Compelling Miles Davis cover on current issue of JAZZIZ

The current (September) issue of JAZZIZ has a compelling, beautiful Miles Davis cover, announcing a feature article questioning the primacy of Kind Of Blue among the jazz classics.

Cover and feature – a total of seven pages – were more than enough to persuade me to pay £7.95 for an imported copy of the mag at my local Borders.

The article, by Marc Myers, is a challenging piece – “the album’s impact on jazz has become somewhat inflated over time… the tracks all suffer from a dull similarity…”. It’s published to coincide with the release of the Kind Of Blue 50th Anniversary Collectors Edition.

The Miles cover is only the second issue of JAZZIZ I’ve ever bought. The first was in the early ‘90s when I was getting into jazz; I decided that its approach wasn’t for me.

Credit to its Boca Raton, Florida publishers, though – it’s beautifully designed and it was well ahead of the jazz-lite curve. Its success indicates that it supplies its market with the easy jazz/lifestyle content they want.

www.jazziz.com

Marc Myers blogs at:

www.jazzwax.com

Gerry Smith

New Dylan and Miles box sets – big price differences

The new Dylan and Miles box sets – Tell Tale Signs Deluxe and Kind Of Blue 50th Anniversary Collectors Edition – are big Sony launches destined to fill many grown-up Xmas stockings.

There’s a marked variation in prices from the different retailers, though. The best prices I’ve seen are from Zavvi online – £79 (Dylan) and £50 (Miles).

When I called in on Saturday, HMV Oxford Circus had a couple of eye-watering price tags: £95 (Dylan) and £85 (Miles), though the HMV combined web price is much lower – only £10 above Zavvi’s.

With every passing week, I find myself less and less inclined to buy from the big bricks-and-mortar London megastores; I used to be a big customer.

And their small branches seem to have given up on music. My local HMV now focuses on DVD and games, with music taking only a small proportion of floor space; I probably won’t bother going in there again.

Gerry Smith