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1930s Jazz Waltzes Under Shanghai’s Bund
Now that Shanghai’s Peace Hotel has been renovated in spectacular style, and the famous Jazz band lovingly re-installed, its time to reminisce about other aspects of Shanghai just close by that have now sadly been lost forever.
Staying at the Peace Hotel some 20 years ago, I was able to enjoy a massive suite of rooms; now part of the “heritage” wing. There were seven huge suites all decorated in the style of different nations. Somewhat presumptuously I stayed at the Indian suite. It was huge. Back in the 1920s and 1930s moving to Shanghai was a big deal – passengers tended to arrive by ship, a journey that may have taken three months from Europe, and if staying at the then Cathay Hotel (as the Peace was then known) traveled in style, with butlers, maids and gigantic amounts of luggage. The seven suites were designed for such use – essentially 200 square meter apartments with rooms for the staff as well as the lord and lady living it up. Those have now been re-sized, and predictably are much smaller than they were. But as a throwback to when travel really was stylish, the Cathay certainly put on a great show.
The Jazz Band of course still played on, with the original members still just about clinging on as I caught them, then in their 80s, in their prime they had been a hot ticket. Not restored however has been the pine sprung dance floor that used to be just in front of the band. Ripped up several years ago to make more space for tables, the bar has lost a priceless piece of history. Just outside what is now the main entrance (the original entrance faced the Bund, and is a partial homage to the discoveries of Ancient Egypt that captured the imagination of the day) and to the side of the soon to open Swatch Peace Hotel was a night market. Replaced long ago by a shopping mall, its delights included roast sparrow on sticks, and boiled thrush eggs. You’ll be hard pushed to find such proletarian cuisine in Shanghai today, least of all just off the Bund.
The remake of the Bund itself has seen the underpass just outside the Peace Hotel disappear. That used to be the haunt of an elderly gentleman with a wind-up gramophone and a stack of vintage Shanghai jazz 78s. Elderly Shanghainese couples would pay a few jiao, request a favorite tune and he’d dig out the recording and play it. Couples would dance, slowly, remembering the halcyon days of Shanghai’s 1930s. To remember the past then, here’s a snip of one of the tunes of the day.
Related posts:
- John Huie “Shanghai Jazz”
- The Classic Old Hotels of Shanghai
- An Evening at Three on the Bund
- Shanghai Flashback
- Staying in Shanghai for RMB33 a Night
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Nice little article and thanks for the 1930 clip of Leroy Shields Orchestra – very cool stuff