Triggering a passion for jazz

If you wander through Times Square in New York at 3 am, when the crowds thin and the neon lights appear to breathe in the darkness, you might imagine a place of chaos.

But for Su "Trigger" Shaonan, a 25-year-old jazz pianist from Beijing, it's a laboratory. Every flashing billboard, every taxi horn and bus rumble, every fragment of overheard conversation becomes part of a living musical score.

It was here, in the heart of New York, that Su crafted his debut album Automatism, a work that balances intellectual complexity with raw emotional power.

In support of the album, he toured Beijing and Shanghai with New York-based jazz musicians: guitarist Max Light, bassist Colson Jimenez and drummer Gary Jones III.

The album's title, which is named for one of Su's original pieces, might suggest machines, routines or detachment, but Su's intent is subtler.

"It's about how we live today," he says. "Everything feels automated, like we're moving through life without really being present." Yet the music is far from mechanical. With influences drawn from classical forms and jazz improvisation, Su's compositions feel like spontaneous human thought caught midstream — imperfect, unpredictable, alive.

Su's path to jazz was anything but linear. Born in Beijing to nonmusical parents, he began piano lessons at 7, but the classical canon never captured his imagination. "I liked modern music — soundtracks from games, anime and later, funk and jazz," he recalls. "Classical practice felt like a box I didn't fit into."

At 17, Su went to Shanghai to study at the JZ School, one of China's most prominent institutions for jazz education and performance, which is a part of JZ Club, a legendary Shanghai jazz venue that has been central to introducing live jazz to Chinese audiences since the early 2000s. During his stay in Shanghai, he experimented with composition, using apps on his phone to sketch musical ideas and writing "just for fun", as he puts it.

"At first, I had a very stereotypical view of jazz. To me, it was just background music. I didn't take it seriously," recalls Su. "People around me talked about jazz as if it were incredibly complicated: theory, harmony and endless concepts to study. I couldn't understand the fuss. Part of me even thought, 'What's there to learn?' I was convinced that I could move faster than everyone else without getting bogged down in all that academic thinking."

After four months of studying at JZ School, he went back to Beijing for a break. During that time, he started going to jazz clubs and watching live performances. That experience changed something in the young man. For the first time, he realized the seriousness and depth of the musical genre. "It wasn't just casual entertainment — it was an art form with its own discipline, tradition and artistic weight," he says.