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November 22, 2024
 

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Michael Pronko

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Michael Pronko
Michael Pronko writes essays for ST Shukan. He also writes for his own website Jazz in Japan, as well as for Newsweek Japan and Artscape Japan. He has published three books of essays about Tokyo and teaches American literature, culture and film at Meiji Gakuin University.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music / HIGH NOTES
Aug 20, 2003
Joe Lovano Notet: "On This Day"
As leader, improviser and arranger, Joe Lovano brings together bop, post-bop and free jazz into a three-dimensional form that swings hard. Whether his tenor sax sandpapers a hard bop line or squeals like a bird on speed, he leans on the past while looking to the future. After hearing his most recent...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music / HIGH NOTES
Aug 13, 2003
Manolito y Su Trabuco
The Japanese government can be thanked for one thing: open treaties with the Cuban government that allow the most scorching salsa players in the world to perform here on a regular basis. Perhaps the government doesn't have a choice since Japan has an unusually high percentage of Latin music aficionados....
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music / JAZZNICITY
Aug 10, 2003
Akagi nurtures organic lifeform
Jazz pianist Kei Akagi clearly relishes the dual nature of the human mind. This is no surprise coming from someone who has divided his time between the United States and Japan, his college studies between philosophy and music, his musical training between classical and jazz, his jazz playing between...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music / HIGH NOTES
Aug 6, 2003
Doug Wamble's: "Country Libations"
At first listen, Doug Wamble's debut CD, "Country Libations," sounds like a compilation. At different points, Wamble flatpicks country swing, booms out heartfelt gospel, plays slide Delta blues, swings hard on pre-bop jazz and intersperses moments of free jazz. This range and choice of styles is initially...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music / HIGH NOTES
Jul 30, 2003
Alex Sipiagin
Jazz was one of the best-kept secrets of communist Russia, officially suppressed but actually flourishing in underground clubs, bootleg studios and on pirate radio stations. Fortunately for music fans, trumpeter Alex Sipiagin heard enough to become one of Russia's premier jazz players and to emigrate...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music / HIGH NOTES
Jul 23, 2003
Jaco Pastorius: "Word of Mouth Revisited"
In the '70s and '80s, Jaco Pastorius revolutionized electric bass playing. The imprint of his bold sound can be heard in bass players from jazz to rock to funk. Whether in the seminal fusion group Weather Report, his own high-energy electric bands, with guitarists Pat Metheny and Mike Stern, or in the...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music
Jul 20, 2003
Here's your red hot mama, daddy
When the smoke cleared from the retro swing boom of the '90s, only a few bands remained. Lavay Smith and her Red Hot Skillet Lickers was one of them. The swing bands resurrected an entire corpus of old-style dancing, slick dressing, and lyrics not heard in public for a half-century. While the posers...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music
Jul 16, 2003
Jazz swinging out in the open
Jazz fans have dozens of excellent festivals to choose from throughout Japan, with lineups covering a broad base from slick, traditional-minded swing to in-your-face free jazz. At most festivals, one would have to have to be either deaf or drunk to love everything on the schedule, but part of why festivals...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music / JAZZNICITY
Jul 13, 2003
The sum of their parts -- and more
One of the common impressions of Japanese jazz is of skilled technicians working studiously within the confines of jazz tradition to turn out polished music. Indeed, many Japanese jazz musicians fail to exploit the full potential of jazz improvisation, preferring instead to remain dedicated, humble craftsmen,...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music / HIGH NOTES
Jul 9, 2003
Roots Music Festival 2003
This summer's Roots Music Festival at Blue Note Tokyo moves far beyond simple basics to a full flowering of diverse branches of the musical tree. The seven performers, coming from different countries, styles and backgrounds, share an improvisational spirit, but otherwise are notable for their unique...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music / HIGH NOTES
Jul 2, 2003
Pat Metheny: "One Quiet Night"
Pat Metheny is one of the most widely imitated guitarists in modern jazz. A prodigy on guitar, he played in jazz clubs before he could even drive to the gigs and became one of the youngest teachers ever at the famed Berklee College of Music in Boston. Because of that early fame, he has had the freedom...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music / HIGH NOTES
Jun 25, 2003
Jack Johnson: "On and On"
In the off season, professional surfer Jack Johnson keeps himself busy -- keeping his boards waxed, of course, but also polishing his craft as a songwriter. To follow up his debut, "Brushfire Fairytales," he retreated to his living room-cum-studio with longtime buddies percussionist Adam Topol and bassist...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music / HIGH NOTES
Jun 18, 2003
Ted Nash: "Still Evolved"
It's not just anyone who can ask Wynton Marsalis to sit in. Ted Nash can, though, and more than that, he knows how to put Marsalis to work. On Nash's new release, "Still Evolved," he makes sure that Marsalis and other recruited luminaries from New York's post-bop scene don't waste a single note.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music / JAZZNICITY
Jun 8, 2003
Synergetic possibilities at the heart
The piano trio is the heart of jazz. This core unit of piano, bass and drums pumps life into the music. All jazz groups, big or small, rely on the piano, bass and drums (called "the rhythm section") for their crucial thrust of energy. Taken out of a larger group, the piano trio contains all the essentials...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music / HIGH NOTES
Jun 4, 2003
Keith Jarrett: "Up For It"
Keith Jarrett has one of those artistic temperaments. After walking out on Miles Davis in the late '60s, he refused to ever touch an electric keyboard again. Throughout his own career, he rejected imperfectly tuned pianos, demanded smokeless environments long before they became a legal offense and disappeared...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music / HIGH NOTES
May 21, 2003
David Murray Big Band: "Now is Another Time"
Boundary crossing and genre mixing are no longer a big deal in jazz, but few do them with the raw power and awe-inspiring glee of David Murray. His list of musical projects reads like a postmodern smorgasbord: Guadaloupian vocals and percussion; Caribbean instrumentation; a musical tribute to Picasso;...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music / HIGH NOTES
May 14, 2003
Papa John DeFrancesco: "Jumpin"'
After Joey DeFrancesco's Hammond B-3 organ became a favorite with a new generation of soul-jazz fans in the '90s, part of the spotlight fell on Joey's teacher -- his father, "Papa" John.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music / JAZZNICITY
May 11, 2003
A versatile jazz, classical and Latin lover
The typical image of Latin jazz comes mainly from salsa. Certainly, large bands playing fast-tempo dance music peppered by a hot horn section, thumping bass, razor-sharp piano and a small contingent of percussionists comprise the most common -- and perhaps most exhilarating -- form of Latin jazz.
CULTURE / Music / HIGH NOTES
May 7, 2003
Phil Woods
The intense be-bop style created by Charlie Parker changed the shape of jazz and created an entirely new vocabulary for the saxophone. Few sax players could keep pace with the incredible dexterity and musical intelligence of Bird, though many tried.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music / HIGH NOTES
Apr 30, 2003
Dave Douglas: "Freak In"
Many jazz artists try to force sampling, computer loops and synthesized textures into a relationship with acoustic instruments that just doesn't work. On his new release, "Freak In," Dave Douglas, though, lets both sides work things out on their own terms. The result is a musical friction that produces...
Two of America’s biggest debt holders are dumping Treasurys
The U.S. Treasury building in Washington. Investors in Japan and China sold a pile of U.S. debt in the last quarter, just before the U.S. presidential election.
Russia fired experimental ballistic missile at Ukraine, Putin says
Ukrainian firefighters work on a spot following an airstrike in Dnipro on Thursday.
Ishiba aggravates his own political failures with diplomatic faux pas
Prime Minster Shigeru Ishiba is greeted at the APEC summit in Lima by Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau on Friday. The Japanese leader was criticized for remaining seated while meeting several world leaders at the event.
Japan's 3.31 million visitors in October set monthly record
Kiyomizu Temple in Kyoto in December 2023. Famous autumn leaf colors contributed to increased tourism demand last month from many markets across Asia, Europe and North America, the Japan National Tourism Organization has said.
Japan ranks last in romance satisfaction for second straight year
In a survey of 31 countries, Japan ranked last in terms of those who felt loved, with just 51% of respondents saying so.
The slow-burn success of ‘A Samurai in Time’
A 19th-century warrior gets struck by lightning and wakes to find himself in 21st-century Kyoto in Junichi Yasuda’s surprise hit “A Samurai in Time.”
Around a quarter of Japan married couples in their 20s met through dating apps
A survey released by an organization promoting “Good Couples Day” shows that 24% of couples in their 20s met their marriage partner through a dating app.
'Tokyo Swindlers': Get deep into the minds of real estate con artists
In Ko Shinjo's "Tokyo Swindlers," a group of con artists manipulates real estate giants into falsified deals within the highly competitive, quick market.
Japan, U.K. and Italy discuss inviting more countries to joint fighter project
A new concept model of a next-generation fighter jet to be jointly developed by Japan, Britain and Italy is on display in Farnborough, Hampshire, in July.
Haruki Murakami's 'The City and Its Uncertain Walls' gives deep deja vu
For “The City and Its Uncertain Walls,” translated into English by Philip Gabriel, Haruki Murakami confronts the ghosts who won't leave him alone.

Podcast

One of the many entrances to the Kabukicho neighborhood in Tokyo’s Shinjuku Ward.
Kabukicho: Tokyo’s ‘stadium of desire’

Longform

Construction takes place on the Takanawa Gateway Convention Center in Tokyo, slated to open in 2025.
A boom for business tourism in Japan?
By Kathryn Wortley

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