— 2/6/00
Mac Davis
Author
Jazz Connections
mac@mcedit.com
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The work of K. Abé is absolutely essential to this project. For nearly 50 years, Abé has dedicated his life to jazz and the men and women who make it happen. K. was born in Tokyo in 1929 and graduated from Waseda University in 1951. After a brief but unsuccessful try at becoming a guitarist, influenced by Charlie Christian, he traded his instrument in for a camera, determined to remain associated with jazz.Traveling all over the world in the company of musicians, including most of those represented in Jazz Connections, he began to build his archives that now include several hundred thousand photographs. His work has appeared on countless album jackets and CD covers — even on a 1986 U.S. postage stamp honoring Duke Ellington — and in jazz magazines and other publications around the globe. His own photobooks and collected essays on jazz are published by Shinko Music in Japan, and his "Jazz Giants — Visions of the Great American Legend" is available from Billboard Publications in America and other countries. K. is also well-known for his work as a commentator and deejay for NHK and other radio and television networks, bringing his knowledge and love of jazz to audiences throughout Japan. The 200 K. Abé photographs that appear here were selected not only for what they reveal about the artists covered, but also as a small but telling representation of the wide scope and variety of his work. Recently, Mr. Abé has suffered poor health, and we wish him well. An international fund to preserve and protect his life's work in digital form has been established. For information, send email to jazzconnections@entanet.com with "AbéFund" in the subject line. Hiro Takada — Musical Director Our Music Director was born in 1947 in Ibaraki Prefecture, Japan. He began to study piano in as a child, became interested in jazz while in high school and made his professional debut with the Furuyama Hidewaki Quartet while in college. In 1976 he moved to Los Angeles to broaden his musical background, studying with Dick Globe and later, at the Berklee College of Music in Boston, with Ray Santisi. After graduation from Berklee in 1980, Hiro returned to L.A., playing in the house trio at the Maiden Voyage and at other clubs. He then formed his own groups, and made regular club, concert and TV appearances for two more years in L.A. before returning to Japan to record his first album, "Memories of B.L.T." He continued to play and record in Japan and other countries until 1989 when he again went to the U.S. to concentrate on 20th-century composition at the Julliard School of Music in New York. During the past decade, Hiro has written several books on jazz piano method, has taught privately, and has held numerous concerts including a series of charity benefits for worthy causes. He also has continued to lead his own groups for club, festival and recording gigs. His fifth and latest CD, "Portrait in NYC" on the Ryu Music Label (No. HT-1003) features his old friends, bassist Rufus Reid and drummer Akira Tana, together with New York-based vocalist Barbara King. Hiro, his journalist wife Lucy Craft and their two children currently live in Tokyo where, surrounded by computer and musical equipment in his studio, he is extending his activities into the realm of cyberspace. (For more information: hirolucy@aol.com.) Malcolm B. Davis — Producer The author, designer, programmer and producer of Jazz Connections was born in central California in 1939. After earning a BA in English-Language Arts from San Francisco State College and serving as a travel writer for the Pacific Area Travel Association, he took up permanent residence in Japan in 1966. Mac is not a musician, but has a pretty good ear (he says) and a deep love of jazz. As Publishing Director (Far East) for Billboard Publications, Inc. in the late 1960s ~ early 1970s, he was the first foreign journalist to work in and report on the Japanese music industry. Since then, he has continued to contribute music and pop-culture articles and reviews to leading music, music-trade and other publications. His journalistic, editorial and writing credits also include several books on travel and cultural subjects, masthead positions on more than 20 magazines and periodicals, and extensive experience in advertising, public relations and other commercial areas. For more than a decade, Mac has been Editor-in-Chief of "Wingspan," the monthly inflight magazine of ANA (All Nippon Airways). He is also Editorial Director for "The Imperial," the magazine of the Imperial Hotels (Tokyo, Osaka and Bali), and Creative Director and co-owner of McDavis Associates, Inc., the Tokyo-based editorial-services company he founded with his wife, Hiromi, in 1980. Currently, while devoting most of his energies to the marketing of Jazz Connections (and developing future multimedia and Web-based projects), Mac divides his time between a small computer-arts studio in Miyake-jima (a tiny Pacific island south of Tokyo, and the birthplace of Hiromi's mother) and their new home on the South Beach of Bainbridge, a somewhat larger island a few miles west of Seattle in Puget Sound. Technical Information 
Minimum System Requirements4x CD-ROM drive, 20mB free RAM, 16-bit stereo sound capability. MACINTOSH: PowerPC 100Mhz (or faster) with OS7 (or later). 
WINDOWS: 95 (or faster) w/133Mhz processor (or faster).Jazz Connections is not designed to run on Windows NT systems. Troubleshooting This program was tested on several Macintosh and Windows operating systems during its development. FOR BEST RESULTS, your monitor should be set to a resolution of 640x480 pixels and a screen depth of 256 colors. The program itself will set the screen depth automatically on any Macintosh; the automatic setting is supported on SOME Windows computers, but in general, Windows users must set the 256-color screen depth MANUALLY in order to see the graphics. If you are still experiencing difficulties:  1. Confirm that your CD-ROM drive has a minimum speed of 4x. If it does not, copy the entire "JAZZFOLD" folder to your hard disk from the CD-ROM, reboot and try again.
2. Confirm that you have a minimum of 20 megabytes of "free" RAM. Some of the processes in the program may not work smoothly or at all on machines with insufficient memory. (If the program "crashes" at any point, quit, close all other current applications including system extensions, etc., then reboot.) 3. Confirm that the SPEED of your CPU is a minimum of 100mHz (PowerPC Macintosh) or equivalent. Certain functions (such as transitions between frames, loading of photographs, playing speed of the music, etc.) may not perform at optimum on slower computers.
4. If the TEXT of any portion of the program does not appear crisp, or if it contains "gremlin" characters, etc., confirm that you have loaded the correct fonts into your system. For Macintosh: CHICAGO and TIMES (Apple default); for Windows: ARIAL and TIMES NEW ROMAN (Windows default).
If difficulties continue, contact us at jazzconnections@entanet.com explaining the nature of your problem in full. Be sure to include a description of your hardware, operating system, etc. Bugs 1. This program does NOT recognize DOUBLE clicks. This is not a "bug." 2. The arrow keys and all other keyboard functions (except "quit") are disabled while the program is running. 3. Be SURE you have checked all the issues discussed in the Troubleshooting section (above), particularly RAM and processor speed. 4. Use the HELP function to familiarize yourself with the correct operation of and the results expected from the various buttons, etc. Be SURE to turn off Help when you are done. 5. If the program continues to display what you think are "bugs," describe the problem to us at jazzconnections@entanet.com and we'll do our best to help. Who knows, maybe you've found something our months of "beta" testing overlooked. Errata We welcome your input regarding the accuracy of the information in JAZZ CONNECTIONS. If you spot what you consider to be a FACTUAL ERROR (or even a typo), please report it via email at mac@mcedit.com. Known errors will be posted permanently on this page until a new edition of the program is issued. (If you prefer that we do not list your name and address, please say so in your message.) — Thanks! TOMMY FLANAGAN: References to the 1956 Sonny Rollins album "Tenor Madness" on Tommy's Recordings page, etc., are in error. Tommy played with Sonny around that time, but not on that album. I know how the error happened, but it's too late to change it now! Sorry! |
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