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Art Connoisseur
Art / Jazz / Comparison : Linking famous visual artists with famous jazz musicians
In his foreword to the wonderful "Seeing Jazz," the Chronicle Books/Smithsonian Institution Traveling Exhibition Service project that ultimately grew into a museum show, trumpeter and flugelhorn player Clark Terry compares Pablo Picasso to Dizzy Gillespie. He also says Marc Chagall "can sound like Bird" – Charlie Parker. We dig what Terry's doing, and thought we'd take it a little farther. Here's Art Connoisseur's attempt to cosmically connect some of the most influential artists and jazz musicians of the 20th century.
Artist // Legacy
Pablo Picasso & Charlie Parker: They changed everything
Henri Matisse & John Coltrane: The essence of jazz
Vincent Van Gogh & Thelonius Monk : Saw things others couldn't
Vassily Kandinsky & Ornette Coleman: Experimentalists with "out" rhythm
Jasper Johns & Ella Fitzgerald: America, in a bulls-eye
Georgia O'Keefe & Miles Davis: The pastel, pre-electric Miles
Anselm Kiefer & Charles Mingus: Monumental in scale(s)
Diego Rivera & Dizzy Gillespie: Both muralists, both transcendent
Dorthea Lange & Paul Chambers: The bass is truth in black and white
Jacob Lawrence & Count Basie: From the time of true swing
Norman Rockwell & Glenn Miller: From a time that never was
Jean Dubuffet & Randy Weston: Outside influences, unique results
Mark Rothko & Cal Tjader: Color and control
Jean Michel Basquiat & Roy Hargrove: Zest plus mad skills
Piet Mondrian & Wynton Marsalis: Eat your vegetables
Jim Turrell & Charlie Haden: Spiritual, not preachy
Stuart Davis & Christian McBride: Highways and subways, the infrastructure of their form
Joseph Beuys & Steve Turre: Lard and seashells; tricks but not gimmicks
Frank Gehry & Art Blakey: Foundations with style
Yoko Ono (as performance artist) & Sun Ra: Calling planet Earth
Marc Chagall & Henry James: It's a Klezmer thing; Don Byron a close second
Archibald J. Motely Jr. & Bix Biederbeck: Colorful, sometimes unfocused
Andy Warhol & Herbie Hancock: First "Rockit," then "Waternmelon Man" sampled. Pop goes the jazzman.
Andy Warhol (redux) & Betty Carter: Andy had his Factory; same for starmaker Betty
Paul Gauguin & Joshua Redmon : A stockbroker and his lawyer
Roy Lichenstein & James Carter: Make it look so easy
Claes Oldenburg & Juan Garcia Esquivel: Brilliant clowns
Tina Mondotti & Donald Cherry: Sexy and cool
Yayoi Kusama & D.J. Premier: Loops, palindromes and pace
Bill Viola & The Roots: Innovators, hip (hop) hybrids
Robert Williams & The Splatter Trio: In your face
Ferdinand Legler & Pharoah Sanders: Both weird, both make sense
Marcel Duchamp & Tito Puento: Love that naughty sex talk