The Jazz Guitar Chord Dictionary
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  1. #1

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    I was a composition major at Berklee back in the 70s and the one course I regret not taking was composing for film. I've met a local artist who exhibits internationally . I asked her (Jennifer Payne) for three pieces with different moods, themes whatever...and started recording yesterday, using a baritone guitar with the Metheny half Nashville tuning. Of course I can overdub different instruments later. I've always recorded in the past with, here's the tune, tempo, key, etc...In doing this I've discovered a new world. It's been liberating. And exciting...

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  3. #2

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    Quote Originally Posted by jaco
    I was a composition major at Berklee back in the 70s and the one course I regret not taking was composing for film. I've met a local artist who exhibits internationally . I asked her (Jennifer Payne) for three pieces with different moods, themes whatever...and started recording yesterday, using a baritone guitar with the Metheny half Nashville tuning. Of course I can overdub different instruments later. I've always recorded in the past with, here's the tune, tempo, key, etc...In doing this I've discovered a new world. It's been liberating. And exciting...
    I've spent a lot of time in art studios. In my experience they are rarely without music of all kinds - turnabout is fair play - and inspiration can come from anywhere at any time. As an artist, I could say that the music provides a relaxing atmosphere that allows the creative spirit and the crafting ethos to productively co-exist.
    As a musician, I say that the visual arts have always inspired me. It's win-win, any way you look at it (or hear it).

  4. #3

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    jackson pollock used to paint to louie armstrongs hot fives




    cheers

  5. #4

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    I got to see a real, live Pollock once. It was enormous. And magnificent. Literally awe inspiring. It made me glad l was not a painter.
    Last edited by citizenk74; 02-28-2021 at 01:09 PM.

  6. #5

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    Quote Originally Posted by citizenk74
    I got to see a real, live pollock once. It was enormous. And magnificent. Literally awe inspiring. It made me glad l was not a painter.
    have been blessed to have had my nose, up against more than a few...their scale is what's so overwhelming...their ability to absorb the viewer in...in no way captured by bookish or internet reproductions

    i always found pollocks work very inspiring to the creation of art...of all-sorts


    cheers

  7. #6

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    Quote Originally Posted by neatomic
    have been blessed to have had my nose, up against more than a few...their scale is what's so overwhelming...their ability to absorb the viewer in...in no way captured by bookish or internet reproductions

    i always found pollocks work very inspiring to the creation of art...of all-sorts


    cheers
    You might findThe Cultural Cold War - The CIA and the World of Arts and Letters by Frances Stonor Saunders to be of interest. There's quite a long section devoted to the Abstract Expressionist School of painters as well as other fascinating insights into the Cold War's lesser-known fronts. As always, there is more to what we see than what meets the eye.

  8. #7

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    Words for the elements of visual art like line, shape, and color are shared for those of music, as well as bright, dark, movement, etc.; even some oblique ones like sketch.

    I like putting the sound of chiaroscuro into my jazz playing.

  9. #8

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    Quote Originally Posted by pauln
    Words for the elements of visual art like line, shape, and color are shared for those of music, as well as bright, dark, movement, etc.; even some oblique ones like sketch.

    I like putting the sound of chiaroscuro into my jazz playing.
    I like mine sfumato-y.

  10. #9

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    the reality is that the barn he used as a studio had no electricity until 1953 and there’s no anecdotal evidence of him listening while he worked. For Pollock jazz filled the moments between paintings, feeding his vision, freeing his imagination. Jazz was vital. Pollock stated that he wanted his art to be enjoyed in the way music is enjoyed. That it didn’t necessarily need to be decoded and deciphered. In a quote that foreshadows the thoughts of many of the great jazz musicians that came after him Pollock stated “painting is self-discovery. Every good artist paints what he is.” And every great jazz artist plays what he is. Painting equals jazz. Jazz and Jackson Pollock.Vialma

  11. #10

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    pollock was painting long before he moved to the long island house and barn!

    cheers

    ps- his wife/widow lee krassner said-

    "He would get into grooves of listening to his jazz records- not just for days- day and night, day and night for three days running, until you thought you would climb the roof! Jazz? He thought it was the only other really creative thing happening in this country. He had a passion for music..."

    from- Improvisations: notes on pollock and jazz...by andrew kagan 1979

  12. #11

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    Lol...pollock hated bebop..was his wife who did..some museum has his records

  13. #12

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    Many musicians were visual artists as well, and vice versa.
    If you allow it, jazz can appeal to all human senses: the vibrating of a big-body guitar on your belly, the smelling of the old guitar wood and finish (French polish, drying oil, etc.), or of your favorite jazz club, or your dear companion. The sense of taste being stimulated by a glass of good red wine ...


    One of those protagonists, and one of most hard-swinging and energetic of all jazz drummers, George Wettling's rhythmic energy explodes on his canvases. Wettling, a friend and student of the painter Stuart Davis, had moved on to what the New York Times described as "a whole new universe of jazzy patterns and blazing colors, a landscape defined not by signs but by sensations: sound, rhythm, friction."

    Clarinetist Pee Wee Russell had known Wettling's circle of painter friends since the 1930's, hanging out with Davis, Jackson Pollock, and Willem de Kooning. Although never a forthcoming interviewee about music, Russell did occasionally talk about his artwork.
    Another painter around this group was composer Bob Haggart.


    The Harlem-born painter Norman Lewis captured the angularity of bebop's phrasing and rhythms. His painting career had a trajectory that stretched from affectionate realism in twenties Harlem to the complete abstract expressionism of Jackson Pollock, with whom he exhibited.
    Later artists included the widely syndicated Gil Mayers and the short-lived but dazzling Jean-Michel Basquiat.


    "There is a continuity of expression, certain continually evolving strands of thought that link all my compositions together. Maybe it's like the paintings of Jackson Pollack," writes Ornette Coleman in his notes to the album Change of the Century, recorded in October 1959.
    It is possible that Pollock, a fan of New Orleans polyphonic improvisation and the songs of Billie Holiday, might not have thought much of Coleman's music, but Coleman remained a lifelong admirer of Pollock ...




    Some other jazz-loving visual artists were David X. Young (
    JazzLoft Story – David X Young ) and W. Eugene Smith (::The Jazz Loft Project:: PEOPLE ).
    Last edited by Ol' Fret; 03-03-2021 at 07:31 AM.

  14. #13

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    Jim Hall wrote about the effect of visual art on his music. Way back in the precambrian era (mid 70s) when I was in art school, John Dowell, one of my teachers, had a collaboration with soprano saxophonist Steve Lacy where Lacy would use Dowell's prints and watercolors as a score to improvise from at intimate venues.

    JOHN E. DOWELL – ARTIST PHOTOGRAPHER

    A lot of painters have been interested in jazz and it goes both ways as noted above.

    Jazz has such a long history intertwined with film making world wide. So many tunes composed for films have become standards: Laura, Green Dolphin Street, Angel Eyes, etc. Marl Knopfler is one guitar player who has done some stellar work in composing for film. Recently, podcaster/actor/guitarist Marc Marron did all the music for Lynn Shelton's film "Sword of Trust" ... all in a blues/rock vein but very appropriate to the mood of the film.
    Last edited by AndyV; 03-05-2021 at 05:56 PM.

  15. #14

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    Then, by way of example, some jazz-related female painters:

    - Judith Lindbloom: Judith Lindbloom Obituary - (1933 - 2016) - San Francisco, CA - San Francisco Chronicle (legacy.com)
    The Rest | Steve Lacy & Joe McPhee | Joe McPhee (bandcamp.com)

    Judith loved jazz. She regularly met with Rothko and Pollock at The Cedar Tavern on University Place, Manhattan, the hangout for abstract expressionist painters in the 1950s and 1960s. Her work was used on numerous album covers.
    The Rest | Steve Lacy & Joe McPhee | Joe McPhee (bandcamp.com)


    - Monika ("Moki") Cherry, Don Cherry's Swedish wife: Moki Cherry - Wikipedia

    Here a painting she applied for a Blue Note album:

    Last edited by Ol' Fret; 03-03-2021 at 01:02 PM.

  16. #15

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    This thread reminded me of that Jim Hall album cover:

    Composing for a Painter-6b39122a-7ec6-4ddf-9ed3-7bd77feb08b6-jpeg

  17. #16

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    Krzysztof Komeda was great Polish jazz piano player and composer.
    He wrote beautiful film music and felt great at it.

  18. #17

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    nice story