history - The power of Shanghai Jazz


An absolutely fascinating evening at Sasha's with the Shanghai Foreign Correspondents Club on Shanghai Jazz. The speaker of the evening suddenly introduced a local celebrity that popped up unannounced, the jazz musician Alphonso, or Zhu Heping (peace).
Born on the day in 1918 the First World War ended (hence his given name) he became a musician, supported by his grandmother, whose husband was the owner of Shanghai Power, the first Chinese to do so under foreign law.
Three books and many more articles in Chinese have been written about this famous family, that was the cornerstone of many of the economic and social highlights of those days.
We did not have enough time to ask the talkative Alphonso all the questions we wanted to ask. Apart from some anecdotes during the Cultural Revolution - when hard labor destroyed his hands - there were so many important stories Alphonso could not tell. Interesting was the Shanghai Power button, Alphonso was still proudly wearing on this jacket. It suggests that - although his family must have run into problems by 1949 - there was also a line that continued from his grandfathers empire to today.
So many questions.