ACBA: Jazz At Massey Hall by Arnaud Maggs

Quintet
Jazz At Massey Hall: Volume One
New York City, USA: Debut Records, 1953
10" vinyl LP
Edition size unknown

Recorded live at Massey Hall in Toronto, on the 15th of May, 1953, this forty-seven-minute LP marks the only time that Dizzy Gillespie, Charlie Parker (credited as Charlie Chan for contractual reasons), Bud Powell, Charles Mingus, and Max Roach recorded together as a unit. It was also the last recording of Parker and Gillespie together.

Mingus, who co-owned Debut records, reportedly later overdubbed his bass lines to make his sound more prominent.

The cover graphic is by artist Arnaud Maggs, who worked as a successful designer until 1973, when - at the age of 47 - he gave it up to focus on his work as a visual artist.

“It was exciting to meet Mingus at his home and listen to the tapes with him. I created the cover on the subway ride back to my studio at 58 Park Avenue. Little did anyone know how famous this recording was to become” he later told Canadian Art magazine.

Roula Partheniou & Joy Walker | Full Circle

Roula Partheniou & Joy Walker
Full Circle
Toronto, Canada: Canadian Art Foundation, 2014
13.5 x 13.5 cm
Edition of 1000

The Canadian Art Foundation's annual Gala Dinner and Auction is being held tonight at the Kool Haus in Toronto. Artists involved include John Armstrong, Dean Baldwin, BGL (representing Canada in Venice next year), Sarah Cale, Tammi Campbell, Greg Curnoe, Michel de Broin, David Harper, Spring Hurlbut, Eleanor King, Nestor Kruger, Arnaud Maggs, Ken Nicol, Laura Simon, Miles Stemp, Zin Taylor, and many, many others. Tickets for the event are $600, which includes cocktails, dinner, dancing and the live and silent auctions. Click here for information, or about absentee bidding.

Each year an artist is invited to produce the gala 'environment'. Previous artists have included Micah Lexier, An Te Liu, vsvsvs, Karen Azoulay, Jon Sasaki, John Oswald, etc. This year Joy Walker was invited, who proposed a collaboration with Roula Partheniou.

The pair address "colour, light and shape" with an ambient video, gobo light centrepieces and a limited edition artist book that collectively explore "perceptual shifts, pattern, states of flux and everyday objects at play."

The beautiful book comes housed in a foil-stamped card stock envelope and each spread presents a different shape, with a mirrored cover endpaper completing the first and last. Additionally, another simple shape sits in between the pages (poorly illustrated with the fast snapshots above).

Arnaud Maggs | Hotel

Hotel by Arnaud Maggs was published in 1993 by Art Metropole in Toronto and Presentation House in Vancouver. The title includes 165 black and white photographs of Paris hotel signs, organized by typographical style. It's available for $38, here.

Maggs (85), known for his portraiture work (of Joseph Beuys, Leonard Cohen, Irving Layton etc), opened a new exhibition last night of self-portraits, at Susan Hobbs Gallery.