Sunday, 5 October 2025

Retratos de Jazz

by Haruki Murakami and Makoto Wada
translated by Juan Francisco González Sánchez

I saw this brand new book in the library and couldn’t just leave it there. But what’s this? First edition, March 2025? Spanish translation, © 2025? Is that correct?

Yes, it is. This is the first Spanish edition. The Catalan version, translated by Albert Nolla, also appeared this year. The book, as ポートレイト・イン・ジャズ (Pōtoreito in jazu), was first published in 1997 by Shinchosha and so far hasn’t been translated to English.

Even though the order of the authors on the cover may imply otherwise, the book is not a collection of writings by Murakami illustrated by Wada. Just the opposite: a series of portraits created by Wada to which Murakami provided short essays, with a recommendation of one album, from his vast collection of vinyls. The first edition of the book contained 52 portraits, and the for the second edition the authors added three “bonus tracks”, that is, portraits of Art Pepper, Frank Sinatra and Gil Evans.

What I found surprising is how unsurprising is the selection of the musicians. All featured artists are American, apart from Django Reinhardt, Oscar Peterson and Gil Evans, and then both Peterson and Evans spent most of their lives in the United States. This is not to say that I dislike any one of Wada’s choices. Besides, it’s the music both authors were growing with.

Of course, the same argument could be applied to album recommendations, although in this case they were chosen by Murakami. I was pleased to see there Ella and Louis Again, Full House, The Sidewinder, Waltz for Debby and Maiden Voyage; I completely agree with Murakami that the latter album is indeed the Herbie Hancock best work. I thought so in the 1990s, I still think the same in 2025. But I am puzzled why no original recordings by Tony Bennett, Glenn Miller or Fats Waller were recommended. There seems to be no good explanation apart from that the corresponding tribute albums just happened to be in Murakami’s collection.

As a curiosity, Murakami says that he wrote South of the Border, West of the Sun being convinced that he heard the version of South of the Border by Nat King Cole. In reality, this song was never a part of Cole’s repertoire. One of the albums that Murakami recommends is ¡Olé Tormé! which, indeed, contains South of the Border. I couldn’t find a confirmation that George Gershwin based character of Sportin’ Life on Cab Calloway, but it’s a good story anyway.

I like Murakami’s sense of humour, like, for example, here:

Desconozco cuántos fans de Eddie Condon quedan hoy en día, pero tengo la impresión de que no deben de ser demasiados. <...> Trataba de mimetizarse con la escenografía para no llamar la atención, y por mucho que uno aguzara el oído, no lograba entender qué estaba tocando exactamente a la guitarra.

Or writing about Oscar Peterson:

Su discografía no conoce obras fallidas; toda ella mantiene un nivel considerablemente alto, y, sin embargo, debo confesar que no me entusiasma demasiado, no como para correr a comprar sus discos. Es cierto que en casa tengo más de cincuenta de sus álbumes como solista...

The translation by Juan Francisco González Sánchez is a pleasure to read, albeit I have to say that the use of the words cedé (for CD) and elepé (for LP) irritated me a lot. There is a number of typos, such as Kind of Blues instead of Kind of Blue, and some catalogue numbers are wrong, although those could have come unchecked from the Japanese original. I hope they will be corrected in the future editions.

Soundtrack

Posted by Kirill at 15:00
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