Review: George Benson and Al Jarreau

Jessica Wang | Sep 5, 2008 5:46 pm | 3 comments | 2704 reads

Sep 4
George Benson & Al Jarreau
RMB 380-1,280.
8pm. Beijing Exhibiton Theater (6835 4455)

Jazz legends George Benson and Al Jarreau put on a fantastic and energetic show for a full house last night at the Beijing Exhibiton Theatre. Al Jarreau started the show by singing Elton John’s Your Song, before living up to his reputation of being the Acrobat of Scat and wowing the crowd with his scat routines - including a nice little riff on the word Beijing. He also won applause by dropping a few lines of Chinese into his on stage banter and charmed them even more when he invited them to start scatting along with him.

George Benson came on stage for the second half of the show – his voice sounding just as smooth as it was 50 years ago as he belted out the Greatest Love of All ballad which he first recorded back in 1977 before it was made famous by Whitney Houston in the mid-eighties. He also did Breezin and Turn Your Love Around, at which point the audience started to dance. By the time he got to the end of his set, the whole audience were on their feet shaking their stuff, and demanded an encore. In all, the two performers were in good form providing a fun night of cheesy hits and scat magic.

You can read Lisa Liang’s interview with both George Benson and Al Jarreau in the latest issue of agenda.

Links and Sources
Star Daily: 爵士大师表演不用技巧 北展爵士夜很疯狂 (image)

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Divaprinces5's picture Divaprinces5 Submitted by Guest on Mon, 09/08/2008 - 15:44

It's hard to say how many people in Beijing like jazz but I'm sure the number is large and growing. The show was packed full and most of the audience were Chinese. Everyone seemed to really like the performance. And even if all the lyrics were in English, music is music; it's its own language. The fact that they came to China to perform must mean there is a demand and a level of understanding.

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