For One Muso, Jazz Ensemble 3C "Is Exactly What I Wanted"

Kyle Mullin | Oct 19, 2018 2:30 pm | Add a comment | 1872 reads

For a man passionate enough to dedicate his life to jazz, Simone Schirru certainly didn’t get off to an early start. The Italian guitarist only began to seriously ply his trade at the age of 24. However, he went on to study at one of Italy’s top conservatories, before securing steady work as a jazz performer in a classy club halfway around the world, then going on to help organize, oversee and frequently play in one of Beijing’s most cutting-edge collectives in that genre: the 3C jazz collective, which has held several concerts at DDC livehouse uniquely dedicated to original compositions, and featuring differing lineups of musicians at each concert (their next gig is scheduled for Oct 24 at 9pm).

Unlikely as that path may be, Schirru is clearly eager to continue forging ahead with it. He’s definitely come a long way from fantasizing about such a life as boy, when his parents questioned his seriousness and opted not to pay for his music lessons in his native Sardinia. “I wanted to play, but there was no money for music. But I managed to start learning the guitar when I was a teenager because I found a teacher who gave me lessons for free. Then my family gave in and started to support me,” Schirru recalls.

He continued to follow his parents’ lead, enrolling in an engineering undergraduate program, before finally making the switch to a music conservatory in his mid-20s. Since then he’s never looked back, honing his guitar skills, traveling Europe, the US, and India looking for gig opportunities, before settling in Brussels, where he found a contingent of Sardinian jazz musicians through his university contacts. After a few years toiling and playing small gigs there, Schirru became an expat in a far different locale: Hangzhou.

It's a major and unexpected leap to be sure, but that Far East foray came about thanks to one of his fellow Italian expats in Belgium, who had toured the Middle Kingdom and secured the opportunity to play as the house musician at a swanky Hangzhou jazz club called JZ. The owners asked him to hire a band, and he turned to many of his pals in Brussels, including Schirru.

For the next three months, the band was committed to three sets per night, six nights per week at the club bar. Such a gig might seem demanding, and Schirru admits that he sometimes played to crowds of businessmen from the nearby Alibaba headquarters, who clearly deemed his work to be little more than background music. But for a guitarist who started his jazz studies quite late in life, the chance of such steady (and well paid) gigging was a priceless opportunity. What’s more, the management didn't mind them improvising and exploring their favored genre, as long as the results didn’t approach abrasive bebop or anything too far beyond the more casual patrons’ comfort zone. Best of all, Schirru's fellow musicians were highly skilled, and the steady, concentrated period of playing with them helped to sharpen his skills beyond any prior experience.

On a rare day off he ventured from Hangzhou to Beijing. Catching shows at DDC and other low-key venues blew Schirru away, and when his contract and visa were up in Hangzhou, he made plans to return to the Chinese capital and immerse himself in its more vibrant music scene. “I came back because I like the vibe and the jazz scene here. I realized Beijing is very open-minded, but many of the musicians also care about tradition.”

After nailing down a day job teaching jazz guitar at the Contemporary Music Academy in the Beijing suburb of Tongzhou, Schirru began playing regularly at hutong bars and livehouses, especially DDC. And while he thoroughly enjoyed Beijing’s scene, he felt the capital’s scene lacked certain essentials. For one, the jazz musicians kicking around Beijing didn’t join forces in the kind of collectives that are a mainstay in major Western cities. Schirru raised this point with DDC owner 69, hoping he’d coordinate such an effort. Instead, Schirru laughs while recalling how 69 complimented him for the idea and encouraged him to do it himself.

From that came 3C, which celebrated its first anniversary with a concert in March. Schirru says, "I want to make this a collective, and make it a group to collaborate together." However, there are rules that the musicians must follow if they are to join in as part of the collective for these semi-regular shows. "Everyone needs to bring music, and we will play nine songs in total," he explains. And while he's a somewhat reluctant organizer of the group, saying repeatedly that if another musician wanted to take the reins of 3C he'd be happy to step aside and just play, he's nevertheless happy to take those duties on if that's what it takes to maintain the collective. He recalls when 3C came together thinking: "'I have a new band now!' And I also thought 'Whoa! this is exactly what I wanted.'"