Chinese jazz pianist Luo Ning collaborates with American jazz alto saxophonist Antonio Hart during a Beijing concert.[Photo provided to China Daily]

Once little-known in Beijing, jazz is finding its Chinese soul thanks to some dedicated musicians, Chen Nan reports.

The area around Beijing's Houhai Lake, which is known for bars, ice skating and traditional hutongs, is cold and quiet on this late winter afternoon. A nearby second-floor bar, East Shore Live Jazz Cafe, by contrast, is full of excitement.

Liu Yuan, the owner of the bar, the city's only venue completely dedicated to jazz, is catching up with his old friend Luo Ning, a Chinese jazz pianist who has just returned from Cape Town, South Africa.

"I saw pictures and videos: You looked great in the green suit and the jam was very impressive," says Liu, a 55-year-old saxophonist, a pioneer and promoter of jazz in the country.

Liu is talking about the early December performance that Luo gave at the opening ceremony of the Chinese Cultural Festival in Cape Town. The pianist played five original jazz works by collaborating with musicians from South Africa. It kicked off a series of events jointly presented by China's Ministry of Culture and the Ministry of Arts and Culture of the Republic of South Africa.

"Usually the Chinese government sends acrobatic or Peking Opera troupes to do cultural-exchange programs abroad," Liu tells China Daily. "This time, a Chinese jazz pianist represented the country to collaborate with world-level musicians. It's a big step for China's jazz scene."

When Liu, a Beijing native who started out as a folk musician in his early 20s, first learned saxophone in the 1980s, there were only five or six professional jazz musicians in Beijing.

"We didn't have a place to perform jazz. Few people in China knew what jazz was. All the knowledge we had was from tapes and magazines, which were brought back by our friends from the West," says Liu, who also played rock 'n' roll in a band with Chinese rock legend Cui Jian.