the illustration gallery



Freedom Principle

In 2008, Straight No Chaser will be celebrating its 20th birthday. It seems nothing short of a miracle that what started life a feisty "designer fanzine", a magazine of "world jazz jive", in the midst of the "summer of love", at the birth of rave, should have survived this long.
So what is it that has contributed to this longevity? Basically, the magazine emerged out of a community - the jazz dance community - a thriving, creative, cutting edge posse of club goers who believed the music that they raved to had genuine depth and meaning as well as the funk and a challenging danceability. Talking Loud & Saying Something, which took place at Dingwalls in Camden Town on Sunday afternoons was the Chaser "office". The session was all about the music - from Art Blakey to Tribe Called Quest. It was dark, the racial mix was radical and the sweat and condensation dripped from the ceiling onto a dance floor that showcased the best dancers in London. That's where we hatched the plot for each forthcoming issue.
Just as Dingwalls was a Mecca for like minded souls from around the world so Straight No Chaser became the hub around which this "jazz thing" evolved globally. From Tokyo to New York from LA to Sao Paulo, from Munich to Milan - Straight No Chaser offered the people "Jazz not Jazz"... "Jazz With Attitude"... the Freedom Principle in action.
In 1988, the Chaser crew was Paul Bradshaw, Kathryn Willgress and Neil Spencer. Initially, they were assisted by designer/illustrator Any Martin but about four issues in they were joined by Ian Swift aka Swifty who was working for designer Neville Brody. They had already borrowed the money to buy an Apple Mac SE and Swifty was a "Mac-man" determined to take the magazine onto another level. Sure enough, it wasn't long before Chaser had notched up an Apple Mac Design award.
From Day 1 it has always been about the unity between the music, the design, the photography, the illustrations and artworks. Though known more as a scribbler and cultural catalyst, Paul Bradshaw is also deep into the visual arts. From his student days at Cheltenham College Of Art & Design he was heavily into the music and when it came to jazz believed that the spirit of improvisation embodied in the music of John Coltrane, Pharoah Sanders and Rahsaan Roland Kirk was the same creative essence that fuelled the visual arts. To him, an early Sixties Ornette Coleman album sleeve which connected the saxophonist to the art of Jackson Pollock said it all. For Swifty, a radical typographer/designer of the sampling/hip hop generation, it was the art of Blue Note that illuminated the way. The combination of Reid Miles' freestyle typography and Alfred Lion's moody black and white photography was given a new lease of life, albeit with a distinctive Swifty twist, in his artwork for Talkin' Loud records and Straight No Chaser.
Over the years, the design and typography of Chaser has changed consistently. Swifty is the "graffix overseer" and while he has art directed the magazine overall he has also enlisted other designers like Mitch (aka Mitchy Bwoy) and Matt "Monkey Boxer" Bailey to contribute to the overall vision.
Photography has always dominated the magazine and for the very first issue of Chaser the Chaser crew worked overtime to get a Herman Leonard original of Charlie Parker and Lennie Tristano for the cover shot. Over the years, Chaser has been seriously fortunate to have enlisted a host of brilliant photographers to document and portray the geniuses and cultural players that fill the magazine and special mention has to go to Peter Williams (the Don!), Alexis Maryon, Rob Hann, Pav Modelski, Dave Levene, Chris Clunn, Suki Dhanda, Jonathan Oppong Wiafe.
From the very beginning, the plan was to integrate other art works into the magazine. Brilliant illustrator Ian Wright was one of the first contributors and he gave Chaser a piece on Don Cherry to go with an article that Ian Dury had written for the mag. Fiona Hawthorne was also another early contributor. But it was the introduction of the Gallery of "musical heroes" that that has born serious fruit. Artists from all over the world (too many to mention here!) have contributed to the Gallery and you can see from the pieces on show in this exhibition that there are some truly wicked people involved. Basically, it's a family affair and respect is due to all of them.
So, as we teeter on the brink of Chaser20, 'Freedom Principle' is an exhibition that is intended to give you an insight into the shape of things to come.

Livingstone Marquis (May 2007)