Jazz album cover art at Basel’s Rappaz Museum
It is hardly surprising that an Andy Warhol hangs next to a Martin Disler in a museum. What is surprising, however, is that in this case, they are both just decorative extras: They adorn record sleeves and jazz covers. The small Rappaz Museum in Basel is dedicating its current exhibition to album covers.
The history of music is older than that of writing – both are expressed together in the form of covers. These sleeves protected shellac and later vinyl; they inform about the music pressed in grooves and hopefully boost their sale. In the age of downloads and streaming, however, this could soon be history.
At a graphic artist, Armin Vogt looks at his passion for jazz with a professional eye. As curator of the private Rappaz Museum – a jewel hidden in Kleinbasel near the Mittlere Brücke – he has now focussed on an exciting phase of album cover art together with co-jazz musician and graphic artist, Christian Mengelt.
The approximately 300 albums on display offer a subjective approach to cover designs from the 1950s to the 1980s rather than providing a scientific and cultural-historical perspective. The decades were deliberately chosen, however, as big labels emerged during this time, which were marketed widely by artists. In the 1980s, the graphically less impressive CD replaced the LP.
Since there is no single criterion of order as such, the exhibits are grouped roughly wall by wall following rather different aspects: Painting, typography and painting, labels (such as Intakt or HatHut), designers (Reid Miles or Niklaus Troxler), calligraphy, or musicians (Monk, Mingus or Gruntz).
The organizers’ subjective view of this history of graphics and photography showcases personal preferences and memories – reflecting the emotionality of jazz. The small museum lacked the capacity for explanatory short texts for all the covers; impromptu questions during the exhibition must suffice.
Even so, the exhibition «Jazz LP + CD Cover Designs», which is open from 6th April to 27th May, offers a chance for the public to make references and comparisons: for example, how careers are engraved in facial features, the fight for brand identities, or how some celebrities do not need any words to be identified.
The exhibition is the precursor of the Basel Offbeat Jazz Festival, which begins next Thursday and lasts until mid-May. Oriental Jazz – Anouar Brahem will perform on the first evening – and Latin world music are in the foreground this year, but the programme will also feature crossovers to classical music as well as some guitarists.
Do you have plans for the weekend? Here is the current weather forecast
April starts with a sunny spring weekend. The sun will shine from the cloudless sky almost all day and temperatures can even climb above 20 degrees at times.
Before you make your plans for the weekend, you should take a look at the current weather forecast. If you had planned to clean up your home office or cellar, you should postpone it for another day. This weekend, it is better to just go out and enjoy the sun.
Friday
Friday morning starts partly cloudy with five degrees Celsius. Around noon, the weather clears up and there will probably be no cloud left in the sky by sunset. The maximum temperature on Friday afternoon is 17 degrees. With a maximum wind speed of 20 km/h, a weak breeze can be felt.
Saturday
Saturday begins with ten degrees and sunshine. The sky is expected to stay clear all day. The breeze from the day before is hardly noticeable on Saturday. Around 5 pm, the thermometer is expected to show 20 degrees. An ideal day to be outdoors.
Sunday
The forecast for Sunday is variable. At around 8am, the sky is still clear, but in the morning clouds will appear. During noon, it is therefore slightly overcast. In the afternoon, however, the weather clears up again. The temperatures are between eight degrees in the morning and can reach more than 22 degrees in the afternoon.
People are becoming increasingly overweight, even if they leave this world forever
It is not an easy subject – neither for journalists nor for readers. Nevertheless, you will most likely still read this report. First and foremost, the death of a person brings the relatives a lot of pain and suffering. And as if that was not enough of a burden: In addition to emotional stress (often as unexpected as the loss itself), you need to go to the authorities and organise your loved one’s final farewell.
The canton of Basel-Stadt provides excellent support for mourning families and friends. It is not an easy task and often a surprisingly difficult challenge. If the report of a deceased person that was heavily overweight arrives at the funeral office, complex preparations for a dignified funeral suddenly become necessary. Larger and stronger coffins are crucial, for example. Very few people knew that, until the opening of the new crematorium at the Basel Hörnli cemetery in 2017, deceased obese persons had to be cremated in Bern.
People who are overweight literally have a harder time than people with a normal weight, and not only during their lifetime. For example, there is the problem of the very limited choice of clothing available, which even in specialist shops stops at 160 kilos of body weight. And according to the Federal Office of Public Health, the number of overweight and obese people increases steadily with advanced age. Every tenth person in Switzerland is morbidly obese.
Unfortunately, the story of bodies weighing more than 170 kilograms that had to be taken to the crematorium in Bern is only too true. The Basel crematorium ovens were too small for these bodies.
With the new crematorium at the Hörnli cemetery, it is finally possible to cremate deceased persons weighing up to 350 kilograms. OECD studies have long shown that people tend to become heavier and heavier, which is why a larger furnace has now been installed in the largest cemetery in Switzerland, just outside Basel’s gates. «Corpses that weigh over 200 kilograms are rather rare. This year, only one case is known to me so far. The deceased weighed 230 kilos», Marc Lüthi, head of funeral services at the City Gardeners of Basel-Stadt, told barfi.ch.