Elbows and bare feet smashed down on piano keys, frets were ignored as the stand-up bass was smacked and banged with fists, and drum sticks rained on rims and metal instead of skins, as three jazz musicians thrashed about on stage.

Then, the Steve Koven Trio sat quietly as perplexed Chinese students at the Beijing Contemporary Music Institute asked about the exuberant display of jazz.

Ma Jun, 20, a student at the institute, asked a question about improvisation, sat down and awaited an answer.

Drummer Anthony Michelli, microphone in hand, stared blankly. He blinked, looked side to side quizzically and responded slowly.

"No, no. No one here counts bars," Michelli said. "If you were to think about every single word you say, you wouldn't be able to speak."

That, in essence, was the evening's lesson.

Chinese music students were thrilled at the foreign trio's onstage exuberance and experimentation.

The Canadian trio Michelli, pianist Steve Koven and Drew Birston on bass came to the music school and not only gave students a spirited performance, but also tried to expand their understanding of the genre.

Most questions focused on what the students knew of jazz on theory, learning and education.

But Koven said jazz is not taught or learned, but felt. "I play music from feel," said Koven, standing barefoot on stage. "I've studied five months of jazz piano in my entire life."

The trio are on their first trip to China, but have played extensively abroad in places such as Trinidad, Tokyo and Colombia.

Responses to their style of experimental music have varied around the world, Koven said. In Japan, there was polite acceptance and applause. But Bogot, Colombia, exploded with enthusiasm.

"We played a show for 3,000 people screaming," he said. "It felt like we were the Rolling Stones, and we were playing jazz."

The audience in Beijing was sparse, perhaps due to upcoming exams and performances, but lively and responsive.

During quieter songs, murmurs ran through the crowd as Koven plucked strings and hammers inside his piano. When the band broke out into faster shuffle numbers, members of the crowd shouted and cheered. Some clapped along to more complex measures. One student tried to mimic a Latin drumbeat by hitting the metal casing of a nearby TV camera. "They are more passionate, more open-minded," said Ma Jun, comparing the trio with Chinese musicians.

Gesturing excitedly with his hands, Ma, a drummer in the institute's jazz programme, said he thought aspects of the trio's music were "oriental."

Koven, who teaches "free improvisation" at York University in Toronto, Canada, said a student in Shanghai told him Chinese music students were not allowed to "go outside the box."

Improvisation, creativity, and expressiveness these are foreign ideas in China's rigid classical music education, Koven said.

With classical music it's "there's a D, play a D," Koven explained. "Well for me," he added, "It's more like, 'Well hey man, let's play a texture; let's play a sound; let's play an idea'."

Zhao Ming, assistant director of the institute's jazz department, said their students undergo extensive rudimentary training.

"But the students tend to think it's monotonous and boring," Zhao said. "Bringing in foreign musicians with new ideas is much more important than attending class."

Thirst for the unfamiliar was palpable. Michelli mentioned that he studied Indian drumming, and someone shouted for him to demonstrate. Not having Indian drums with them, the trio played a song while Michelli drummed on his set with bare hands.

Enthusiasm ran both ways.

"One more," said Koven, with an exhausted smile, as he acknowledged a request for an encore. "Then we have to go eat."

As the crowd filtered out, Koven and Zhao spoke about a return visit.

(China Daily June 29, 2006)