Vincent Hsu is an award-winning bassist and composer who fuses jazz and Afro-Cuban music with his Taiwanese roots. Born in Changhua, Taiwan, and raised in Kaohsiung, he launched his musical career in New York City, where he lived for eight years. His debut album, Homeland, won “Best Jazz Album” at the 2014 Golden Indie Music Awards and was nominated for three Golden Melody Awards in 2015: Best Album, Best Composer, and Best Producer (Instrumental). His second album, Lullaby for the Youth, with Harold Danko on piano and Billy Drummond on drums, was also nominated for three Golden Indie Music Awards in 2017. In 2018, Hsu’s latest album In Our Blood featuring Victor Mendoza, with Soy La Ley Afro-Cuban Jazz Band, won “Best Jazz Single of the Year” with Hsu’s composition “Dreamer's Blues” at the 2018 Golden Indie Music Awards. It was also honored with the Global Music Awards' “Silver Medal for Outstanding Achievement” in 2019. In 2020, Hsu’s composition “The Era” was selected by International Songwriting Competition (ISC) as a finalist in the Jazz category.

 

Taking the combination of Afro-Cuban music and jazz as a form of bilingualism, Hsu is an inheritor of the musical lineage that originates in New York’s Spanish Harlem. Three distinct cultures intersect and interweave to shape the sonic character of Vincent Hsu’s music: the singular power of African polyrhythms come together with the fusion of Latin and jazz improvisation in a profusion of Taiwanese compositional elements that give rise to vivid storytelling. Vincent Hsu & his band have taken the dual vernaculars of Afro-Cuban music and jazz, and left their own musical mark through the creation of Vincent Hsu’s original work that embraces the context of Taiwan’s own soundscape.

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Hsu was awarded a master’s degree in Jazz Performance from New York University and a bachelor’s degree in Jazz Performance from City College of New York, where he previously earned a master’s degree in TESOL. He studied acoustic bass with legendary musicians, including Cecil McBee, Victor Venegas, Andy González, and John Schaeffer (former Principal Bassist for the New York Philharmonic). He also studied bata drums with Yagbe Awolowo Onilu, Pedro Pablo Rodríguez Mireles, Daniel Rodriguez, and Mauricio Herrera Tamayo.

 

Vincent Hsu serves as the Founder and Music Director of two bands: The Jazz Supreme Orchestra and Soy La Ley Afro-Cuban Jazz Band, which was invited to perform at the New Orleans Jazz Museum and the Downriver Festival, followed by their 2019 U.S. tour in New York, Chicago, and Connecticut. In recent years, he has been heading different bands appearing at jazz festivals, including Madrid International Jazz Festival, Edinburgh Jazz & Blues Festival, Busan Jazz Festival, Taichung Jazz Festival, Taipei Jazz Festival, National Theater & Concert Hall Summer Jazz Festival, and Macau Jazz Festival, etc. Hsu has also performed at various jazz venues, such as Blue Note New York, Blue Note Beijing, Círculo de Bellas Artes Madrid, Jazz Gallery, St. Nick's Pub, Bowery Poetry Club, Arturo's, Aaron Davis Hall, and Smalls. The musicians he collaborated with include Luis Perdomo, Victor Lewis, Harold Danko, Billy Drummond, Jerome Jennings, Helen Sung, Ivan Melon Lewis, Georvis Pico Milian, Caramelo de Cuba, Raul Pineda, Manuel Machado, Ariel Bringuez Ruiz, Victor Mendoza, Bobby Martinez, Wayne Escoffery, Frederic Borey, Alex Terrier, among many others.

 

In addition to performing, Hsu is committed to the outreach of jazz culture and original compositions, actively promoting jazz and Afro-Cuban music through projects in education and international exchange. His radio show Jazz Supreme also won “Best Non-Pop Music Program” and “Best Non-Pop Music Program Host” at the 2020 Golden Bell Awards.