Thread

Jazz

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German pianist Joja Wendt playing a black Steinway grand piano at the PGA Cars gallery

Steinway artist Joja Wendt plays boogie-woogie & Beethoven (with flying bumblebees in between)

The German pianist who swings from boogie-woogie to Beethoven, in Manila for Steinway & Sons’ The Artistry in Modern Precision at PGA Cars.

By Igan D'Bayan · March 11, 2023
Illustrated Cthulhu in an indigo yukata carries a paper umbrella and a Tokyo lantern through rainy, neon-lit Shibuya Crossing

A city where the lights never go out

Two Japans in one trip: ninja houses and the record bins of Akihabara, then the long silence of the A-Bomb Dome in Hiroshima.

By Igan D'Bayan · September 25, 2005
A man in an ECM Records t-shirt with a surreally painted face carries a stack of LPs topped by John Coltrane’s Blue Train past a metal record shop

Life, death and all that jazz

Mingus and Coltrane, Harry’s Bar at Boat Quay, and a goodbye to drummer Bob Barreto. Life may be short, but the beats are infinite.

By Igan D'Bayan · August 26, 2005
A bearded Victorian naturalist in a specimen-filled study holds a wooden sign lettered Questions 67 & 68 beside a skull, a tortoise and a microscope

Questions 67 and 68

Why do noontime hosts say happy viewing, why do movie goons wear leather in this heat, and what does Hollaback Girl actually mean?

By Igan D'Bayan · August 5, 2005
Three men resembling Kerouac, Ginsberg and Burroughs sit over beers in a dim bar hung with Big Beat poetry reading posters and a Schlitz sign

The brats of Beat

Kerouac with Steve Allen on piano, Ginsberg howling, Burroughs on a hip-hop record. The spoken-word albums of the Beats, for freaky times.

By Igan D'Bayan · July 22, 2005
The Punk Jazz: The Jaco Pastorius Anthology CD and sleeve, showing Jaco with his bass guitar, on a mottled paint-splashed surface

Jaco Pastorius and the music of the spheres

The first career-spanning Jaco Pastorius anthology arrives, and the bassist who reinvented the instrument gets the retrospective he was owed.

By Igan D'Bayan · May 16, 2003