Binh Minh Jazz shop at 1 Trang Tien is still open every night. All 7/7 nights are jazz music, the pure and unadulterated jazz that generations of artist Quyen Van Minh’s students play. Not only are the classics of foreign jazz music, but he also brings there Vietnamese jazz with folklore to introduce to the public, especially foreign guests.
To have Dawn Jazz Today, he has gone through 25 rough years, with no less than 6 relocations, and finally has a single jazz bar that exists in Hanoi.
Meritorious Artist Quyen Van Minh.
“I have a dream, a dream to play jazz in Vietnam. Because of jazz, I faced many difficulties. Because of jazz, I have received much happiness and pleasure. I am now retired from the conservatory. That’s my job with the country. But my work with the saxophone never stops.” In a small house cluttered with books and music and music, Quyen Van Minh shared with me the story of jazz, his love of flesh and blood.
Jazz with Quyen Van Minh is love, and more than that, a reason of life, for which he is always devoted.
In 1968, when Vietnamese people basically didn’t know what jazz was, he heard it on the radio and was immediately obsessed. 14-year-old boy Quyen Van Minh taught himself music from his mother’s encouragement. First he played the cralinet, then the sacxophone. Invited to the sacxophone troupes, but deep in Quyen Van Minh’s heart was still haunted by the free and liberal music that he “heard” from the age of 14, so he decided to find and play it. bring it back to Vietnam. He called it “enchanting music” and said to himself, “I have to learn this. I have to be able to play like that.”
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I asked him what made him so passionate regarding jazz. He asserted: “Everyone has only one life to live. I only have one life to make art. With jazz, if you can’t do it, it’s a waste of your life.”
At first, music came to Quyen Van Minh “just as a weapon for self-defense, not wanting to be inferior to anyone”, but when listening to jazz, he was conquered by the free and liberal beauty of the music. that drunk. “I think it’s hard to do if I’m determined, I promise myself, definitely playing jazz.”
His first concert with 3 jazz pieces at the Vietnam Musicians Association in 1994 laid the foundation for the development of Vietnamese jazz music. In 1996, Quyen Van Minh was invited to France to perform, and in 1997, he received the title of Meritorious Artist. The first jazz bar he opened in Giang Vo with all the money he had accumulated over many years was enough to do a private concert in Hanoi. But at the time, he thought, jazz needed a playground, where artists might come and play and the public had a place to enjoy.