LIVE JAZZ | Is Fun To Draw To.
Last night I went up to Dish, a local restaurant/bar, where my friend Kelly was hosting an art opening for a guy named John Prichard. I can't find a website for him anywhere, or I'd link to it.The best part, though, was listening to the band, Ten Speed, and trying to draw them. I'm not sure how successful the drawing was per se, but listening to live music and drawing was surprisingly fun. Ten Speed is "out" jazz, or "free" jazz, or whatever--a lot of improvisation and a little dissonance, with some real sweet bits peeking through from time to time. It's not the easiest music to listen to with all of your mind, if you're not a musician or a student of the form or something. But listening to it with part of my mind while drawing was PERFECT. The music part of my brain would zone out while the drawing part did its thing, and then when that real sweet part would come around, they would switch for a little while.
Doubly perfect as this has always been something I struggle with: disengaging the part of my brain that wants to fill everything with lines and details and tomfoolery, rather than just loosening up and thinking less about the end product and more about the PROCESS of drawing. I think it's especially apropos for listening to jazz, especially "out" jazz, or any musical with an experimental compositional scheme. The making of that music, the idea that what you are hearing is a unique one-time event combining the ideas of several people into one whole, the PROCESS, is as much a part of things as the product that you hear. It doesn't always work as well in a recorded form, because you're only seeing the product, and the process is less evident. But in a live setting, you can't help but notice it--the musicians are nodding to each other, biding their time, planning their moves.
Anyway, Ten Speed was super good. Also John Prichard's drawings were really good. The whole night was pretty great. That's my report.
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