I Can't Talk To Nobody But Music With Liu Zishi Quartet

About

For saxophonist and composer Zishi Liu, music has always been the language that says what words can’t. This October, Zishi brings a brand-new set of original compositions to The Mad Monkfish —music written through a season of change, reflections on life, growth, and the things he couldn’t quite say any other way. Zishi made history as the first Chinese artist to perform at the internationally renowned Regattabar, in partnership with Blue Note Jazz Club, and has toured extensively across the U.S., China, Korea, Malaysia, and Singapore. His 2025 EP American Anxiety — featuring Francisco Mela (drums) and Eric Hofbauer (guitar) — was spotlighted by All About Jazz and WBUR for its emotional depth and genre-bending fusion of jazz with global influences. Raised in China during a pivotal moment of cultural transformation, Zishi’s compositions draw on the melancholic lyricism of 90s Asian pop, the harmonic language of jazz, and the meditative stillness of Chinese classical music — finding an unspoken kinship between Coltrane’s late-period searching and the guqin’s centuries-old embrace of emptiness and raw emotional truth. This performance marks the debut of Zishi’s newest compositions — an evening of music built from everything he couldn’t say out loud.