Gramophone Concert “Jazz Summit (7) – Strange Fruit”
2014.05.23
ACADEMIA
Date & Time: Friday, May 23, 2014 6:00 p.m. (expected to end at 6:45 p.m.)
Venue: Intermediatheque 2F Lecture Theatre ACADEMIA
Admission free
The number of seats is limited to 48. We request your comprehension.
* Photographing, filming and recording are strictly prohibited.
* Please refrain from eating and drinking in the museum.
A cycle of gramophone concerts is regularly held within the lecture theatre ACADEMIA of the Intermediatheque. This concert series focuses on the Satoshi Yuze record collection, from which we will select famous jazz recordings from the 1930-1940s. We will play them on the illustrious Victrola Credenza gramophone, in order to share a quality of sound which has now vanished from public spaces.
The present gramophone concert will focus on vocal jazz, around the central figure of Billie Holiday.
Organization: The University Museum, the University of Tokyo
Cooperation: Hideki Umeda + Mac Sugisaki
Program Conception: Intermediatheque Department, The University Museum, the University of Tokyo
■ On the Cycle of Gramophone Concerts
“Gramophone”, “Phonograph”, “Graphophone”, “Zonophone”… After the invention and diffusion of a mechanical system capable of recording and playing back sound, it took several decades before the terminology designating this device took root. It is said that meanwhile, the perplexity of people discovering this enigmatic piece of furniture emitting wonderful sounds was beyond imagination, ranging from curiosity to fear. However, with the generalization of LPs, CDs and digital audio files, gramophones have fallen out of use, and those remaining in museums simply exist as exhibition items. This concert series aims at activating the gramophone again as a playback device, in order to appreciate its possibilities anew.
The University Museum, the University of Tokyo holds two gramophones. One is the famous Credenza VV8-30, produced in Canada in 1925-1928 by Victrola. The other one is a unique device based on the Credenza with an original amplification system, made in 1931-1932 by instrument designer Isamu Hirabayashi (1904-1938).
These two gramophones will play a wide range of music, and various types of records. Among them, a most precious source of music is the Satoshi Yuze collection, donated to the University Museum in 2012. This private record collection, focusing on jazz music and amounting to over ten thousand items, also contains numerous SP records. By playing on the luxurious Victrola Credenza the collection constituted by Satoshi Yuze, which is the work of a lifetime, we will not only introduce rare recordings, but we will also share the quality and deepness of a sound lost with the advent of the digital era. In the age of the iPod, by getting together within the Intermediatheque lecture theatre and experiencing musical gatherings from another era, we intend to develop the museum space into a site for synaesthesia.