One of the world's great melting pots for the past few centuries, Hong Kong has combined many cultures (Chinese, British, Filipino and just about every European and Pacific Rim nationality) which also has influenced their music. The island's key studio players meet again-and-again at sessions for pop, rock, jazz, film soundtracks and even advertising jingles. While they are waiting for sessions to start, or late at night after the recordings are done, these musicians sometimes sit around and jam on both traditional and original jazzy instrumentals for their own pleasure. This informal clique eventually took on the name Hong Kong Dragon Club. Now longtime Hong Kong producer K.K. Wong has assembled some of these musicians for their own recording sessions which have resulted in the contemporary world-jazz sound of their debut album, Take Out, on Kaisonic Experience Inc.'s Xien Records label.

Like Hong Kong itself, these musicians brought a diverse and unique background to their art. Wong suggested the musicians work up contemporary interpretations of classic Chinese folk songs, some 4,000-years-old. He also wanted the musicians to utilize both traditional Chinese instruments alongside modern European-derived ones. The result sounds both familiar in some ways, yet totally fresh and unusual due to the ethnic overtones.

For the most part, Hong Kong Chinese music and musicians remained steeped in Asian traditions until the Sixties and Seventies when there was an explosion of worldwide interest in Kung Fu films (especially Bruce Lee). The old instrumentation was not sufficient for the soundtrack music of these internationally-renowned action flicks, so the composers, producers and musicians began incorporating European/American scales, harmonic structures and instruments. Soon a new East-meets-West sound emerged unlike anything that had come before, and paved the way for cross-cultural recordings like the Hong Kong Dragon Club's Take Out

The album was produced and engineered by K.K. Wong, while the music was arranged and conducted by British-born David Packer, who also plays harmonica, keyboards (including a Roland S-50) and percussion on the project. "We were very lucky," explains Wong, "to have a two-song contribution from Guy Barker, a trumpeter who is not only well-known and respected in the jazz field, but who also is heard on many pop hits and has worked with everyone from symphony orchestras to Omette Coleman."

Wong and Packer had worked together in the studio on many other projects. They called in other members of the "club" -- Hsin Hsiao-Hung on erhu (a long-necked, two-stringed instrument played with a bow), Cheng Man on guzheng (a Chinese zither with anywhere from 13 to 17 strings), Li Tak Kong on yangqin (a percussive string instrument played with tiny bamboo mallets and a sound between a dulcimer and a harpsichord), Choo Boon Chong on di (a bamboo flute), and Wong Ching on pipa (a plucked four-string instrument like a mandolin or small guitar). In addition to the Chinese contingent, several musicians with Philippines ancestory joined in -- drummer Nick Ledesma and bassists Rudy Balbuena and Nilo Aristorena. On a historic note, many years ago, when Shanghai was the leading port of the Pacific, it was a tradition in China to import most of its musicians from the Philippines.

"I must admit," states Packer, "that when K.K. approached me with the idea of making a jazzflavored album of classical Chinese folk songs and using traditional Chinese instruments, I really had my doubts. Firstly, what a contrast, the pentatonic Chinese melodies and the chromatic harmonies of modern jazz! How could we bring them together? Then there's improvisation, the 'free flight' solo that is neither written nor rehearsed. Just how would Chinese musicians improvise in a rhythmic and harmonic setting so different than what theywere used to? Keeping the melodies as I had transcribed them, the hardest part was finding a harmonic spectrum to coax them over to a place that would suggest the color 'jazz.'

"As the album progressed, I became more enthusiastic. One by one the Chinese instrumentalists accepted the challenge and jumped into completely-improvised solos! These solos reveal a lot about their personalities and their ability to communicate with their instruments."

According to Wong, 'Folk songs were popular in China before the Communist regime. Chairman Mao said only Mao mattered and that there was no room in the new society for tradition, culture or even the traditional respect reserved for parents. So these folk songs were preserved and passed down during those years by the Taiwanese and Hong Kong people. However, the Chinese musicians on the album would not be so proficient if not for Mao's wife, a failed actress, who actually encouraged the promotion of Western-type training for young artists.

"The musicians who followed the ancient traditions did not compose in the Western sense, but taught others and passed the music down that way. Once the younger musicians were accustomed to Western music training, they learned to write the music down and it also allowed them to have a sense of the contemporary music market. Even so, the musicians playing the traditional instruments have to be quite accomplished in order to make sounds that fit into Western melodies since the instruments were not originally created for that use. For example, the erhu only has two strings and no frets, and the di flute is a thin bamboo strip with only five finger holes."

The album kicks off with "Beautiful Island" which was written about Taiwan. "Green Is The Mountain" was composed to celebrate a beautiful peak on Taiwan. "A Place Far Away" captures the romantic longing for a person and place far removed. "Watering Flowers" encapsulates a Chinese philosophy in metaphor form (if you don't water them, they won't bloom). 'Three Gorges of Yang Guan" is still popular although it is about a place that no longer exists. Those lovely canyons were filled in with water and a hydro-electric plant was built to service electricity to more than 50-million people in China. "Azalea" came from the flower that resembles a "bad luck" bird (it's also sometimes called the Cuckoo Flower) and this plant is often used metaphorically in Chinese fables and legends to portray pending tragedy. "Love Song of the Plain" originated with the nomad people of Mongolia. "Tale of the Great Wall" told the story of when the emperor built the Great Wall of China by drafting every able-bodied man, and many of them seldom saw their families and worked until they died of exhaustion. The album contains one modern tune, "Just For Tonight," written by David Packer for this project.

The music itself covers a broad range of sound. One moment it resembles American radiofriendly "smooth jazz," and the next it captures the feeling of ancient China. Then a bit of traditional jazz pours through followed by a soft, almost-meditative new age passage, before winding down the world music trail again. Guy Barker's trumpet calls up images of Chet Baker one minute and David Packer's harmonica recalls Toots Thielmann the next. It's a multicultural mix featuring the best elements of many worlds, alive with the possibilities of the future, but offering gentle reverence for the past.

"This is without a doubt an album of contrasts," says Wong. "My thanks goes out to all the musicians who contributed because, even though music is an international language, it takes good musicians to bring music to life and to be able to meld cultures musically."

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