2015 Homeland to New York—Vincent Hsu's Jazz Original Night
Taiwan Academy will be presenting a night of Vincent Tsung-Yu Hsu’s jazz originals with his special New York trio at 7:30pm on May 13th at the Taipei Economic and Cultural Office in New York. This not to be missed concert is open to the jazz aficionados and general public alike. Please RSVP for complimentary admission. We’re cordially inviting you to join us for the fresh sound of jazz from Taiwan and journey through Vincent Hsu’s musical homeland.
This spring, Vincent is returning to New York with his award-winning debut album, “Homeland,” which won the "Best Jazz Album of the Year" by the 2014 Golden Indie Music Award in Taiwan. During this trip to New York, Vincent is also collaborating with two jazz veterans, Harold Danko and Billy Drummond for his latest recording project. These three outstanding musicians are invited by Taiwan Academy to present a special trio performance and share Vincent Hsu’s stories about jazz and beyond.
Vincent Hsu arrived in New York at the age of 25 and bought his first double bass. At the age of 28, he gave his first public performance. At 31, he wrote his first solo jazz composition, Homeland. Some people, they have something in the blood running through their veins. It’s the power to keep striving forward in life, as if it were all to capture a dream that was always destined to be. That is how music takes on its role in Vincent’s life and how he chose double bass to express himself through the vibration of music. The master bassist, Cecil McBee, once said about Vincent Hsu’s music: “Now! – is his time to be heard and realized that his music of high quality should, and will be appreciated the world over.”
Starting from Vincent Hsu’s debut album “Homeland", he hopes to develop the ongoing collaboration and exchanges between the international jazz scene and the Taiwanese jazz community. Dedicated to his native Taiwan, this album “Homeland" not only conveys the kind of indefatigable strength that our native lands bestow upon us, and yet New York also appears throughout the album as a boundless source of musical and philosophical inspiration, crisscrossing and intertwining the two, to deliver an account of the yearning inside him that he has chosen music to communicate. In addition to jazz, Vincent Hsu’s musical influences also came from a number of sources: the traditions of Machito, Tito Rodriguez, Tito Puente; and the culture of Latin jazz in Spanish Harlem New York. After eight fruitful years of rumba, danzon, salsa and Latin jazz learning in New York, Vincent Hsu returned to Taiwan and founded Soy La Ley Afro-Cuban Jazz Band in 2010, aiming to lead audiences to experience the spontaneity of jazz improvisation through Latin rhythms and bringing back the sound of Harlem.
For his new album scheduled to be released next year, Vincent Hsu is collaborating with two of the most original, prolific, and influential musicians in jazz—Harold Danko on piano and Billy Drummond on drums. Harold Danko is well recognized from long-term associations with impressive jazz legends including Chet Baker, Gerry Mulligan, Thad Jones/Mel Lewis, Lee Konitz and Woody Herman, etc. Heralded by Downbeat as "one of the hippest bandleaders now at work," Billy Drummond, who first came to prominence in the late 1980s in the bands of three jazz legends: Horace Silver, J.J. Johnson, and Sonny Rollins, is widely acknowledged as one of the great drummers of his generation.
This May, Vincent Hsu brings his music back to New York for the first time since 2010, where it serves as a city of inspiration as well as a departure point of his jazz career. With these two veteran musicians, Vincent’s special New York trio is going to create a new story through the musical and spiritual dialogues among them. We’re sincerely inviting you to be a part of this unique performance of Vincent Hsu Jazz Trio.
Taiwan Academy 1 East 42nd Street, New York, NY 10017
Complimentary admission with RSVP
Contact: Peter Guan-Da Yuan 0573@tpecc.org