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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.
CULTURE / Music / JAZZNICITY
Jul 15, 2001
In praise of the honest approach
Huddled over a back table at the Roppongi jazz club Alfie, out of earshot of her manager and new record company reps, Akiko confessed.
CULTURE / Music / HIGH NOTES
Jul 11, 2001
Charles McPherson
As keeper of the bebop flame lit by Charlie Parker, Charles McPherson is a tremendous alto saxophone player with his own style-within-the-style. Thoroughly saturated in Parker's rhythmic and melodic innovations, McPherson has honed an individual sound with a gleaming sharp edge.
CULTURE / Music / HIGH NOTES
Jul 4, 2001
'Brotherly Love': Jack McDuff
Concord has just released "Brotherly Love," the last recording of the great soul jazz organist Jack McDuff who died in January this year.
CULTURE / Music / HIGH NOTES
Jun 27, 2001
'Wicked Grin': John Hammond
John Hammond is a guitarist and singer who has mined the deep veins of traditional country and urban blues since the 1960s. So why he wanted to take on the contemporary street poetry of songsmith Tom Waits might at first seem curious. After all, there's no shortage of blues songs aching to be excavated,...
CULTURE / Music / HIGH NOTES
Jun 20, 2001
'Tribute to Louis': Nicholas Payton
Nicholas Payton's new release, "Tribute to Louis" (Verve), paints the colors, shapes and textures of Louis Armstrong's tunes on a great big, brand-new canvas. The largish ensembles Payton put together on the CD re-energize Armstrong's earlier, blues-based work from the '20s and '30s on songs such as...
CULTURE / Music / JAZZNICITY
Jun 17, 2001
Jazz from the tap, running hot and cool
Great jazz, in styles ranging from traditional swing to eclectic free jazz, can be heard nightly in Tokyo. Two of the most popular and listenable acts are the cool-jazz guitarist Sadanori Nakamure and the hard-bop group Alto Nakayoshi Koyoshi. Though both play styles of jazz that originated in the '50s,...
CULTURE / Music
Jun 3, 2001
Jamming outside the lines
The complexity of jazz is both its strength and its weakness, turning off many would-be listeners with the demands of its difficult, challenging forms, while fascinating fans with its open-ended dynamism. For many jazz players, the tension between having to entertain and wanting to push boundaries is...
CULTURE / Music / HIGH NOTES
May 30, 2001
'Come Dream With Me': Diana Krall
Female jazz vocalists have typically fallen into one of two categories: fresh-faced innocence or worldly wise sophistication. The most popular recent example of the latter is Diana Krall, who has had a stunning series of releases in the past few years. In contrast, the most recent newcomer, Jane Monheit,...
CULTURE / Music / HIGH NOTES
May 23, 2001
Mark Murphy
Common enough are jazz vocalists with a sense of the flexibility and evocative power of the human voice. But when that conception combines with a hip, humorous sense of verbal play, an astute awareness of lyrical phrasing, an inclusive, genre-spanning attitude and over 40 years' experience, you get,...
CULTURE / Music / JAZZNICITY
May 20, 2001
Taking Tokyo by the horn
When Luis Valle first came to Tokyo four years ago, he had a hard time. At his first trumpet sessions, he was hitting those way-high notes and his solos were hard and fast, but reading the jazz charts was something else.
CULTURE / Music / HIGH NOTES
May 9, 2001
New venue: Someday
Someday, one of the best jazz clubs in Tokyo, has moved from its longtime digs in Shin-Okubo to Kagurazaka. With the club specializing in big band, large Latin and midsize straight-ahead groups, the old place was always packed shoulder to shoulder -- on stage and off. The new location is spacious enough...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music / HIGH NOTES
May 2, 2001
Brian Lynch
Brian Lynch startles less with technique than overall approach. There's no shortage of craft, but it's wrapped in layers of intelligence, intuition and passion. His trumpet playing incorporates the innovations of past players, but melds them into a directness of sound that moves easily from be-bop hot...
CULTURE / Music / HIGH NOTES
Apr 18, 2001
The Japan Blues Carnival
Some things in life are constant: the power of good music, the satisfaction of spicy food, the cathartic effect of a plainly told story. The annual Japan Blues Carnival will bring all that wrapped up in the blues for two great, long outdoor shows, plus three gigs at smaller indoor venues.
CULTURE / Music / JAZZNICITY
Apr 15, 2001
Between rock and a jazz session
What do famous guitarists do after climbing to the top of their field, having contributed to literally hundreds of the most influential jazz, rock and pop records of the past 30 years? Well, if you ask Larry Carlton and Steve Lukather, the answer is: They turn up the amps, load their guitar chops with...
CULTURE / Music / HIGH NOTES
Apr 11, 2001
Hara's crackling horn
Jazz has always been "retro." Outstanding jazz players develop their sound through an immersion in past innovations. The important thing, of course, is not to get stuck in them. All too many players end up as archivists, or technicians. Not trumpeter Tomonao Hara.
CULTURE / Music
Mar 9, 2001
Michio Imazato finds another shade of blue
When Michio Imazato first heard Miles Davis' "Kind of Blue," a record he checked out from the public library in Maebashi, Gunma Prefecture, he couldn't have known he'd be leading his own quintet 10 years later in New York City. After all, he was a typical rock 'n' roll-loving high-school kid playing...
CULTURE / Music
Feb 23, 2001
Mukai finds brassy brilliance in the balance
Aristotle said that to achieve beauty, proportion is everything. Shigeharu Mukai has contemporized that ideal into a well-practiced jazz unit that is just the right size: big enough for harmonic textures and soloing variety, but small enough for agility and drive. Mukai's latest release, "Super 4 Brass,"...
CULTURE / Music
Feb 6, 2001
Jazz workout bands hope you like jammin'
"Jam bands" seem to have managed the musically impossible: to have become popular with both snooty jazz critics and well-cranked college stu dents. Picking up from where the Grateful Dead and fusion jazz left off in the '90s, jam bands recombine complex, extended improvisations and body-shaking rhythms....
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.
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.
Ruling coalition and DPP strike last-minute deal over economic policy
DPP policy chief Makoto Mahaguchi speaks at the party's policy gathering in Tokyo on Wednesday.
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.
Japanese expats in Asia find community through rugby
The Taiwan Fivewoods celebrate their victory at the 2023 Asian Japanese Rugby Cup in December of last year.
In Fukushima, a weekend of prose, poetry and translation
Aomori-based writer JJ Carter presented on tabletop gaming as creative inspiration for building characters and narratives.
For Dr. Nakamats, aging is just experience in action
Though he didn't win the recent gubernatorial election in Tokyo, the 96-year-old Dr. Nakamats' run was seen as inspirational in Japan's aging society.

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