tale of the Great Wall," highlights strong bass rhythm with catchy pipa plucking before shifting toward features on the other strings.

Overall, Take Out is an intriguing first venture for the talented musicians of Hong Kong Dragon Club. The unusual but beautifully harmonic sounds of the traditional Chinese instruments work well in the jazz format. I would love to see them played. My only complaint is that the sparse liner notes provide only the names, not the brief descriptions of each instrument, and most listeners won't have access to explanations in the promotional materials.

Jazz lovers with a penchant for something a bit different should check out the new sounds from the East. Hong Kong Dragon Club's Take Out is a fine place to start.

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Hong Kong Dragon Club - Take Out (2000) {Kaisonic Experience, Inc./Xien}

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Hong Kong has, of course, been the meeting place of several cultures. Not only being the last bastion of English colonialism, it also has served as one of the trading gateways into mainland China for many centuries. It's no wonder that the resulting culture of Hong Kong is an interesting mixture of Western and Eastern influences.

As if to prove this point, a group of experienced Hong Kong musicians gathered together by arranger and musician David Packer got together and formed the Hong Kong Dragon Club with the mission of adapting traditional Chinese music to a jazz sensibility. The result is a mellow set of Eastern-tinged smooth jazz, which bounces from the smoothness of Packer's harmonica and keyboard to the often melancholy of the traditional Chinese instruments. Often this makes for some quite intriguing and relaxing music; at other times, it tends toward the bland.

All but one of the tracks here are smooth arrangements of traditional Chinese melodies. Each of the players of the Chinese instruments – Hsin Hsiao-Hung, Cheng Man, Li Tak Kong, Choo Boon Chong, and Wong Ching – have been asked to improvise these tunes over Packer's jazzy keyboarding. They seemed quite up to the challenge – even playing some blues in the track "three gorges of Yang Guan"; each of their solos brighten up the tunes gracefully.

It is ironic then that many of these tunes would have worked a bit better, if the arranger, David Packer, had given himself less to do. The overwhelming ambience of his keyboard playing has a tendency to give many of the tracks a somewhat bland veneer. In his attempt to "jazz" up the Chinese music, he unfortunately tends to obscure some of the beauty of the original tunes.

The first track "beautiful island" typifies this. A mellow yet intriguing Chinese tune begins with a couple of solos on traditional instruments. Then the rest of it is dominated by three or four solos on keyboards and harmonicas – all by Packer. This eventually reduces the tune to rather typical "smooth jazz." Another track "azalea" begins with a particularly pretty bright melody but ends with a rather lengthy harmonica solo, that seems more obtrusive than inclusive.

Sometimes a nice balance between the two genres is reached, though. The second track "green is the mountain" is a nice dialogue between Packer's smooth tendencies and the Chinese tradition of the rest of the "club." "A place far away" begins with a melancholic air that turns into a nice trumpet solo by Guy Barker. Eventually, the beginning air is returned to with the traditional instruments. In "needle work," Packer lays way, way back, letting the rest of the players give some excellent Chinese improvisation while still conforming to the harmonic structure of jazz.

In all, this is an extremely mellow CD that makes a good attempt at bridging two very different musical cultures. It would have been a much more interesting project if the Western end of the experiment had not been so pervasive.

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Hong Kong Dragon Club - Take Out (2000) {Kaisonic Experience, Inc./Xien}

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