Time to jazz things up

Huang created the Beijing Nine Gates International Jazz Music Festival, which was launched in 2005 and ran for 15 years. The festival offered a platform to many jazz musicians and exposed people of all ages to this music genre. It was a golden opportunity for like-minded music lovers to meet up.

Beijing has always been home to an abundance of musicians from a diversity of music genres. The number of homegrown jazz musicians is on the rise during the past three decades, says Huang.

Jazz music, which originated in the African American communities of the United States in the late 19th century, has taken root in Beijing over the past three decades.

Since the 1990s, a small but dedicated group of jazz musicians has been performing at bars and clubs. One of the most famous venues for live jazz performances is East Shore, a jazz bar with floor-to-ceiling windows near Beijing's Houhai Lake. The bar was founded by Liu Yuan, a well-known saxophonist and a longtime band member of China's rock legend Cui Jian.

Thanks to the internet, local jazz musicians are more closely connected to the international jazz community and young people's knowledge of music and listening experiences are diversified.