Named after Thelonious Monk’s classic, Straight No Chaser was a fiercely independent British magazine aimed at the global jazz, jive and soul aficionado. Published under the banner of “Interplanetary Sounds – Ancient to Future” (partly stolen from Art Ensemble of Chicago) it combined the jazz spirit, the “Freedom Principle” that its founder, journalist and jazz head Paul Bradshaw, defined as the “spirit of improvisation embodied in the music of John Coltrane, Pharoah Sanders and Rahsaan Roland Kirk” with the urban edge of hip hop, drum n bass, deep house and nu-jazz. Emerging from the thriving late 80s British jazz dance community, its in-depth artist features, interviews and global reports on the sounds and philosophies of diverse scenes – from Brazil’s AfroReggae scene and Ethiopia Mulatu Astatke, to South Africa’s Busi Mhlongo and the death-jazz scene in Japan – made it a seminal hub around which the “jazz thing” evolved globally.

Its “acid jazz” design is equally important. Inspired by typographic legend Swifty it employed sampling and remixing strategies to radically redefine the relationship between music and the visual world of photography, illustration/fine art and typo-graffix. In 2007 the magazine responded to “the continued digitalisation of the industry and the expectations of the Myspace generation” by ceasing print production to focus on developing a substantial archive reflecting the magazines the journey so far.

PEOPLE

Paul Bradshaw, Amar Patel, Ian Swift (Swifty), Gilles Peterson, Vivien Goldman, Ross Allen, Andy Thomas, Tyler Askew, Ian Dury, Ade Bankole, Max Reinhart, Zina Saro-Wiwa, Dom Servini, Max Cole, Livingstone Marquis, Peter Williams (the Don!), Samera Owusu Tutu, Pav Modelski, Suki Dhanda, Jonathan Oppong Wiafec

FAMILY TREE

• Actuel (1970)
• Radio Nova (1981)
• Vibrations(1991)
• Signal to Noise, 1997
• Wax Poetics, 2002
• Shook Magazine, 2007

RE/SOURCES

• Straight No Chaser website.
• Livingstone, Marquis. “Freedom Principle”, Straight No Chaser, May 2007.
• Straight No Chaser Community Forum.
• “Swifty talks to Ed Ricketts”, Computer Arts.
• The end of Straight No Chaser Mag discussion on Beyond Jazz.

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