A bilingual video archive of jazz in China
The story of jazz in China, told by the musicians who built it.
Eastern Standards is a bilingual video archive and documentary series exploring the evolution of the jazz scene in China through the lens of cultural exchange — every episode an oral-history interview, opened the only way this story can be told: with a live duo jam.
ES-001
Ted Lo
ES-002
Session incoming
ES-003
Session incoming
Hong Kong — Shanghai
Told by the musicians who built it
The format
What is Eastern Standards
01
Oral History
Long-form conversations with the players, teachers and promoters who carried jazz into China, and those carrying it forward. In their own words, in the language they choose.
02
The Jam Session
Every episode opens with a live duo jam. Before anyone explains the music, two players make some, and the conversation starts from whatever the room gives back.
03
East–West Exchange
The standards were written in New Orleans and New York, then rewritten in Shanghai and Hong Kong. We trace how the music travelled, what it picked up on the way, and how it became ours.
Chronology
The Three Eras
Era I
Pioneers
The first players and promoters who put jazz on Chinese stages, and kept it alive through decades of change.
Era II
Bridge Builders
Musicians who trained abroad and came home, translating a borrowed idiom into a scene of their own.
Era III
Vanguard
Today’s generation, writing new standards in clubs and festivals across the mainland, Hong Kong and beyond.
He crossed an ocean to learn the language of jazz, then spent a lifetime teaching Hong Kong to speak it.
Liner notes · ES-001
Behind the kit
Jing Xi Li
I’m Jing Xi Li — a jazz drummer from Hong Kong, based in Shanghai. I started Eastern Standards because China’s jazz scene is growing faster than its story is being told.