For this article we interviewed two foreign jazz bands in Taiwan. One is the “Muddy Basin Ramblers,” who use the “medicine show” style to bring listeners back to the jazz atmosphere of the early 20th century.

The other band is “Tokyo Chuo-Line” from Japan, whose members also play in the Hakka group “Sheng Xiang and Band.” Since forming their own group, they have continually crossed musical boundaries, enjoying the process of exploration. This reflects the richness and freedom of contemporary music in Taiwan.

Muddy Basin Ramblers

A Taiwan medicine show

It’s a Sunday afternoon, and the Muddy Basin Ramblers are practicing in a park. One person has a washboard strapped to his chest, and another is stepping on a washtub. These household items are part of the band’s instrumentation and manifest the “jug band” culture of the US. However, the song they are rehearsing is “The Dance Age,” written in the 1930s by Teng Yu-hsien, known as “the father of Taiwanese folk music.” Passersby can’t help but stop and watch, and children beat time to the rhythm. Bandleader David Chen, a Taiwanese American, says: “The goal of our band is to awaken the child in everyone’s heart.”

The band got its name because its members enjoyed taking their guitars and some beer to go rambling in the mountains, and their feet were always covered in mud. Add in the fact that Taipei lies in a basin, and they ended up calling themselves the Muddy Basin Ramblers.

The name of the band’s album Formosa Medicine Show originates in old-time “medicine shows,” a popular entertainment form that appeared in both Taiwanese and US history. Such performances attracted a crowd to whom medicine was then peddled, and many famous American artists had the experience of playing in these shows. The musical styles on the album include blues, jazz, ragtime, jug band, and early country. Besides honoring great singers and composers in history, it also aims to inspire listeners to ponder the question: If these artists had visited Taiwan back in the day, what kinds of stories would they have created? Would they be about longing for adventure, love, and freedom?

One of the songs is a reworking of the classic Taiwanese-­language love song “Spring Breeze.” David added a passage with a light, fast rhythm to this originally doleful song, describing how under a clear, bright moon a man excitedly talks about his mood at returning home, as a response to the woman in the original lyrics sadly waiting for her lover.

The Muddy Basin Ramblers often rehearse on the patio at the home of band members Zach and Cristina.

Taiwanese elements

In the 1920s and 1930s, jazz entered the “Swing Era,” when listeners freely moved their bodies as they enjoyed the rhythms of jazz and blues. The Muddy Basin Ramblers’ rendition of “The Dance Age” is a swing version of this Taiwanese folk song. David says: “The Swing Era never really had an impact in Taiwan, so we tried to imagine: What if it had? Hence we added a jazz feel to this early Taiwanese folk song. ‘The Dance Age’ was originally a foxtrot, so right from the start it was a song people could dance to, but the dance steps were relatively monotonous and rule-bound. By changing it into a swing number, we made it more lively and fun, by today’s standards.”

David, whose first language is English, took on the challenge of singing in Taiwanese, changing the word for foxtrot in the lyrics to the word for swing. Meanwhile, Zach on saxophone and Cristina on violin sometimes perform with their child watching from a baby carriage. Conor plays harmonica, TC is on trumpet, and Tim scrapes a metal washboard and plays bells, while Will, a skilled tap dancer, handles the rug-cutting.

A recent Muddy Basin Ramblers album, Hold That Tiger, is a respectful reference to the early jazz classic “Tiger Rag.” This album incorporates the ideas of the Beat Generation, which arose in the US after World War II; they opposed conformity and materialism and also began to study Asian religions. Thus some religious elements appear on the album, in songs such as “Zen Beat Rag” and “Temple Blues,” with the latter featuring instruments often used in Taiwanese temple performances—the suona (a woodwind instrument) and the sheng (reed pipe).

The Muddy Basin Ramblers have been around for almost 19 years now. When asked their feelings about playing in a band in Taiwan they all laugh and say: “We want to thank Taiwanese people for being willing to listen to our bizarre music.” The band members also aver that Taipei is a cosmopolitan city where daily living is convenient and there is a rich cultural life, with opportunities to collaborate with many musicians and groups. They also hope that through their music they can help Taiwanese people become familiar with even more musical styles.

Tokyo Chuo-Line

Japanese musicians in Taiwan

The members of the band “Tokyo Chuo-Line” are Ken Ohtake on guitar, Toru Hayakawa on bass, and Nori­aki Fukushima on drums. The group’s name comes from the Chūō Line of the Tokyo rail system, which is lined on both sides with many bars, live houses, and clubs. The three men often played music in these places when they were young, so the area is of special significance for them, and they named their band after it.

Tokyo Chuo-Line first performed in 2014, doing a tour of Taipei, Tainan, and Kaohsiung. These sessions were recorded live, and the following year the band came out with the resulting album, Live in Tainan. The album attracted interest from Taiwanese jazz saxophonist Hsieh Min­yen, and he began to collaborate with Tokyo Chuo-Line and later performed on their album Lines & Stains.

Lines & Stains won Best Album in the Instrumental category at the 2019 Golden Melody Awards. Music critic Ma Shih-fang commented: “This album, recorded at Yu­Chen Recording Studio, captures both the fierce energy of a live performance and a great deal of rich detail. None of the nine tracks is in the same style as another, so the album bears repeated listening, and all the songs tell a story.”

Speaking of the YuChen studio, which was built in a converted movie theater, the band members all have high praise for this historical space and its designer, American audio engineer and mixer Andy Baker. Ken opines: “One of the major advantages of this place is that when you are doing simultaneous recording, the musicians can see each other as they play. A lot of ­recording studios are too small, so that when band members record they have to be in separate rooms and can’t see each other.”

The band Tokyo Chuo-Line enjoys the process of unceasing exploration in their music. (courtesy of Now Music)

The members of Tokyo Chuo-Line really admire the environment in the YuChen Recording Studio, and they are good friends with and make music with the studio’s founder, Andy Baker.

Continual exploration of music

During the Covid-19 pandemic, Tokyo Chuo-Line put out the album Fly By Light in hopes of giving people hope through music. The song “Moonlight Between Towers,” written by Nori, describes the scene he saw from his window at a quarantine hotel, and how it affected his emotions. Meanwhile “Long Distance Love” was written by Ken. After the band members heard the song, they had a discussion together to come up with the song’s name, which they hoped would convey the idea that even in the midst of the pandemic beautiful things could happen.

Having also been members of Sheng Xiang and Band for ten years, how has this experience with Hakka music affected their own work? Ken states that the melo­dies in Hakka music have a lot of variations, and this has subtly affected his playing, so that when improvising in performances he will naturally play melodies from Hakka folk songs. Toru greatly admires the “pure beauty” of band leader Lin Sheng-xiang’s music, saying that the themes he writes about and the melodies he creates are very accessible, yet also profound.

Talking about the relationship between jazz and Hakka music, David of the Muddy Basin Ramblers says, “I’ve heard Lin Sheng-xiang say that Hakka ‘eight-tone’ music is very similar to jazz.” Meanwhile, in a prior interview with the online platform Taiwan Beats, Ken noted that there is no concept of scales in Hakka music, and this reminded him of how he once heard jazz singer Sarah Vaughan sing notes that the piano could not play when she was scat singing.

Besides working in the field of Hakka music, Tokyo Chuo-Line has also collaborated with artists playing many different styles of music, such as hip-hop singer Leo Wang, and drummer Lo Tsun-lung from the rock band “Sunset Rollercoaster.” They enjoy the process of trying new things when performing with them. When I ask which Taiwanese musical artists they would like to work with in the future, they think for a moment, then answer: “If there’s a connection there, anyone is OK with us!”

As saxophonist Hsieh Minyen describes them, Tokyo Chuo-Line is not limited to any particular genre of music, and always take risks in their work. This attitude enables them to continually cross over into different genres and to seek out every possibility in Taiwan’s diverse musical environment. Toru and Nori, who both live in Japan, willingly fly back and forth to Taiwan because here there are many potential partners with whom they can make music.

Nori on drums. (courtesy of Now Music)

Ken on guitar. (courtesy of Now Music)

Toru on bass. (courtesy of Now Music)