charlieparker

The Rise of Female Force in Jazz When conductor high school student Wu Jiayu stepped out of a Senza New Strings concert last night, she had plenty to say. The evening was a full tribute programme dedicated to Charlie Parker, presented by saxophonist Charlie Wang and Senza New Strings led by violinist Chen Hongda. For Wang, the night carried a personal dimension: his English name was itself a nod to Bird, making this concert something he had long dreamed of bringing to life. The result, in Wu’s assessment, was electric. What struck Wu most was the ensemble’s central creative idea. The fusion of jazz with strings was balancing classical refinement on one side with jazz freedom on the other. The ensemble’s name says it all: Senza, meaning “without mute”. The idea is one of liberation, playing louder, more expressively, without the restraint that a mute imposes. In that spirit, the evening felt genuinely fresh, a combination Wu found both inventive and convincing. But it was the personnel on stage that left perhaps the deepest impression. Wu singled out the evening’s bassist for particular praise, and reflected warmly on the growing prominence of women in jazz. Female jazz drummer and bassist, she noted, are a force to be reckoned with, and their increasing visibility feels to her like a real and meaningful shift in the landscape. Off the podium and on a school holiday, Wu is spending her time continuing her conducting studies and practising piano. Her ambition, she says, is to one day pursue the same kind of creative innovation she witnessed that night, fusing the new with the distinctly Chinese. For Wu Jiayu, that is what music is ultimately for. This is a Chinese programme with bilingual subtitles.