Michael Pronko - The Japan Times

Today's print edition

Subscribe for more access

Michael Pronko

Meta

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.

For Michael Pronko's latest contributions to The Japan Times, see below:

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, and besides, Waits, with his bleak tales of urban realism set to a clever melange of song styles, has had his own following since his first release in 1973.

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 "West End Blues," "Tiger Rag" and "Potato Head Blues." The dynamic arrangements and superb soloing make the older songs as relevant to the modern, entertainment-minded ear as they are to the historian.

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, their enthusiasm and technique make their gigs glisten with a thriving jazz spirit.

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 resolved in uninspiring styles: either simple, easy listenability or listless, unstructured exploration.

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, has a youthful, crystalline purity of expression. Her second CD, "Come Dream With Me," has just been released on the N-Coded Music label.

CULTURE / Music / HIGH NOTES

May 23, 2001

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, well, you get Mark Murphy.

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 for one of the, say, 16, players in a band to take a solo without knocking over the music stands.

Japan Times

CULTURE / Music / HIGH NOTES

May 2, 2001

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 to cool blue without pretense. His tone has a soft, rounded fullness that's all the more impressive for not trying to impress. Solos pour out with an unassuming mindfulness.

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 grit and start jamming.

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 Deep Purple on his guitar.

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," incorporates his 30 years as trombone player, composer, leader and teacher into a brilliant set of 10 tunes with a powerfully sharp sense of musical balance.

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. The better groups know just how to blend jazz soloing with good-time rock and dance-inducing funk.

From easily navigable train stations to the helpfulness of its municipal staff, Tokyo has earned high praise for its commitment to accessibility for disabled travelers.

[Rebroadcast] Japan is doing better on accessibility than you may think

When trying to trace your lineage in Japan, the "koseki" is the most important form of document you'll encounter.

Climbing the branches of a Japanese family tree

By Alex K.T. Martin

SUSTAINABLE JAPAN

Prize winner Maki Imoto catches light with glass

Prize winner Maki Imoto catches light with glass

SPECIAL SUPPLEMENTS

SUPPLEMENTS BINDER

international-reports