Identity Politics Through Jazz at Old First Concerts

Jangtet members Deszon X. Claiborne, Nick DePinna, Hitomi Oba, Jon Jang, and Gary Brown (photograph by Bob Hsiang, from the event page for this concert on the Old First Concerts Web site)

Last night at the Old First Presbyterian Church, Old First Concerts presented a program by the Jon Jangtet. This is a jazz quintet led by Jon Jang at the piano. His front line is shared by Hitomi Oba on tenor saxophone and Nick DePinna on trombone. Rhythm is provided by Gary Brown on bass and Deszon X. Claiborne on percussion.

The title of the program was A Chinaman’s Chance, A Choy’s Chance! This was also the title of the central work of the evening, which was being given its world premiere. Developed in partnership with poet Genny Lim, who shared narration duties with Jang, this six-movement composition explores different aspects of the evolution of Chinese American identity over a period extending from 499 to 1969 (not presented in chronological order). The Choy of the title is Philip Choy, one of the early major historians of transnational Chinese American history. (This year commemorates the 50th anniversary of the first Chinese American history course taught in the United States. It was taught by Choy and Him Mark Lai at what was then San Francisco State College and is now San Francisco State University. Choi died in 2017.)

As might be expected, the American perspective of Jang’s libretto is based, for the most part, in California. The major focus is the building of the transcontinental railroad and the essential (and subsequently ignored) contributions of Chinese workers to that effort. However, the timeline begins with the early efforts to sail east across the Pacific Ocean, which would eventually lead to the landing of Hui Shen on the West Coast of North America (called Fusang) in 499. Furthermore, it reaches all the way to the recent past of the Operation Breadbasket gathering event in 1969. Jang himself learned to play the traditional “Butterfly Lovers Song” of Chen Gang and He Zhan Hao at that time and eventually developed his own arrangement synthesizing it with Cannonball Adderley’s version of Joe Zawinul’s “Country Preacher,” which was inspired by Operation Breadbasket. That arrangement was played as a postlude to A Chinaman’s Chance.

The prelude, on the other hand, was another original Jang composition. “Yank Sing Work Song” was composed to recognize the second anniversary of the four-million-dollar settlement that resolved a dispute between Yank Sing Restaurant and its workers in November of 2014. The song was originally written with a pipa in mind; but both Oba and DePinna captured the lyricism of the tune, often blending into a unison yielding uniquely refreshing sonorities.

On the whole the evening was more one of identity politics than of music. Lim’s compelling delivery of the texts had much to do with that impression. Nevertheless, the Jangtet is a quintet of skilled and sensitive players, and Brown was particularly imaginative when given time for an extended bass solo. I definitely would not mind having the opportunity to listen to this group have at the sort of straight-ahead jazz that was still flourishing back in 1969.