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Writings
On Jazz and Art.
Jazz, to me, is an
abstract conceptual and expressionist music, driven by the honesty of the
musician and the consciousness of the listening public. In a sense, the music is
greater than the musician and even the listeners themselves. The experience of
listening to jazz is one thing; the experience of jazz itself is something
altogether different.
Jazz is painting with sound.
Jazz inspires. I once
read that, in the 1940’s, Jackson Pollock, Hans Hoffman, de
Kooning
and other Abstract Expressionists would travel at night to 118th
street in Harlem and listen to the bop playing at The Five Spot. After listening
to Thelonious Monk, Kenny Clarke, Charlie Christian, Dizzy Gillespie, and others
all night, they would go back to their lofts to slash, pile, grind, and splatter
paint. Their work, like bop, broke down the doors into a new era of artistic
expression.
When you think about it, true jazz musicians are really painting with sound. Some, like Coltrane, use broad slashing strokes of resonance to fill their space. Others, like Miles and Joshua Redman, seem to use smaller, precisely placed strokes, drops, globs, and streaks of sound. Dizzy and Max Roach saturate their coolness with warm hues, while The Marsalis Septet paints slick, glowing, and iridescent soundscapes. Some of Bird’s Savoy recordings paint a lush, cool, free experience with splatters of existentialism.
They
all possess a primal rawness of expression that exudes sophistication. There’s
something very cultured and distinguished about being intellectual and
artistically honest.
The other night, I went to hear The Joshua Redman Trio at the Folly Theatre. I closed my eyes and watched the strokes of sound play across my mind.
Even though it was late when I came home, very the first thing I did after I walked into the house was to put on his “Freedom In The Groove”…and reach for my paintbrush…
Oct 2007