Li Xiaochuan grew up with the trumpet in the house, his father is a professional orchestral player, but it was jazz, discovered later at the Shanghai Conservatory, that gave him "the freedom of the expression." Today he's one of the most influential figures in Chinese jazz: a composer, a Shanghai Conservatory professor, and a player who has shared stages with Pat Metheny and Eddie Gomez, from New York Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts to the Shanghai JZ Festival. His trumpet is now one of the instruments in ACE, modeled from his own sound. We talked with Li about Shanghai's jazz scene, finding an Eastern voice in an American art form, and hearing himself, reimagined.
What made you pick up the trumpet, and what made you decide to play jazz? Jazz wasn't that popular in China before, you helped bring it to a wider audience while pushing the music.
My father is a professional orchestral trumpet player, so it was a natural choice for me. My years in the military band were when I started playing professionally. Later, at the Shanghai Conservatory, I encountered jazz and was drawn to that kind of stage, to the freedom of the expression. In the early days jazz had a limited audience in China. I wanted more people to hear this music and love it, and at the same time to bring in an Eastern sensibility, to look for a jazz language of our own.
You have your own unique sound. What's special about the Shanghai jazz scene, and how has it shaped your playing?
Shanghai is a jazz environment with heritage, openness, and innovation. Distinctiveness is something that grows slowly out of soil like that, over the years, Shanghai has produced a lot of singular voices.
Li Xiaochuan, live.
Do you see your work as a session musician and as an individual artist as different?
For me they're two different identities, because they sit at different stages of the creative process. I like looking at where a collaborator and I are alike and where we differ, I'm drawn to both. And I think life force and vitality matter. That's what draws me to making music more than anything else.
How do you see your relationship with technology as a musician?
We live in an era saturated with technology, and the relationship is like the one between a person and their time, we act on each other. What's been happening with AI in music these last few years excites me, and at the same time it's made me think harder about what music and creation actually are. In live performance I explore how to combine it with my own inspiration. My first attempt was in 2023, and I found it fascinating.
Do you remember the first time you heard your playing turned into an ACE instrument?
I was pretty surprised! Before ACE, I'd never heard a trumpet library I actually liked.
"I think the ACE version of me is better than me. Ha."
Do you feel it's important for artists to be credited and to share in the royalties?
Of course. Behind these instruments are real working musicians. What makes an artist distinct and adaptable is being able to try new things and share royalties.
A few albums you keep going back to?
John Coltrane's Blue Train, RH Factor's Hard Groove, and Miles Davis's In a Silent Way, and lately he's been playing his own 2022 album, Kind of…, on vinyl.
Li Xiaochuan (李晓川) is one of the most influential figures in contemporary Chinese jazz, a trumpeter, composer, and Associate Professor at the Shanghai Conservatory of Music, who has performed from New York Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts to the Shanghai JZ Festival and worked with Pat Metheny and Eddie Gomez.
Li's trumpet is among the instruments in ACE Studio, performance-modeled from his own playing, with Li credited and sharing in the royalties.
