Jazz Pong

Jazz Pong brings ping-pong and jazz music together in one space.

Ana-Maria Cononovici, 16.08.2015, 14:09

Music, sport and lifestyle will be
today’s topics and we’ll stop in a crowded Bucharest neighborhood in a place
where, starting February 14, 2015, the owners decided to implement a new
concept: namely to bring ping-pong and jazz music together in one space. It is
actually a sports hall in a sports complex which had 14 ping-pong tables and
that was not at all promising from a musical point of view. Here is Voicu
Radescu, the director of Green Hours, a restaurant in Bucharest hosting theater
performances, with details about this concept:

I simply had a flashback, I remembered a
club in New York called Fat Cat where I was 4 times. For about 35 years the
club has been hosting jazz concerts in a space where people can also play
ping-pong and billiards. And I said to myself that if the concept was working
there, why shouldn’t it work here in Romania as well. The concept could become
quite popular, which would help develop this atmosphere of sport and jazz
combined.

All said and done. Then followed the
preparations to adapt the hall to the purposes of the new activity to be
developed there:

We talked to the owner of the hall and
he liked the idea. In just one month he had already prepared the hall from a
logistic point of view. He had already bought several couches, arranged a stage
and set up a partition wall to divide the area into two: one area exclusively
for ping-pong and the other for ping-pong and jazz.

This year the International Jazz Day was
marked on April 30 in Bucharest through the 12th concert given in
this very hall dedicated 95% to jazz music. That evening the hall was crowded
and the concert was given by a professional jazz band: the John Betsch TRIO
made up of the exceptional American drummer John Betsch, pianist Mircea
Tiberian, double-bassist Michael Acker and guest saxophonist Liviu Butoi who
also plays other wind instruments. Let’s see how the Jazz Pong club was
launched on the market. Here is Voicu Radescu back at the microphone:

Once a week we have a scheduled jazz
concert, people come for the show, sit on couches and chairs around the stage
and focus on the performers. Also, once or twice a week some very young musicians
come and play on a small stage while people are playing ping-pong at the 11
tables in the hall. It’s an interesting experiment. Those who come to play
ping-pong are not disturbed by the jazz music and neither are the jazz
musicians who simply mind their singing. It’s not a concert, it’s not
background music, it’s just a creative intertwining of two activities, sports
and music. For the rest of the time the hall is solely used for ping-pong.
What’s interesting is that those who come to play ping-pong see a small stage,
unoccupied by artists though, but they become aware of its existence. A couple
of weeks ago a concert was given by Catalin Milea and Imagination Orchestra.
Catalin Milea is a young sax player who studied both in Germany and the
Netherlands. He retuned to Romania full of enthusiasm and ideas, and together
with another 13-14 very young musicians, students and even pupils, he organized
a concert in the sports hall. And given the environment, he introduced in the
show a performance by two professional table tennis players who gave the tone
on the ping-pong table. The noise of the ping-pong ball was amplified by two
Condenser microphones and the musicians played to the various rhythms of the
ball set by the two table tennis professional players.

This could be an invitation for ping-pong
players to also enjoy jazz music while playing. Voicu Radescu is back at the
microphone with more details:

Everything takes place in the
neighborhood, which I like very much. It is a neighborhood of 200 thousand
people and I’m sure that there are several thousand people who, even though
they don’t know about the sports and jazz hall yet, would be interested to see
what it is all about. It’s a nice way of spending one’s spare time listening to
jazz music and playing ping-pong. The number of spectators varies from one show
to another. We had the most numerous audiences on April 30th, there
were more than 170 people. Jazz music concerts generally gather audiences of
about 60, 70 people.

There’s hardly anything more tempting
than trying a sports and jazz evening! The club’s small tables are shaped like
miniature ping-pong tables, the walls are covered by posters of various artists
playing ping-pong and the piece de résistance in the drinks menu is the
‘bartender’s madness’ cocktail.