Traditions and experiments in modern Chinese jazz

The subject of the research is the symbiosis of traditions and experiments related to the process of integrating Western jazz art into the musical culture of China and the formation of the original phenomenon of Chinese jazz. The focus of the study is on the peculiarities of adapting the jazz language to the aesthetic principles of traditional Chinese music. A number of creative strategies arising from the interaction of two different musical systems: Western functional harmony and Chinese pentatonic modality are examined. The phenomenon of Chinese jazz is analyzed as a sociocultural system formed under the conditions of globalization and urbanization of large cities in the People's Republic of China and the search for national identity. Special attention is paid to the nuances of the timbral palette of jazz music in China, related to the inclusion of national instruments, and the specifics of its musical articulation. The article discusses the peculiarities of applying the Daoist concept of "emptiness" for organizing jazz phrasing, which significantly distinguishes Chinese jazz from Western jazz. The methodological basis of the article consists of an interdisciplinary approach that combines structural-functional and comparative-stylistic analysis and the organological method of studying musical instruments. The scientific novelty of the work lies in the attempt to consider contemporary Chinese jazz not as a kind of cultural mimicry and an exotic offshoot of world jazz music, but as an original and mature artistic system with its own unique musical language. The study concludes that contemporary Chinese jazz musicians carry out a certain deconstruction of jazz standards and replace chromatic tensions with microtonality characteristic of the folk traditions of various regions of China. It has been revealed that experiments with rhythm and timbre in Chinese jazz serve as a means of asserting the cultural sovereignty of the PRC in the global music space. It is demonstrated that jazz has become a way for musicians in the Celestial Empire to rediscover their own musical traditions and make them understandable not only to the Chinese audience but also to a global audience. It is proven that Chinese jazz has become a powerful experimental space in which important issues of East-West interaction, traditions and modernity are addressed. The identified patterns allow for predicting the further development of the genre towards an increasing rejection of borrowed Western models and a deepening of cultural syncretism.