Members of the well-known Old Jazz Band perform at the Hua Ting Hotel and Towers in Xuhui District on Wednesday after moving from the Peace Hotel where they have been playing since 1980.
THE city's best-known jazz band has been forced to find a new home. The "Old Jazz Band," a musical landmark in the city for nearly three decades, yesterday moved from its old home at the Peace Hotel along the Bund to the Hua Ting Hotel and Towers in Xuhui District.
The band was forced to move when the Peace Hotel closed temporarily for renovations. The band will return to the Peace Hotel, where it has been performing since its founding in 1980, when restorations are complete, but no date has been set yet.
To welcome the band, the Hua Ting Hotel has established its Old Jazz Bar on the hotel's third floor, managers said yesterday.
The Old Jazz Bar was built to look like the bar in the Peace Hotel, and uses parts of the original bar's decor.
"Even the whole management team of the band are from the Peace Hotel, to ensure the Shanghai tradition and the band's legend lives on," said Dong Jianzhen, chairwoman and general manager of the Hua Ting Hotel.
They will perform at the Hua Ting every night from 8pm to 11pm.
Over the years, the six-member band, with an average age of 73, has entertained millions of guests from all over the world, including American Presidents Jimmy Carter and Ronald Reagan and the leaders of Brazil, Mexico, Portugal, Israel and Kazakhstan.