04 - Dec., 2020
"USA ARTISTS", Season 1, Episode 6: CLAES OLDENBERG (1966) Oldenberg on his ideas about everyday objects when placed in new contexts (food, household fixtures, public art). Footage's locations include his studio and Sidney Janis Gallery. Narrated by Jim Dine. |
![]() 07-Nov.-2020
WILLEM DE KOONING (1904-1997) - Drawings (1938 - 1954) ''You know, Bill's parents divorced when he was 3, and he was given to his father for custody. Well, his mother grabbed him and took him home. When the father got him back, she grabbed him again. That lady was formidable. She ran a bar and a restaurant frequented by sailors. Bill says she was a hysteric. If he laughed at her, or she got angry, she would grab a knife and raise it as though she was going to kill herself, yelling, 'Cora cannot stand this a moment longer!' '' There was a childhood incident in Rotterdam - being thrown into a sewer by some boys, being rescued from death by an old woman, an encrusted memory of terror and humiliation, and of Woman as salvation in the end. In some way, Elaine felt sure, the episode contributed to the violent polarity of his feelings. ''So that ferocious woman he painted didn't come from living with me. It began when he was 3 years old.'' The lives of great artists often seem haunted by psychic demons that can drive them to heights of achievement or to depths of despair, or to both at the same time. In de Kooning's circle of friends, the self-destructive element vied tragically with the creative. Gorky was a suicide; so was Rothko. Pollock's end almost suggested a courting of death. Whatever the dark underside of de Kooning's genius, the torments he suffered took a heavy toll. The escape was into alcohol. The disastrous effect of that became apparent after his marriage fell apart, and he and Elaine were separated in 1955. He began to live with Joan Ward, a commercial artist, who bore him his first and only child in 1956. Three years later, he left for Italy with Ruth Kligman. That was when I met him. By this time, he was having blackouts from his periodic benders, and an Italian doctor warned him that his drinking might affect his nervous system. -The Indomitable de Kooning, by Curtis Bill Pepper (|The New York Times Magazine, Nov. 20, 1983) https://www.nytimes.com/1983/11/20/magazine/the-indomitable-de-kooning.html |
![]() Art Pepper Quartet at JAZZ CASUAL (Feat.: Strazzeri, Hamel, & Goodwin, 1964) JAZZ CASUAL, May 9, 1964 Jazz author Ralph Gleason hosted and produced this TV series in San Francisco in the 1960's. Art Pepper, alto sax Frank Strazzeri, piano Hersh Hamel, acoustic double bass Bill Goodwin, drums.
“I guess it's like James Joyce when he was a kid, you know. He hung out with all the great writers of the day, and he was a little kid, like, with tennis shoes on, and they said 'Look at this lame!' They didn't use those words in those days. They said 'God, here comes this nut.' And he told them, 'I'm great!' And he sat with them, and he loved to be with them, and it ended up that he was great.” Art Pepper, Straight Life: The Story Of Art Pepper |
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02-Nov.-2020
Charles Mingus, Eric Dolphy and Bud Powell live at The Antibes Jazz Festival (1960) Alto Saxophone – Eric Dolphy Bass – Charles Mingus Drums – Dannie Richmond Piano - Bud Powell Tenor Saxophone – Booker Ervin Trumpet – Ted Curson On “I’ll Remember April,” Bud Powell joins on piano. Recorded live by Barclay Studios for Atlantic Records at the Antibes Jazz Festival, Juan-les-Pins, France, July 13, 1960. "This is one of the great Mingus albums. It was recorded live at the Antibes Jazz Festival in 1960 with a group many listeners feel was Mingus’ best, during one of the bassist/composer’s most productive and boundary-stretching periods. At a time when Ornette Coleman’s free jazz was just beginning to be heard and the avant-garde movement which would follow his example was still gestating, Mingus and his musicians, particularly the incandescent Eric Dolphy, were proposing a brand of freedom built on black folk forms and the skeletal remains of popular song structures. This album captures their freedom-with-order, which was to become a principal influence on Anthony Braxton, the Art Ensemble of Chicago, and the other structuralists of the Midwestern avante-garde almost ten years later, at a peak of interactive intensity. There is nothing quite like it in the rest of the Mingus discography. This is the first complete and authorized release of the Antibes concert anywhere."
Robert Palmer |
Jazz Notes: Agony and empathy of that night at Antibes (by John Sand - The Sydney Morning Herald, July 27, 2020)
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