Art by Elsewhere

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Elsewhere Art . . . Bevis Frond

4 Oct 2021  |  <1 min read

And after last week's coincidence of posting a collage of Wayne Shorter in the same week a Santana album (featuring Shorter) came off the shelf at random for consideration now comes . . . This collage I did exactly five years ago when introducing the UK cult band Bevis Frond fronted by Nick Saloman. "Introducing" a band which had been going for 30 years and had released as... > Read more

Elsewhere Art . . . Wayne Shorter

27 Sep 2021  |  <1 min read

As I mention in the story which this collage accompanied, this record by Wayne Shorter literally came to hand when I was going through a bunch of albums my eldest son left behind when he moved to Britain. It had been a while since I had listened to the particular Shorter album I pulled out, and I confess probably a few years since I had listened to any of his recent work. And so if... > Read more

Elsewhere Art . . . free jazz

13 Sep 2021  |  <1 min read

As with anyone who has done their share of marching, there's always the memory of the clenched fist and the demand that someone be freed. So when it came to writing something about militant, black American free jazz from the late Sixties/early Seventies this image just sprang back. I wanted the thing to look like it was a poster battered by events at the time (the burnt edge) and... > Read more

Elsewhere Art . . . Keith Jarrett

6 Sep 2021  |  1 min read

Tragically, there will probably be no more new music from pianist Keith Jarrett. In 2018 he suffered two separate strokes which have left him partially paralyzed down his left side. He could still play with his right hand and through overdubs create his music, but at 76 that seems unlikely. These recent events haven't been the first serious health issues Jarrett has... > Read more

Elsewhere Art . . . Soviet-era free jazz

22 Aug 2021  |  2 min read

This collage-cum-Letraset is positively ancient, it dates back to the Soviet-era when jazz was not just supressed in Russia and its satellites but free jazz was way underground and tapes of it were smuggled out, recordings of groups like the Ganelin Trio. So this art was created in 1984 to illustrate an article in the magazine I launched --Passages; The Magazine of Jazz and Elsewhere --... > Read more

Elsewhere Art . . . John McLaughlin

1 Aug 2021  |  <1 min read

Frankly this was a bit of a throwaway but anyone who knows of the career of John McLaughlin (Mahavishnu Orchestra etc) would get the joke. This was used to illusrate an article about a live album which acted like a career synopsis and allowed me to offer that overview of his work. The article is here. There is more on the remarkable John McLaughlin at Elsewhere, including an... > Read more

Elsewhere Art . . . New Zealand jazz

29 Jul 2021  |  <1 min read

There was a time when it seemed every jazz album by a New Zealand singer was just more of the same old standards . . . and as I often said to some of them, if you do something by Sinatra you're inviting a comparison you just can't win. But still they came. I can't remember exactly what prompted this collage but I think it accompanied a few local jazz albums . . . mostly of standards.... > Read more

Elsewhere Art . . . Don Cunningham

12 Jul 2021  |  <1 min read

This is the kind of collage which gets you tossed off social media, I am told. It was created to illustrate a piece about the band leader Don Cunningham and his album Something for Everyone. It was a great story: he'd toured Fiji, Australia and the Caribbean in Johnny Mathis' band but then a chance encounter lead him to playing in the Playboy club in St Louis, the album eventuated and... > Read more

Elsewhere Art . . . Ronnie Jordan

4 Jul 2021  |  <1 min read

When guitarist Ronnie Jordan first arrived on the acid jazz scene in the early Nineties I interviewed him in London, in a pub near his home. He was a lovely man and quite taken with the fact that I was from New Zealand and that I had heard his music. We had a very friendly conversation with quite a few laughs along the way. And every now and then my partner at the time, who was... > Read more

Elsewhere Art . . . Bob Dylan

10 Jun 2021  |  <1 min read

It's hardly surprising that Bob Dylan gets dozens of articles at Elsewhere, he's 80 after all and that means not just six decades of music but reviews, overviews and that on-going and sometimes terrific Bootleg Series. Most in that series are interesting if not revelatory, although the Basement Tapes thing has never had me once replay it. However much to my surprise -- given his... > Read more

Elsewhere Art. . . . Jay McShann

31 May 2021  |  <1 min read

The thing you learn about jazz is that if you write about it most people aren't interested. Aside from jazz aficionados who will be quick to point out how wrong you are, which album is better, why you should have written about someone else instead . . . So when I was writing about jazz (and very Elsewhere music) for certain magazines directed at a more "rock" audience I'd try... > Read more

Elsewhere Art . . . Lester Bowie

10 May 2021  |  <1 min read  |  1

The late Lester Bowie was not just a great musician but a funny guy. Hence Donald Duck in this collage. One of Bowie's pieces was Miles Davis Meets Donald Duck for which he blew through a straw in water to create an effect which sounded exactly like that encounter. With his Brass Fantasy ensemble he covered Michael Jackson's Thriller and he moved beyond jazz to play on David Bowie's... > Read more

Elsewhere Art . . . Miles Davis #3

3 May 2021  |  <1 min read

Given his interest in what we once called "the fight game", it was inevitable that Miles Davis would be drawn to the outsized character of boxer Jack Johnson who caroused, openly went out (and home) with white women, enjoyed life living it large . . . and took out contenders and pretenders along the way. The collage positions images of Davis and Johnson around one version of the... > Read more

Elsewhere Art . . . Richard X Bennett

22 Apr 2021  |  1 min read

This image may be confusing for many, given New York pianist/composer Richard X Bennett hasn't crossed into too many Elsewhere and otherwise lives . . . . despite my best efforts. Bennett came our way back in 2013 with the album New York City Swara on which he played Indian raga pieces on piano. Which is odd, difficult and – when you think about microtones and drone -- all... > Read more

Elsewhere Art . . . Louis Armstrong

18 Apr 2021  |  <1 min read

Absolutely obvious I know. But what else are you going to for the great Louis Armstrong other than cast him as some holy man radiating light out of New Orleans? This was created to accompany an article on various Dixieland compilations, a genre of jazz I have always had some aversion to because of the cliches of men in bowler hats sitting on the back of a flat bed in some smalltown... > Read more

Elsewhere Art . . . Janis Joplin

21 Mar 2021  |  <1 min read

I can't remember why this was created, or where or who used it, but I wrote a major piece about the great Janis Joplin, noting that of all the dead rock star legends of the Sixties she has been the least revived and repackaged and revered. She just seemed too unmanageable, too assertive and probably even too rock'n'roll for current tastes.  I also noted that she would scare the... > Read more

Elsewhere Art . . . John Coltrane

19 Mar 2021  |  <1 min read

Any album by John Coltrane is worth taking the time to respond to, and not just in an aural way. The truest response to any work of art is to create another. Is it not? And even if your response is weak in the comparison at least you responded in kind. This is weak. But what visual work could ever convey the emotional depth, technical proficiency and thoughtful dimensions of... > Read more

Elsewhere Art . . . Miles Davis #2

19 Mar 2021  |  <1 min read

Needless to say there is quite a lot about Miles Davis at Elsewhere, including my 1988 interview with him, hence the tagline at the bottom. I can't remember exactly what this piece was illustrating but it wasn't a consideration of Sketches of Spian (despite the imagery) because I did another piece for that. Maybe for something I wrote about the Milestones album given the year at... > Read more

Elsewhere Art . . . Miles Davis #1

12 Mar 2021  |  <1 min read

By chance, some years ago I came across a three-record box set from 2007 ("audiophile collector's edition" no less) entitled Miles From India: A Celebration of the Music of Miles Davis. It was produced by Bob Belden and among the Davis alumni on this Indo-jazz rethinking of Davis' music were Ron Carter, Jimmy Cobb, Chick Corea, John McLaughlin, Marcus Miller, Wallace Roney, Mike... > Read more

Elsewhere Art . . . Tomasz Stanko

8 Mar 2021  |  <1 min read

The great jazz trumpeter Tomasz Stanko from Poland died in 2018 but I always had the impression he wasn't widely known in New Zealand. Yet his albums on ECM were certainly available, albeit in very limited quantities. This art was done quite some time ago when I thought his work needed to be discovered, especially an album like Lontano (2006). Years as a journalist taught me that... > Read more