I have yet to meet a professional jazz muso who did not have a passion for 'working with kids', to develop musical tlents and spread the jazz idiom. Multi-talented, multi-instrumentlist Tran Manh Tuan expressed just that as he and I poured over his numerous concert repertoire on his YouTube page. That was during the gig break - no "interviews" or even discussions necessary. Just his open laptop, itself becoming as engaging as was his accommodation of my interests. His sets, performed in his upmarket Sax n'Art Jazz Club in a fashionable part of Ho Chi Minh City, fused hard bop, a sassy R&B, ballads, and improvised takes on traditional Vietnamese songs. Tuan grew up playing the bamboo reeds, 6-string zephyr, and skin percussion instruments.
Tuan answered my request for Vietnamese songs by playing on several enhanced reed flutes (for amplification). But it was his wailing soprano and alto saxes that revealed his improvised talents, honed also from Berkelee School of Music where he graduated in 1999. But it was when he slipped on his electric guitar and rocked into a heavy R&B song that I was convinced this hot Asian bull rates among some of the best in the improvised world. Well, he did play in Bob Dillon's performance a few nights ago. This may explain why his Club has received yearly excellence awards since 2003 from Australia's The Guide. Oh, yes; Tuan also has HCMC's largest production studio - check his facebook page, too. I had to choose a CD from his stock of 10 productions. Upon his recommendation, his favorite is a fusion of Viet traditional instruments with sax improvisation! Tuan is high in demand, his credentials widely known and cyberspaced. I wish he could make it to the International Cape Town Jazz Festival stages as one of Asia's supreme jazz maestros. ESP.......check him out!!
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