Old China Hand: Jazz Singer and Radio Host Nancy Jenkinson Brown

Kyle Mullin | Dec 20, 2018 4:00 pm | Add a comment | 2314 reads

There are lively interviewees, and then there’s Nancy Jenkinson Brown. The British expat has the air of a golden age jazz musician, with her regal tone of voice and whip-smart repartee. Keeping her on track throughout our Q&A about her career in the capital, singing pop and jazz standards in practically every music venue possible over the past 10 years, and co-hosting the popular talk radio show Touch Beijing on FM 92.3, is by no means an easy feat. But like any gifted jazz performer, her conversational segues make for some enthralling improv and funny anecdotes. Below the chanteuse unravels the surreal tale of her time in Beijing.

Let’s start with some backstory.
Would you like me to be succinct? Or witty and debonair?

Which do you prefer?
Well, let me put it this way. It all started when I met a guy in a bar, and then he came to one of my gigs. It’s the start of every dream story, really. In Beijing, you quite often meet a lot of people who weren’t intending to come to China. It certainly wasn’t on my radar. And when it comes to starting on the radio, how does anyone start? Why, singing “Mamma Mia” while wearing pink sequins and white boots, of course. That should be the answer right there, and let’s leave the rest up to the imagination!

Well, now you’ve got me very curious.
Of course. I met a guy in a bar in London, I was having a fantastic time there. I used to work at RADA (the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art), a well-known school for actors [emphasizes the last syllable with faux snootiness]. I worked on the admin side of things there. Hang on, I’m not being succinct like I promised at all!
Don’t worry about it!

So I met a guy in a bar. I was having a great time and loved life in London, working at RADA by day and as a singer by night, or at least kind of. I’d given up music for various reasons, too many reasons to get into here, though part of it was musicians were annoying me no end! Oh, don’t write that. Actually go ahead and write it, I don’t mind.

Anyway, at the bar on this night, I had just started gigging again, and this guy I met saw my show, and we got to talking afterward. As it turns out, he was a fixer looking for musicians to come play at hotels in China. And that’s how I wound up here.

What was it like to be thrust into Beijing’s hotel cover band scene?
It’s a good gig, but it makes you really want to get out and see the town. That’s because you work six nights a week, so when you do have time you really make the most of it. I started to get out there and mingle and decided I’d hang around a bit, check out the scene more, and it was during that time that this random radio thing happened.

The random radio thing being the show you co-hosted until the end of this past summer?
Why yes! You see, when I first came to Beijing it was 2007, and the city was very different then. but I don’t like to complain. Of course, it’s changed! That’s what a burgeoning economy does. And it leads to random occurrences and opportunities!
And that brings me to how I got the radio gig. I’d been a singer at a hotel bar and was getting into the local music scene in my spare time. At one point a friend of a friend asked me if I would sing for this Chinese New Year show. Before I knew it, I ended up in pink sequins and white boots on TV singing “Mamma Mia” for this extravaganza. It went well, apparently, because then I started working for them and then had my own radio show. So there you go. After all, how else does one get a big break in radio?

I started as a guest co-host on some talk radio shows, co-hosted Touch until the end of this past summer, and now intermittently host, due to my outside pursuits. And it’s been an absolute blast.

Do you get to use some of the same skillsets as a singer and a radio host?
Yes, they feed into each other. I’ve learned a lot about talking to people. Being a singer is different than being an instrumentalist because you have the mike and you’re a figurehead, so you have to bring your audience in. And you can’t be false. That’s true on the radio too, even if you have a persona it can’t be something that’s not part of you. People need to believe it and feel who you really are.

Nancy Jenkinson Brown will perform at Ala House on Dec 21 with the Honda Fujio Trio, and at Chao Hotel from Dec 24-30.