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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 Contemporà nia 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
November, 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 Tà pies, 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 Contemporà nia
de Barcelona (CCCB)
Montalegre 5
08001 Barcelona
Spain
Tel: (34) 93 306 41 00
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