{"id":570,"date":"2007-06-23T01:28:06","date_gmt":"2007-06-23T05:28:06","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/s265039441.onlinehome.us\/philpaine\/?p=570"},"modified":"2018-08-17T00:51:03","modified_gmt":"2018-08-17T04:51:03","slug":"shanghai-lounge-divas","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.philpaine.com\/?p=570","title":{"rendered":"Shanghai Lounge Divas"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Li<\/a>

Li Xiang-Lan<\/p><\/div>\n

Between the two World Wars, Shang\u00adhai was one of the most cos\u00admopoli\u00adtan and sophis\u00adti\u00adcated cities in the world. It was also one of the world\u2019s hotspots for Jazz. The great jazz bands toured there, and there was a con\u00adsid\u00ader\u00adable pool of local tal\u00adent. Pre-emi\u00adnent among the local artists were the \u201cLounge Divas\u201d, female singers who owed their orig\u00adi\u00adnal inspi\u00adra\u00adtion to Amer\u00adi\u00adcan stars like Bil\u00adlie Hol\u00adi\u00adday and Bessie Smith, and to Euro\u00adpean cabaret singers like Edith Piaf, but who qui\u00adckly devel\u00adoped their own, indi\u00advid\u00adual styles. Among the great\u00adest of these divas were Li Xiang-Lan, Bai Kwong, Chang Loo, and Chow Hsuan. All had glo\u00adri\u00adous voic\u00ades. I recent\u00adly acquired a fas\u00adci\u00adnat\u00ading 2\u2011cd set. The first cd has the orig\u00adi\u00adnal record\u00adings from the 1930\u2019s. The sec\u00adond has mod\u00adern remix\u00ades of the same songs, done up to suit the cur\u00adrent taste for dance music in Asia. I have no objec\u00adtion to these. The dance remix\u00ades are per\u00adfectly legit\u00adi\u00admate, and rea\u00adson\u00adably well done. But the orig\u00adi\u00adnals are far more inter\u00adest\u00ading. They take you on an amaz\u00ading jour\u00adney to a place and era lost in dim light and a haze of cig\u00ada\u00adrette smoke.<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/span>A num\u00adber of years ago, I was walk\u00ading across the plaza of Toronto\u2019s City Hall. Designed in the 1960\u2019s by Finnish archi\u00adtect Viljo Rev\u00adell, it\u2019s a pleas\u00adant place, filled with skaters in the win\u00adter (when the orna\u00admen\u00adtal pond is frozen), and music con\u00adcerts in the sum\u00admer. On this par\u00adtic\u00adu\u00adlar occ\u00adca\u00adsion, a Big Band was play\u00ading music from the 1930\u2019s and 1940\u2019s. Fold\u00ading chairs had been set up in the plaza, and there was a rea\u00adson\u00adably large crowd enjoy\u00ading the music. When I sat down among them, I noticed that almost every\u00adone there was a) very old, and b) Chi\u00adnese-Cana\u00addi\u00adan. I turned to a dig\u00adni\u00adfied-look\u00ading elder\u00adly cou\u00adple, and asked them why so many Chi\u00adnese had come to this con\u00adcert. With a twin\u00adkle in his eye, the man said: \u201cThis is the music of our youth. We lis\u00adtened to this in Shang\u00adhai, when we were just mar\u00adried.\u201d Lis\u00adten\u00ading, now, to Chang Loo singing \u201cAll the Stars in the Sky\u201d, I think I can under\u00adstand what that twin\u00adkle in his eye was all about.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Between the two World Wars, Shang\u00adhai was one of the most cos\u00admopoli\u00adtan and sophis\u00adti\u00adcated cities in the world. It was also one of the world\u2019s hotspots for Jazz. The great jazz bands toured there, and there was a con\u00adsid\u00ader\u00adable pool \u2026<\/p>\n

Read more \u00bb<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"wp_typography_post_enhancements_disabled":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[947,23],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-570","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-c-listening","category-ct-listening-2007"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.philpaine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/570","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.philpaine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.philpaine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.philpaine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.philpaine.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=570"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"http:\/\/www.philpaine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/570\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9044,"href":"http:\/\/www.philpaine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/570\/revisions\/9044"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.philpaine.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=570"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.philpaine.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=570"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.philpaine.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=570"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}