Asian Art Museum presents
19th Asian American Jazz Festival

(L to R): Zakir Hussain, Mark Izu, and Suenobu Togi

This festival is a pilgrimage through a New Silk Road, a musical journey through time and culture. Some of the music is rooted in African American jazz, and other forms speak to different regions of the Asian continent. The San Francisco Bay Area is a unique place with a unique history, serving as the port of call to the Pacific Rim, where many Asian ideas and concepts shape American culture. In this new millennium we can be proud of the artistic achievements and innovations we have created as part of the New America. 
                                 -- Mark Izu, Artistic Director, Asian American Jazz 2000
                                     A Project of First Voice

San Francisco -  Asian American Jazz 2000
An innovative series of performances at the Asian Art Museum and the Oakland Asian Cultural Center was showcased with an all-star cast of musicians of many ethnic and musical backgrounds. Highlighting this year's event was a special sneak preview of Wave Twisters - the first hip-hop animated film, featuring the sounds of DJ QBert, who appeared in person to introduce the film and to present a demonstration of his award-winning skratch skills. 

     Among the other artists scheduled to perform at Asian American Jazz 2000 were: Circle of Fire (Mark Izu, Zakir Hussain, Suenobu Togi, Shonosuke Okura, Anthony Brown, Hafez Modirzadeh), Jon Jang, Melody of China, Asian Crisis, and Francis Wong. The more than 15 artists (spanning 3 generations) featured in Asian American Jazz 2000 engaged in an artistic dialogue across time, place, and culture, and provided a musical pilgrimage along the New Silk Road traveled by the Asian diaspora of our twenty-first century global village.

     This year's program featured the most newest work in their nineteen-year history - includes two performances by Circle of Fire (an ensemble of musicians including director/bassist Mark Izu; Indian tabla master Zakir Hussain; Gagaku master Suenobu Togi; Noh drummer Shonosuke Okura; African American percussionist Anthony Brown; and Persian American multi-instrumentalist Hafez Modirzadeh).

     This diverse ensemble is inspired by Japanese, Chinese, Persian and Indian musical traditions, while emphasizing jazz and new music motifs. Highlights included excerpts from Sun Cycles, a new musical score by Mark Izu, commissioned in part by the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts.

     Asian American Jazz 2000 also served as the venue for a special sneak preview of the animated hip-hop film Wave Twisters. The film combines sounds from QBert's skratch-concept album of the same name released last year, with the arresting hard-edged graphics of long-time graffiti artist Doug Cunningham. This combination of music and images produces an impressive audio and visual hip-hop mix. The film is currently a work in progress and after the screening, audience members will be asked for their feedback, which will be used in the completion of the film. 

     QBert made a special guest appearance to introduce the film and demonstrated skratching, as well as answer questions from the audience. In addition, three models of the characters in the movie, as well as photographs and graphics of Doug Cunningham and the animators, were on display.

     Other Asian American Jazz 2000 highlights included a Jon Jang collaboration with Melody of China featuring new works by Jon Jang and Hong Wang, artistic director of Melody of China. There were also performances by Asian Crisis, a group of emerging artists heralding the next generation perspective, including members Jason Jong, John Kim, Meena Makhijani, Francis Lacsamana, Art Hirahara, Leon Lee and Jeff Chan.

     The festival concluded with a tribute to the late pianist/composer Glenn Horiuchi by Francis Wong and his group Gathering of Ancestors, and featured guest artist William Roper on tuba. The ensemble, featuring long time Horiuchi colleagues Wong and Roper, performed a special arrangement of Horiuchi's signature composition, "Dew Drop". Other artists who performed included bassist/vocalist John Carlos Perea, percussionist Negmeddin Shaheen, taiko drummer Melody Takata, vocalist/ percussionist Donna Kwon, and Jeff Chan on woodwinds.

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Listen to music from the performances
 

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