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By Culturekiosque Staff
BARCELONA, 22 JULY 2009 — Along with the cinema, jazz is
one of the most important artistic achievements of the 20th century. Since
its emergence in the early years of the last century, America's highly original contribution
to the history of music has marked every aspect of world culture with
its sounds and rhythms. An exhibition opening today at the
Centre de Cultura Contemporània de Barcelona and
on view until 18 October 2009, attempts to showcase how the
sound of jazz has nuanced all the other arts, from painting to
photography and from the cinema to literature, graphic design and cartoons.
EntitledThe Jazz Century and curated by philosopher and art
critic Daniel Soutif, the 1200-square-meter exhibition is organized chronologically
along a timeline that highlights the history of the 20th
century using music as a leading thread.
Soutif develops his thesis according to the following schema of
mini displays of some 1000 exhibits including artworks (150), audiovisuals (80),
photographs (100), scores (100), album covers (200), and
miscellaneous documentation, including books, magazines, programmes, posters and objects.
1.
Before 1917
It is impossible to put a date to
the birth of jazz, though the year 1917 is considered crucial due
to the conjunction of two decisive events. In February, the Original Dixieland
Jazz Band, an orchestra of white musicians, made the first record with the word
"jazz" (or, to be precise, "jass") on the label. In
tNovember, the U.S. Army closed down Storyville, the prostitution district
of New Orleans, whose famous brothels had employed many musicians; the vast majority
then decided to move north, specifically Chicago and New York. However, one
must not overlook the many earlier manifestations (minstrels, gospel,
cakewalk, ragtime) that heralded the musical phenomenon that was about to
transform the century and which long before had inspired many artists.
Winold Reiss: Interpretation of Harlem Jazz, 1925
Photo
courtesy of CCCB
2. The Jazz Age in the U.S. 1917 -
1930
World War I was followed in the States by the
surprising fashion of jazz music, acclaimed in 1922 by Tales of the
Jazz Age by F. Scott Fitzgerald. It was such an important
fashion that the expression "the jazz age" coined by the writer has been
constantly used to refer not just to the music that provided the
soundtrack but also to an entire age and even a "jazz
generation"
.
Testimonies to the jazz age included the fabulous
illustrations decorating the scores of the latest hits and various
photographs by Man Ray
(specifically one entitled Jazz from 1919) and many other works
by American artists, such as James Blanding Sloan, and others who lived in
the States, such as Miguel Covarrubias and Jan Matulka.
3. Harlem Renaissance 1917- 1936
While white
America lived its jazz age, for the first time in history African
Americans experienced true cultural recognition with the movement that
would come to be known as the Harlem Renaissance. And although
the jazz of Louis Armstrong or Duke Ellington was definitely one of the
most important aspects of this creative effervescence, music was not the
only field of creation. Behind foremost figures such as the writer Langston Hughes and the
painter Aaron Douglas, a host of artists produced a prolific body of
literary and visual masterpieces for which music was a favourite theme.
Although this was an essentially black movement, white artists such as
Winold Reiss and Carl van
Vechten also played an important part.
Carl Van Vechten: Portrait of Billie Holiday, 23 Mar.
1949
Photo courtesy of CCCB
4. Wild Years in Europe 1917 - 1930
During
World War I, the Harlem Hellfighters, the regimental band of James Reese
Europe, had the privilege of introducing the new syncopated rhythms into
Europe. When hostilities ended, every aspect of culture in the old
continent was infected by the jazz virus. The arrival in Paris in 1925 of
La Revue Nègre,
with Josephine Baker, marked the peak of the invasion of this Tumulte
noir
, as it was christened by Paul Colin’s famous
work. From Jean Cocteau to Paul Morand, Michel Leiris and Georges
Bataille, countless writers were inspired in some way by this inexorable
tide. From Kees van
Dongen to Pablo Picasso and George Grosz, the phenomenon
was just as keen in the field of fine arts.
5. The Swing Era 1930 - 1939
The jazz age was
followed by the fashion of swing and big bands, whether black, in the case
of Duke Ellington and Count Basie, or white like those conducted by Benny
Goodman, Tommy Dorsey and Glenn Miller, who made the masses dance in the
explosive thirties.
When the talkies reached the cinema, a host of
musical comedies reflected this new craze and its seductive syncopated
rhythm, which also inspired many artists. In the U.S., despite their
differences, modernist Stuart Davis and regionalist Thomas Hart
Benton shared an interest in the music. In Europe, František Kupka
produced various paintings devoted to the jazz that specialists such as Charles Delaunay termed "hot" to
differentiate it from its more staid derivatives. The close of the decade
was marked by an event that was to determine the future: Alex Steinweiss,
a young known graphic designer, created the first album cover for
Columbia.
6. Wartime 1939 - 1945
World War II left a
dramatic mark on Western culture. Thanks to the V-Discs produced for the
U.S. Military, music went with the soldiers into battle, and hostilities
did not undermine the influence of jazz on other artistic fields. Piet
Mondrian, who had just arrived in New York, discovered boogie-woogie,
which was key to his latter works. In the field of dance, William H.
Johnson introduced the jitterbug, the latest dance craze. At the same
time, in Paris, the Zazous, probably named after a song by Cab Calloway,
stood out for their eye-catching zoot suits, proof of their rather daring
opposition to the invaders. Jazz became very popular in France, which
explains Jean Dubuffet and Henri Matisse’s interest
in it. The latter took his scissors to coloured paper to make Jazz, his
famous limited-edition book.
I Like Jazz!, 1955 - Columbia LP JZ1
Photo
courtesy of CCCB
7. Bebop 1945 - 1960
The advent of bebop at the
end of the war led to a modernization of jazz, and in the field of
painting abstract expressionism started to take off. Some of its
exponents, specifically Jackson Pollock, found a direct source of
inspiration in the jazz music they constantly listened to. With the
microgroove came a new artistic field: album covers. David Stone and Andy
Warhol, Josef Albers and Marvin Israel, Burt Goldblatt and Reid Miles were
among the dozens of graphic designers, some known, some anonymous, trying
to seduce music-lovers with a strict format: 30 x 30 cm. Nor was the
cinema ultimately immune to the contagion of modern jazz. Just two
examples of the dozens of films that used it are Ascenseur pour
l’échafaud [Lift to the Scaffold] by Louis Malle and La
Notte [The Night] by Michelangelo Antonioni.
Jazz-art in Barcelona
Meanwhile, in the
Barcelona of the early fifties, a revived Hot Club-Club 49 was the focus
for the most active artists of the time and one of the most interesting
outlets for this fusion of jazz and the arts. The "Jazz Salons" of those
years included works by Tàpies, Tharrats, Ponç and Guinovart, among many
others.
Antoni Tapies: Spiritual Song, 1950
Photo courtesy of
CCCB
8. West Coast Jazz 1953 - 1961
According to the
jazz bible, bebop was New York black whereas the typical West Coast style,
close by the Hollywood studios, was white, refined and so cool that many
were quick to label it sugar-coated. In fact, despite a more benign
meteorology and its great subtlety, West Coast jazz had a strong
personality and a force of its own. Nonetheless, the typical graphic
design of the record labels clearly reflected the contrast between the two
coasts of America: big geometrical lettering and grainy portraits of black
musicians in the east, and sunny beaches with pretty blondes frolicking
beside the sea in the west... These sunny holiday images should not blind
us to the fact that the California of that time was also one of the
foremost venues of the union between jazz and the poetry of the Beat Generation.
9. The Free Revolution 1960 - 1980
In 1960,
Ornette Coleman recorded Free Jazz. This record, with its two-fold meaning
and a cover reproducing White Light by Jackson Pollock, established a new
set of rules: the modern period gave way to the free avant-garde... This
free revolution, contemporary with black liberation movements (Black
Power, Black Muslims, Black Panthers) was reflected in the plastic arts by
the works of artists both known and anonymous: Romare
Bearden, in his mature period, Bob
Thompson, who died before his time, and even, in Europe, Englishman
Alan Davie. One of the unforgettable marks of this radical change was
Appunti per un’Orestiade africana, a surprising film by Pier
Paolo Pasolini in which he draws together the free improvisations of Gato
Barbieri with Aeschylus and Africa.
Larry Rivers: Public and Private,
1983-84
Photo courtesy of CCCB
10. Contemporaries 1980 - 2002
It may not
always be evident, but the presence of jazz in the field of the arts,
which have ceased to be modern and are now contemporary, should not be
underestimated. Proof of it is provided by the works pervaded by black
music of Jean-Michel
Basquiat and his predecessor, Robert
Colescott. Though different in form, the video work by Christian Marclay
and Lorna
Simpson
also confirms
its presence, as does the marvellous photograph by Canadian artist Jeff
Wall, inspired by the prologue of
Invisible Man, the great novel by Ralph Ellison. Finally, the
little blue train created by the mythic Afro-American artist David
Hammons, running endlessly through a landscape of coal mountains and grand
piano lids, marks the end of the exhibition: if the 20th century, the Jazz
Century, has really ended, the train of the music that accompanied it
continues to roll..
Jean-Michel Basquiat: King Zulu, 1986
Photo courtesy of
CCCB
To complement the exhibition, various musical activities have been
organized: an opening concert in La Pedrera on 28 July, with upcoming
musicians offering a reinterpretation of the history of jazz; a cycle of
jam sessions with musicians from different backgrounds and generations
every Thursday in September and October at the CCCB, and a jazz marathon
on 19 September, also at the CCCB, on the occasion of the 20th anniversary
of the Associació de Músics de Jazz i Música Moderna de Catalunya. The
CCCB’s cycle of cinema al fresco, Gandules’09, will be screening various
short films and two of the most memorable films to have dealt with jazz:
Let’s Get Lost by Bruce Weber and Thelonius Monk: Straight No
Chaser, by Charlotte Zwerin.
Title image: Thomas Hart
Benton: Portrait of a Musician, 1949
Photo courtesy of
CCCB
The Jazz Century
22 July - 18
October 2009
Centre de Cultura
Contemporània de Barcelona (CCCB)
Montalegre 5
08001
Barcelona
Spain
Tel: (34) 93 306 41 00
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