Wako store in Ginza

Ginza (銀座^?) is a district of Chūō, Tokyo, located south of Yaesu and Kyōbashi, west of Tsukiji, east of Yūrakuchō and Uchisaiwaichō, and north of Shinbashi.

It is known as an upscale area of Tokyo with numerous department stores, boutiques, restaurants and coffeehouses. Ginza is recognized as one of the most luxurious shopping districts in the world. Many upscale fashion clothing flagship stores are located here, being also recognized as having the highest concentration of western shops in Tokyo. Prominent are Chanel, Dior, Abercrombie & Fitch, Gucci, and Louis Vuitton.^[1] Flagship electronic retail stores like the Sony showroom and the Apple Store are also here.

History[link]

Ginza is named after the silver-coin mint established there in 1612 during the Edo period.

Ginza as it appeared in the late 1870s-1880s (Miniature model at the Edo-Tokyo Museum)

After the Tsukiji area burnt to the ground in 1872, the Meiji government designated the Ginza area as model of modernisation. The government planned the construction of fireproof brick buildings, and larger, better streets connecting the Shimbashi Station and the foreign concession in Tsukiji, as well as to important government buildings. Designs for the area were provided by the Irish-born architect Thomas Waters; the Bureau of Construction of the Ministry of Finance was in charge of construction. In the following year, a Western-style shopping promenade on the street from the Shinbashi bridge to the Kyōbashi bridge in the southwestern part of Chūō with two- and three-story Georgian brick buildings was completed.

Ginza in 1946.

"Bricktown" buildings were initially offered for sale, later they were leased, but the high rent meant that many remained unoccupied. Nevertheless, the area flourished as a symbol of "civilisation and enlightenment", thanks to the presence of newspapers and magazine companies, who led the trends of the day. The area was also known for its window displays, an example of modern marketing techniques.

Most of these European-style buildings disappeared, but some older buildings still remain, most famously the Wakō building with the now-iconic Hattori Clock Tower. The building and clock tower were originally built by Kintarō Hattori, the founder of Seiko.

Its recent history has seen it as a promiment outpost of western luxury shops. Ginza is a popular destination on weekends, when the main north-south artery is closed to traffic. The traffic blockade began in the 1960s under governor Ryokichi Minobe.

Economy[link]

Ricoh is headquartered in the Ricoh Building in Ginza.^[2] In 2006, Ricoh's headquarters moved to the 25-story building from a previous location in Minato, Tokyo. In the Ricoh Building, the headquarters occupies the same space as its sales offices.^[2][3][4]

• Matsuya
• Oji Paper
• Recruit
• Ricoh
• Shise
• Wako

Dai-ichi Kikaku Senden Co., Ltd. opened in Chūō in Ginza, Chūō in December 1951. In January 1958 the company relocated to a new headquarters in Ginza. The company moved to another headquarters in Ginza in September 1961 and its name changed to Dai-ichi Kikaku Co., Ltd. In November 1974, after growth, the company moved to another headquarters in Ginza. In November 1981 Dai-ichi Kikaku moved its head office to a facility in Ginza and administrative office to a facility in Uchisaiwaichō, Chiyoda. The headquarters of Asatsu moved to Ginza in July 1995. Asatsu and Dai-ichi Kikaku merged into Asatsu-DK on January 1, 1999.^[5]

Subway stations[link]

• Ginza Station (Tokyo Metro Hibiya Line, Tokyo Metro Ginza Line, Tokyo Metro Marunouchi Line)
• Ginza-itchōme Station (Tokyo Metro Yūrakuchō Line)
• Higashi-Ginza Station (Tokyo Metro Hibiya Line, Toei Asakusa Line)

Gallery[link]

This section looks like an image gallery. Wikipedia policy discourages galleries of random images of the article subject; please improve or remove the section accordingly, moving freely licensed images to Wikimedia Commons if not already hosted there. (May 2012)

• Mitsukoshi department store at Ginza.jpg

  Mitsukoshi department store at Ginza.

• 

  Kabuki-za theater

• 

  Sony Building and intersection at dusk

• Sukiyabashi intersection.jpg

  Yūrakuchō Center Building (Yūrakuchō Mullion) at the Sukiyabashi intersection

• 

  Abercrombie & Fitch flagship store in Ginza

• 

  Sukiyabashi Crossing at night

• 

  Ginza in the early 1900s, photographed by William H. Rau

• 

  Hokōsha Tengoku (歩行者天国), or Hokoten for short, means "pedestrian paradise". The term is used to refer to streets that are closed off to vehicle traffic. Each Sunday, from 12:00 noon until 5:00pm, various streets in Ginza are closed off - allowing people to walk along the streets.

See also[link]

Tokyo portal

• Harajuku
• Shinjuku
• Shibuya
• List of upscale shopping districts
• Tourism in Japan

References[link]

External links[link]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Ginza

• Ginza on Wikitravel
• Tokyo Essentials: Ginza
• Ginza Concierge
• Ginza Architecture and Map

Coordinates: 35°40′01″N 139°46′02″E / 35.66682°N 139.76717°E / 35.66682; 139.76717

Art Blakey
Blakey
Background information
Birth name	Arthur Blakey
Also known as	Abdullah Ibn Buhaina
Born	(1919-10-11)October 11, 1919 Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania United States
Died	October 16, 1990(1990-10-16) (aged 71) New York City, New York, U.S.
Genres	Hard bop, bebop
Occupations	Drummer, bandleader
Instruments	Drums, percussion
Years active	1942–1990
Labels	Blue Note
Associated acts	Art Blakey & the Jazz Messengers, Art Blakey Quartet, Art Blakey Quintet, Art Blakey & the Afrocuban Boys
Website	www.artblakey.com

Arthur "Art" Blakey (October 11, 1919 – October 16, 1990),^[1] known later as Abdullah Ibn Buhaina, was an American Grammy Award-winning jazz drummer and bandleader. He was a member of the Ahmadiyya Muslim Community.

Along with Kenny Clarke and Max Roach, he was one of the inventors of the modern bebop style of drumming. He is known as a powerful musician and a vital groover; his brand of bluesy, funky hard bop was and continues to be profoundly influential on mainstream jazz. For more than 30 years his band, Art Blakey and the Jazz Messengers, included many young musicians who went on to become prominent names in jazz. The band's legacy is thus not only known for the music it produced, but as a proving ground for several generations of jazz musicians;^[2] Blakey's groups are matched only by those of Miles Davis in this regard.^[3]

Blakey was inducted into the Jazz Hall of Fame (in 1982), the Grammy Hall of Fame (in 2001), and was awarded the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award in 2005.

Before the Messengers[link]

Blakey was born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. By the time he was a teenager, he was playing the piano full-time, leading a commercial band. Shortly afterwards, reputedly because he thought he would be unable to compete with the emerging pianist Erroll Garner, he taught himself to play the drums in the aggressive swing style of Chick Webb, Sid Catlett and Ray Bauduc. He joined Mary Lou Williams as a drummer for an engagement in New York in autumn 1942. He then toured with the Fletcher Henderson Orchestra (1939–1942). During his years with Billy Eckstine’s big band (1944–7), Blakey became associated with the bebop movement, along with his fellow band members Miles Davis, Dexter Gordon, Fats Navarro and others.^[4]

By the late forties and early fifties, Blakey was backing musicians such as Miles Davis, Bud Powell and Thelonious Monk — he is often considered to have been Monk's most empathetic drummer,^[5] and he played on both Monk's first recording session as a leader (for Blue Note Records in 1947) and his final one (in London in 1971), as well as many in between.

Blakey said that he travelled to Africa during 1948 and 1949. He converted to Islam during this period and took the name Abdullah Ibn Buhaina (which led to the nickname "Bu"). In the early 1950s he performed and broadcast with such musicians as Charlie Parker and Miles Davis.

From his earliest recording sessions with Eckstine, and particularly in his historic sessions with Monk in 1947, Blakey exuded power and originality, creating a dark cymbal sound punctuated by frequent loud snare- and bass-drum accents in triplets or cross-rhythms. Although Blakey discouraged comparison of his own music with African drumming, he adopted several African devices, including rapping on the side of the drum and using his elbow on the tom-tom to alter the pitch. His much-imitated trademark, the forceful closing of the hi-hat on every second and fourth beat, was part of his style from 1950 to '51. A loud and domineering drummer, Blakey also listened and responded to his soloists. His contribution to jazz as a discoverer and molder of young talent over three decades was no less significant than his very considerable innovations on his instrument.^[4]

The Jazz Messengers[link]

Art Blakey on a tour billed as part of the "Giants of Jazz" in Hamburg, Germany in 1973

In 1947 Blakey organized the Seventeen Messengers, a rehearsal band, and recorded with an octet called the Jazz Messengers.^[6] The use of the Messengers tag only stuck with the group co-led at first by both Blakey and pianist Horace Silver, though the name was not used on the earliest of their recordings. Blakey and Silver recorded together on several occasions, including live at Birdland with trumpeter Clifford Brown and alto-saxophonist Lou Donaldson in 1954 for Blue Note, having formed in 1953 a regular cooperative group with Hank Mobley and Kenny Dorham.

The "Jazz Messengers" name was first used for this group on a 1954 recording nominally led by Silver, with Blakey, Mobley, Dorham and Doug Watkins — the same quintet would record The Jazz Messengers at the Cafe Bohemia the following year, still functioning as a collective. Donald Byrd replaced Dorham, and the group recorded an album called simply The Jazz Messengers for Columbia Records in 1956. Blakey took over the group name when Silver left after the band's first year (taking Mobley, Byrd and Watkins with him to form a new quintet with a variety of drummers), and the band was known as "Art Blakey and the Jazz Messengers" from then onwards with Blakey being the sole leader, and he remained associated with it for the rest of his life. It was the archetypal hard-bop group of the 1950s, playing a driving, aggressive extension of bop with pronounced blues roots. Towards the end of the 1950s, the saxophonists Johnny Griffin and Benny Golson were in turn briefly members of the group. Golson, as music director, wrote several jazz standards which began as part of the band book such as "I Remember Clifford", and "Blues March" was regularly revived by later editions of the group. "Along Came Betty" and "Are You Real" were other Golson compositions for Blakey.

From 1959 to 1961 the group featured Wayne Shorter on tenor saxophone, Jymie Merritt, Lee Morgan, and Bobby Timmons.^[1] The second line-up (1961–1964) was a sextet that added trombonist Curtis Fuller and replaced Morgan and Timmons with Freddie Hubbard and Cedar Walton, respectively.^[1] Shorter was now the musical director of the group, and many of his original compositions such as "Lester Left Town" remained repertoire staples later on. (Other players over the years made permanent marks on Blakey's repertoire — Timmons, composer of "Dat Dere" and "Moanin'", and later, Bobby Watson.) Shorter's more experimental inclinations pushed the band at the time into an engagement with the 1960s "New Thing", as it was called: the influence of Coltrane's contemporary records on Impulse! is evident on Free For All (1964), often cited as the greatest document of the Shorter-era Messengers (and certainly one of the most fearsomely powerful examples of hard bop on record).^{[citation needed]}

Up to the 1960s Blakey also recorded as a sideman with many other musicians: Jimmy Smith, Herbie Nichols, Cannonball Adderley, Grant Green, and Jazz Messengers graduates Lee Morgan and Hank Mobley, amongst many others. However, after the mid-1960s he mostly concentrated on his own work as a leader. Blakey also made a world tour in 1971–2 with the Giants of Jazz (with Dizzy Gillespie, Kai Winding, Sonny Stitt, Thelonious Monk and Al McKibbon).^[4]

Later career[link]

Blakey went on to record dozens of albums with a constantly changing group of Jazz Messengers — he had a policy of encouraging young musicians: as he remarked on-mike during the live session which resulted in the A Night at Birdland albums in 1954: "I'm gonna stay with the youngsters. When these get too old I'll get some younger ones. Keeps the mind active."^[1] After weathering the fusion era in the 1970s with some difficulty (recordings from this period are less plentiful and include attempts to incorporate instruments like electric piano), Blakey's band got revitalized in the early 1980s with the advent of neotraditionalist jazz. Blakey's ferociousness and tenacity while drumming earned him the nickname "Jazz Tiger", or "The Tiger of Jazz". Wynton Marsalis was for a time the band's trumpeter and musical director, and even after Marsalis's departure Blakey's band continued as a proving ground for many "Young Lions" like Johnny O'Neal, Philip Harper, Terence Blanchard, Donald Harrison and Kenny Garrett.

Blakey continued performing and touring with the group into the late 1980s; Ron Wynn notes that Blakey had "played with such force and fury that he eventually lost much of his hearing, and at the end of his life, often played strictly by instinct."^[7] Some reports suggest Blakey had hearing problems as early as 1959. Blakey died in 1990 in New York City, leaving behind a vast legacy and approach to jazz which is still the model for countless hard-bop players.^[1][7]

Jazz Messengers alumni[link]

This section requires expansion.

Piano

Wynton Kelly, Joanne Brackeen, Donald Brown, Walter Davis, Jr., Sam Dockery, Kenny Drew, Benny Green, John Hicks, Keith Jarrett, Geoffrey Keezer, Mulgrew Miller, Johnny O'Neal, Horace Silver, Bobby Timmons, Cedar Walton, James Williams

Reeds

Dale Barlow, Gary Bartz, Kenny Garrett, Lou Donaldson, John Gilmore, Benny Golson, Johnny Griffin, Billy Harper, Donald Harrison, Javon Jackson, Branford Marsalis, Jackie McLean, Hank Mobley, Bill Pierce, David Schnitter, Wayne Shorter, Ira Sullivan, Jean Toussaint, Bobby Watson

Trumpet

Terence Blanchard, Clifford Brown, Donald Byrd, Kenny Dorham, Bill Hardman, Philip Harper, Freddie Hubbard, Brian Lynch, Chuck Mangione, Wynton Marsalis, Lee Morgan, Woody Shaw, Valery Ponomarev, Charles Tolliver

Trombone

Steve Davis, Robin Eubanks, Curtis Fuller, Frank Lacy, Tim Williams

Bass

Spanky DeBrest, Charles Fambrough, Dennis Irwin, Jymie Merritt, Curly Russell, Victor Sproles, Doug Watkins, Wilbur Ware, Reggie Workman, Riccardo Del Fra, Stanley Clarke

Guitar

Bobby Broom, Kevin Eubanks

Drums

Ralph Peterson, Jr.

Awards[link]

• Jazz Mobile Development and Preservation of Jazz (1970)
• Newport Jazz Festival Hall of Fame (1976)
• Down Beat Jazz Hall of Fame Reader's Choice Award (1981)
• Smithsonian Performing Arts Certificate of Appreciation (1982)
• Lee Morgan Memorial Award (1982)
• Jazz Hall of Fame Induction (1982)
• Grammy Award Best Jazz Instrumental Performance, Group (1984) for the album New York Scene
• Jazznote Award (1986)
• Doctorate of Music (1987; Berklee College of Music)
• Martin Luther King Humanitarian Award (1991)
• Grammy Hall of Fame Induction for the album Moanin' (2001)
• Pittsburgh Jazz Festival Award
• Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award (2005; awarded posthumously)

Discography[link]

References[link]

External links[link]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Art Blakey

Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to: Art Blakey

• Official Art Blakey website

Stan Getz
With his granddaughter Katie in 1987 at the Lincoln Center
Background information
Birth name	Stanley Gayetzky
Born	(1927-02-02)February 2, 1927 Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States
Died	June 6, 1991(1991-06-06) (aged 64) Malibu, California, United States
Genres	Jazz Bossa nova West coast jazz Cool jazz
Occupations	Saxophonist
Instruments	Tenor saxophone, Baritone Saxophone
Years active	1943–1991
Labels	Verve Records
Associated acts	Kenny Barron, Bill Evans, J.J. Johnson, Bob Brookmeyer, Dizzy Gillespie, Charlie Byrd, Chet Baker, Gary Burton, Cal Tjader, Woody Herman, João Gilberto, Tom Jobim, Victor Lewis

Stanley Getz (February 2, 1927 – June 6, 1991) was an American jazz saxophone player. Getz was known as "The Sound" because of his warm, lyrical tone, his prime influence being the wispy, mellow timbre of his idol, Lester Young.^[1] Coming to prominence in the late 1940s with Woody Herman's big band, Getz is described by critic Scott Yanow^[2] as "one of the all-time great tenor saxophonists". Getz went on to perform in bebop, cool jazz and third stream, but is perhaps best known for popularizing bossa nova, as in the worldwide hit single "The Girl from Ipanema" (1964).

Early life[link]

Getz was born on February 2, 1927, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. His parents were Ukrainian Jews who emigrated from the Kiev area in 1903. The family later moved to New York City for better employment opportunities. Getz worked hard in school, receiving straight As, and finished sixth grade close to the top of his class. Getz's major interest was in musical instruments, and he felt a need to play every instrument in sight. He played a number of them before his father bought him his first saxophone at the age of 13. Even though his father also got him a clarinet, Getz instantly fell in love with the saxophone and began practicing eight hours a day.

He attended James Monroe High School (New York) in the Bronx. In 1941, he was accepted into the All City High School Orchestra of New York City. This gave him a chance to receive private, free tutoring from the New York Philharmonic's Simon Kovar, a bassoon player. He also continued playing the saxophone. He eventually dropped out of school in order to pursue his musical career, but was later sent back to the classroom by the school system's truancy officers.^[1]

In 1943 at the age of 16,^[3] he was accepted into Jack Teagarden's band, and because of his youth he became Teagarden's ward. Getz also played along with Nat King Cole and Lionel Hampton. After playing for Stan Kenton, Jimmy Dorsey, and Benny Goodman, Getz was a soloist with Woody Herman from 1947 to 1949 in "The Second Herd", and he first gained wide attention as one of the band's saxophonists, who were known collectively as 'The Four Brothers', the others being Serge Chaloff, Zoot Sims and Herbie Steward.^[3] With Herman, he had a hit with "Early Autumn" and after Getz left "The Second Herd" he was able to launch his solo career. He would be the leader on almost all of his recording sessions after 1950.

Career[link]

In the mid to late 1950s working from Scandinavia, Getz became popular playing cool jazz with Horace Silver, Johnny Smith, Oscar Peterson, and many others. His first two quintets were notable for their personnel, including Charlie Parker's rhythm section of drummer Roy Haynes, pianist Al Haig and bassist Tommy Potter. A 1953 line-up of the Dizzy Gillespie/Stan Getz Sextet featured Gillespie, Getz, Oscar Peterson, Herb Ellis, Ray Brown and Max Roach.^[1]

Returning to the U.S. from Europe in 1961, Getz became a central figure in introducing bossa nova music to the American audience. Teaming with guitarist Charlie Byrd, who had just returned from a U.S. State Department tour of Brazil, Getz recorded Jazz Samba in 1962 and it became a hit. The title track was an adaptation of Antonio Carlos Jobim's "One Note Samba". Getz won the Grammy for Best Jazz Performance of 1963 for "Desafinado", from the same album. It sold over one million copies, and was awarded a gold disc.^[4] As a follow-up, Getz recorded the album, Jazz Samba Encore!, with one of the originators of bossa nova, Brazilian guitarist Luiz Bonfá. It also sold more than a million copies by 1964, giving Getz his second gold disc.^[4]

He then recorded the album Getz/Gilberto, in 1963,^[5] with Tom Jobim, João Gilberto and his wife, Astrud Gilberto. Their "The Girl from Ipanema" won a Grammy Award. The piece became one of the most well-known latin jazz tracks. Getz/Gilberto won two Grammys (Best Album and Best Single). A live album, Getz/Gilberto Vol. 2, followed, as did Getz Au Go Go, a live recording at the Cafe Au Go Go. Getz's affair with Astrud Gilberto brought an end to his musical partnership with her and her husband, and he began to move away from bossa nova and back to cool jazz. While still working with the Gilbertos, he recorded the jazz album Nobody Else But Me, with a new quartet including vibraphonist Gary Burton, but Verve Records, wishing to continue building the Getz brand with bossa nova, refused to release it. It eventually came out 30 years later, after Getz had died.

In 1972, Getz recorded in the fusion idiom with Chick Corea, Tony Williams and Stanley Clarke, and in this period experimented with an Echoplex on his saxophone. He had a cameo in the film The Exterminator (1980).

In the mid-1980s Getz worked regularly in the San Francisco Bay area and taught at Stanford University as an artist-in-residence at the Stanford Jazz Workshop until 1988.^[6] In 1986, he was inducted into the Down Beat Jazz Hall of Fame. During 1988, Getz worked with Huey Lewis and the News on their Small World album. He played the extended solo on the title track, which became a minor hit single.

His tenor saxophone of choice was the Selmer Mark VI.

Personal life[link]

Getz married Beverly Byrne, a vocalist with the Gene Krupa band, on November 7, 1946; they had three children together.

Getz became involved with drugs and alcohol while a teenager. In 1954, he was arrested for attempting to rob a pharmacy to get a morphine fix. As he was being processed in the prison ward of Los Angeles County-USC Medical Center, Beverly gave birth to their third child one floor below. Getz tried to escape his narcotics addiction by moving to Copenhagen. He married Swedish aristocrat Monica Silfverskiöld on November 3, 1956, and had two children with her: Pamela and Nicolas. Getz divorced Monica in 1987.

Zoot Sims, who had known Getz since their time with Herman, once described him as 'a nice bunch of guys', as a consequence of the wide behavioural range of which Getz was capable. Getz died of liver cancer in June 6, 1991. His body was cremated and the ashes scattered at sea, off the coast of Malibu, California.

In 1998, the 'Stan Getz Media Center and Library' at Berklee College of Music was dedicated through a donation from the Herb Alpert Foundation.

Discography[link]

Awards[link]

• Grammy Award for Best Jazz Performance, Soloist or Small Group (Instrumental) "Desafinado," Stan Getz. 1962
• Grammy Award for Record of the Year, "The Girl From Ipanema," 1964
• Grammy Award for Album of the Year, Getz/Gilberto, Stan Getz and João Gilberto (Verve)1964
• Grammy Award for Best Instrumental Jazz Performance, Small Group or Soloist With Small Group, Getz/Gilberto, Stan Getz 1964
• Grammy Award for Best Jazz Solo Performance, "I Remember You" Stan Getz 1991

Bibliography[link]

• The Stan Getz discography, Astrup, Arne. 1978
• Stan Getz, Palmer, Richard. 1988.
• Stan Getz: an appreciation of his recorded work, Kirkpatrick, Ron. 1992.
• Stan Getz: nobody else but me, Gelly, Dave. 2002.
• Stan Getz: an annotated bibliography and filmography, Churchill, Nicholas. 2005.
• Jazz saxophone: an in-depth look at the styles of the tenor masters, Taylor, Dennis, 2004.
• Maggin, Donald L. (1996). Stan Getz. A Life in Jazz. New York: William Morrow. ISBN 0-688-15555-3. 

References[link]

External links[link]

Biography portal

• Official Stan Getz homepage
• 1986 Interview
• Getz discography

‎

Callen Radcliffe Tjader, Jr. a.k.a. Cal Tjader (July 16, 1925–May 5, 1982) was a Latin jazz musician, though he also explored various other jazz idioms. Unlike other American jazz musicians who experimented with the music from Cuba, the Caribbean, and Latin America, he never abandoned it, performing it until his death.

Tjader primarily played the vibraphone. He was also accomplished on the drums, bongos, congas, timpani, and the piano. He worked with numerous musicians from several cultures. He is often linked to the development of Latin Rock and Acid Jazz. Although fusing jazz with Latin music is often categorized as "Latin Jazz" (or, earlier, "Afro-Cuban Jazz"), Tjader's output swung freely between both styles.

He won a Grammy in 1980 for his album La Onda Va Bien, capping off a career that spanned over forty years.