Music for grown-ups on the mag racks: two new Miles, one new Dylan cover

Key musicians for grown-ups Miles Davis and Bob Dylan feature prominently on the magazine racks this month.

Promoting the sooopah-dooopah new Kind Of Blue box, my two favourite jazz mags both have Miles cover features. Jazzwise (Dec/Jan) uses one of the iconic Sony photos for its eight-page feature.

Jazz Magazine (Paris) uses a less familiar shot of Miles on the evocative cover of its Dec issue to trail a multi-part feature.

They nicely complement the striking portrait used by Jazziz for its September issue.

www.jazzwise.com

www.jazzmagazine.com

www.jazziz.com

The new issue (1066, 27 Nov) of the redesigned Rolling Stone has a mid-‘60s Dylan photo on its cover (he’s one of four different collectors’ covers) announcing its Special Issue – The 100 Greatest Singers Of All Time.

Dylan manages seventh place in the top 100, which was compiled by polling a couple of hundred celebs/music bizzers. I didn’t bother reading any of the short articles on the “great singers” (Dylan’s praises are sung by Bono), but the issue is a lovely addition to the collection of Dylan cover issues.

Surprisingly, there’s no place in the top 100 for tenors like Pavarotti, sopranos like Callas or lounge greats like Sinatra and Ella. Rolling Stone must have run out of space to insert the qualifying adjectives “Baby Boomer-plus rockpop” between “Greatest” and “Singers Of All Time”. Without them, the title of the otherwise admirable 40-page feature is laughable.

www.rollingstone.com




Gerry Smith