Grammy-winning saxophonist Kenny Garrett came to Beijing for the first time in 2005 to write music after being drawn to the city by a book on erhu, the traditional Chinese instrument, which he had bought in Ireland earlier.

He lived in a traditional courtyard house in a hutong (alley) for three weeks and walked for hours every day to explore the city where he found there was no jazz.

"But I am pretty sure if I had played jazz then for my neighbors in the hutong they would have understood because the emotions, especially the struggle, expressed in the music is universal," says Garrett, recounting his first trip to Beijing.