An Archive of Jazz Photography
Created by jazzyman on Mar 12, 2011
Last updated: 03/15/11 at 04:36 PM
Swing Journal Magazine has no followers yet. Be the first one to follow.
Swing Journal, the venerable Japanese magazine that for decades covered worldwide jazz in remarkable detail and with enviable panache, announced this week that it will suspend publication with its July edition.
As you’d expect, the cause is a continuing decline in advertising revenues, the magazine announced Monday. Perhaps the real surprise lies in how long Swing Journal was able to sustain its glossy look, high-quality feel, and remarkable health: for decades its spectacular color photos and its impressive girth (literally hundreds of pages per issue) left western readers agape, even though we couldn’t read a word of it.
Published reports quote Japanese pianist Makoto Ozone as saying, “The market size for jazz is small, but it is wonderful that the magazine has been published in an era when even music seems disposable."
(It’s a rough time to be writing about music – especially if the music is jazz, and even more so if the writing appears in print publications. I should know. I’ve spent much of my career writing about jazz for newspapers and magazines. These days, when people ask me how things are going, I tell them, with only some exaggeration, “I’m living at the corner of Dumb and Dumber.”)
The Berklee-educated Ozone – who grew up reading Swing Journal, and is now a superstar of Japanese jazz and broadcasting (hosting shows on both radio and TV) – went on to say, “I appreciate the fact that Swing Journal has respectfully introduced young and new musicians.” The magazine began publishing in 1947, reflecting the then burgeoning Japanese interest in American culture. In the 50s and 60s, it played a major role in promoting jazz throughout Japan by covering up-and-coming native artists as well as established American jazz stars.
American jazz magazines have already made major concessions to the economic downturn and to the diminished sales of jazz recordings. Last summer, Jazz Times ceased publication, only to revive when the niche publishing group Madavor Media stepped in to save it. And last summer, Jazziz Magazine went from a monthly to a quarterly schedule for its print edition, with monthly editions available only by download.
In the press release, Takafumi Mimori, editor-in-chief of Swing Journal, says "We will make efforts to revive it somehow." For now, the final issue goes on sale in Japan on June 19.
http://www.musicvideosearch.com
So What" is the first track on the 1959 Miles Davis and John Coltrane album Kind of Blue and is often credited as one of his best works.
It is one of the most well-known examples of modal jazz, set in the Dorian mode and consisting of 16 bars of D minor7, followed by eight bars of Eb minor7 and another eight of D minor7. This AABA structure puts it in the format of popular song structure.
The piano and bass introduction for the piece was written by Gil Evans for Bill Evans and Paul Chambers on Kind of Blue. An orchestrated version by Gil Evans of this introduction is later to be found on a television broadcast given by Miles' Quintet (minus Cannonball Adderley who was ill that day) and the Gil Evans Orchestra; the orchestra gave the introduction after which the quintet produced a rendition of the rest of "So What".
The distinctive voicing employed by Bill Evans for the chords that interject the head, from the bottom up three perfect fourths followed by a major third, has been given the name "So What chord" by such theorists as Mark Levine.
While the track is taken at a very moderate tempo on Kind Of Blue, it is played at an extremely fast tempo on later live recordings by the Quintet, such as Four and More.
The same chord structure was later used by John Coltrane for his standard "Impressions".
http://astore.amazon.com/54classicjazz-20
Bill Evans: "T.T.T. (Twelve Tone Tune)" with Bill Evans (pf, el-p), Eddie Gomez (b) in 1971
Herbie Hancock
Brad Meldau
Miles Davis
Miles Davis
Ron Carter
Manhattan Transfer
Lee Morgan
Art Pepper
Keith Jarrett
Stan Getz
Diane Krall
Chick Corea
John Coltrane, McCoy Tyner, Jimmy Garrison, Elvin Jones
http://astore.amazon.com/54classicjazz2-20
Miles Davis - Isle of Wight 1970
Bob James Steve Gadd
Chick Corea Return To Forever
Wynton Marsalis /Willy Nelson
Cannonball Adderley
Herbie Hancock
Oscar Peterson
Bill Evans Waltz For Debbie
Miles Davis
John Coltrane - Every Time We Say Goodbye - 1961
http://astore.amazon.com/54classicjazzboxsets-20
Ron Carter
Eric Dolphy
Sonny Rollins
www.chetbaker.net/sonnyrollins.html
Stan Getz
www.chetbaker.net/stangetz.html
Chet Baker
www.chetbaker.net
Live in Tokyo on September 2nd-3rd 2006, at Tokyo Jazz Festival 2006 in Japan. Chick Corea and Hiromi Uehara play "Spain" (by Chick Corea).
Sonny Rollins
John Coltrane (feeling 'kind of blue') takes a stroll down 'Green Dolphin Street' in this rare footage.
http://astore.amazon.com/54classicjazzdvd-20
Diane Krall
Oscar Peterson
Horace Silver (born September 2, 1928), born Horace Ward Martin Tavares Silva in Norwalk, Connecticut, is an American jazz pianist. Silver is known for his distinctive humorous and funky playing style and for his pioneering compositional contributions to hard bop. Silver was influenced by a wide range of musical styles, notably gospel music, African music, and Latin American music and sometimes ventured into the soul jazz genre. Song for My Father is a 1964 album by the Horace Silver Quintet, released on the Blue Note label. The album was inspired by a trip that Silver had made to Brazil. The cover artwork features a photograph of Silver's father, John Tavares Silver, to whom the title song was dedicated. A jazz standard, "Song for My Father" is here in its original form. It is a Bossa Nova in F-minor with an AAB head. On the head, a trumpet and tenor saxophone play in harmony. The song has had a noticeable impact in pop music. The opening bass piano notes were borrowed by Steely Dan for their song "Rikki Don't Lose That Number", while the opening horn riff was borrowed by Stevie Wonder for his song "Don't You Worry 'Bout a Thing". Horace Silver — piano Carmell Jones — trumpet Joe Henderson — tenor saxophone Teddy Smith — bass Roger Humphries — drums
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