JaZzArt en València

He came to bring joy! His playing was a divine gift, as no one else has done what he did…

Cheers…

One of the masters of West Coast Jazz, or «Cool Jazz» is Gerry Mulligan, North American saxophonist. This New Yorker born in 1927 was also a clarinettist, a composer and an arranger. But he shines predominantly with his baritone sax. He worked wit Stan Kenton and Miles Davis, among others. He played with Chet Baker in a piano-less group considered one of the coolest of the «cool» groups. Mulligan died in 1996 from complications from knee surgery. He was 68 years old.

This time the song becomes many as I truly believe that to get to feel the soul of Gerry Mulligan you have to hear more than just one song. So here are many for you to delight in. And then you tell me what you think.

Cheers…

A esta cita no hay que agregarle ni una sola palabra…

Pero creo que reconocer nuestras derrotas, asimilarlas y aprender de ellas, nos valdría mucho y nos ayudaría a triunfar en el futuro…

Oi, so today I am going to stray a little bit from my usual path, but not so much, because if music is poetry and they say that so is art, then I am speaking of the same thing. I do believe art, music and poetry are sewn together with the Golden Fleece that Jason searched for with his Argonauts…

What? Ok, I’ll get to the point…

Art Pepper was an incredible musician. He was born on September 1, 1925 in California and passed away 56 years later. His musical career was quite short because it was interrupted multiple times. First, he spent time in prison which took away several years of his career, and then he had to undergo rehabilitation for his heroin addiction. However, despite these obstacles, Pepper was able to establish himself as one of the greats, alongside the key players who pioneered «Cool Jazz» or «West Coast Jazz.» One of those significant figures was Gerry Mulligan, who collaborated with Miles Davis on the influential recording called «Birth of the Cool.»

But I’m talking about Art Pepper, and as I said earlier, the guy was amazing. He himself claimed to be a genius and said he didn’t know anyone else who played the saxophone like he did. Who does this remind me of? Dalí? No… Pepper was a real genius…

Pepper was a true paradox of a guy, I mean to the nth degree. He could compose a ballad for you, sweet, smooth, and sensual, and at the same time, he would tell you that being a great jazz musician is similar to being a great criminal, and that he was willing to do anything, for example, to kill anyone who messed with his woman. I don’t criticize him, I admire him, and he is right, a man should defend his woman and his home…

One of Art Pepper’s most famous themes is the ballad «Patricia,» which he composed in 1978 for his daughter. It so happened that while he was in prison, his ex-wife brought Patricia, who was about twelve years old at the time, with the intention of showing the girl that her father was nothing more than a caged monster among all the others there. In other words, her father lives locked up, alongside the dregs of society, because he deserves it, because he is like that too. When Pepper encountered Patricia again, she was in her thirties and he called her to wish her a Happy Christmas, and she responded by saying that she knew he was nothing more than a criminal and a rapist, that she had read the book.*

When Pepper was discharged from the methadone clinic, where he had overcome his heroin addiction, he resumed playing and composing music. He formed a band with talented musicians and embarked on a tour of Europe and Japan. He recorded multiple albums for Galaxy Records, the subsidiary of Fantasy Records. His latest albums were Living Legend, Art Pepper Today, Among Friends, and Live in Japan.

Art Pepper died from a stroke. He abused his body heavily throughout his life, and although he had recovered from drug addiction, his body remained weakened and couldn’t survive the stroke. He passed away in 1982 in Los Angeles and is buried in the Abbey of the Psalms mausoleum at the Hollywood Forever Cemetery.

I am not interested in the bad things he might have done. I don’t judge. To me, he is a genius of Jazz and one of my favourite musicians and composers. I admire him as a jazz player, period…

* In 1980, Art Pepper and Laurie Pepper, his third wife, published their autobiography titled «Straight Life.» The book spoke about the criminal underworld where Pepper lived during the 1940s and 1950s. Among the anecdotes was one in which Pepper boasts of having raped a woman in London during World War II, because in his mind she deserved it. Due to the publication of the book, director Don McGlynn made the documentary titled «Art Pepper: Notes from a Jazz Survivor.» The documentary features direct interviews with Pepper and Laurie, and includes a recording of a concert at the Malibu Jazz Club. I highly recommend it.

Cheers…

Expressionism is one of the art vanguards of the XX Century. It started as a movement with artists from Germany, Austria, France and Russia in the years before WWI. But it did spread across Europe and to the Americas. The early ones are Munch, Van Gogh and James Ensor, the Belgian printmaker.

In Expressionism, you use colors to make the composition more dramatic and dynamic. It’s not about making things look natural, but about delving deep into the inner feelings and thoughts of the subjects and conveying their psychological state, intentions, and emotions. The artist has the freedom to alter, modify, amplify, or even recreate certain aspects of the subject’s appearance or body. The focus in Expressionism is not on representing reality accurately, but on exploring the subjective experience.

Needless to say it is my preferred style of artistic expression. Here are some of my expressionist paintings done digitally as Art Digital. I have used an original Surreal-Expressionist (to be explained on a future post) self-portrait to create these alternate self-portraits.

Here is a video I have made of Edvard Munch, whom I consider to be the «Father of Expressionism» with some of my «expressionist» music…

Cheers…

Introducing MasticadoresUSA’s “Treasured Contributors”

Or rowing… Who cares, it’s SUMMER!!!

Cheers…

For many years, it was believed that abstract art was invented by Wassily Kandinsky, a Russian painter born in Moscow in 1866. It was also said that his «Abstract Watercolour» painted between 1910 and 1913 was the first abstract work in the history of art. But that wasn’t the case…

It turns out that it was Hilma Af Klint, a woman, who was the first to paint an abstract painting…

I was very happy to hear the news because women artists have been given so little credit in the history of art, and this fact sort of vindicates them. Hilma Af Klint was born in Sweden in 1862 and died in 1944. But most importantly, it has been recognized that all her abstract paintings were made before those of Malevich, Kandinsky, or Mondrian.

Perhaps due to her beliefs, she did not want her paintings to be known until fifty years after her death, and so it was. Klint belonged to an esoteric group called «The Five.» They were women who followed, or were inspired by Theosophy. They communicated with their ascended masters through seances, and their paintings contained the symbols they used to explain or represent their spiritual beliefs and ideas.

Hilma was very interested in botany and mathematics, but because she showed skills in drawing, her parents sent her to Tekniska, now called Konstfack, in Stockholm, where she studied art, specializing in portraits and landscapes. In 1882, she was admitted to the Royal Academy of Fine Arts, where she completed her studies and graduated in 1887. It was during those years at the academy that she met Anna Cassel and the other female artists who would form the group known as The Five.

Klint and the other members of The Five all joined the Edelweiss Society, a society that believed in the teachings of Helena Blavatsky, the founder of Theosophy and spiritualism. It was then that Hilma began to create her paintings, asserting that a spiritual force was painting through her hand. She did not create sketches or prior drawings. In 1906, Klint painted her first series of abstractions.

Art tends to confuse many people because they are not clear about all the changes, advancements, and vanguards that the history of art has gone through. And, truly I do believe that the history of art is organic. We are making history at this very moment. But what I think confuses people the most is abstract art, although I promise you, it is the simplest thing in the world.

I will give you a brief lecture on art (painting, photography, and sculpture). Art is divided into only two types: Figurative and Abstract. Abstract art can be defined as a painting, sculpture or drawing, with an internal reference, that does not have anything in its composition that resembles anything in real life. Figurative art is everything else. I hope I have cleared up any doubts you may have.

In my blog, VALENCIARTIST (www.paintinginvalencia.com), I have published a series dedicated to the women artists who have indeed existed and have painted extensively throughout the centuries. But they have not been properly recognized.

Also, on my YouTube channel (www.YouTube.com/@FranciscoBravoCabrera) I have many videos dedicated to introducing many of these great artists that need to be known, and among them is this one, dedicated to abstraction: https://youtu.be/GAWWG7do-cY.»

Francisco Bravo Cabrera, 05 JUL 2023, Valencia, España

En el arte hay solo dos estilos, aunque hay muchas formas de pintar, dibujar y esculpir, pero la obra cae en una de dos columnas: La figuración o la abstracción. No existen términos medios, si la pintura, et al, tiene figuras o cosas claramente reconocibles, es FIGURATIVA. Si no tiene nada que corresponda al mundo donde vivimos o a las cosas que estamos acostumbrados a ver, es ABSTRACTA.

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In art there are only two styles, although there are many ways to paint something, draw or sculpt, but things have to end up in one of two columns: Figurative or abstract. There is no middle of the road. If the painting, et al, has any recognisable features of our common daily, earthly, existence, or figures, it is FIGURATIVE. If it does not, and contains nothing easily recognisable, then it is ABSTRACT.

Gracias…

Cheers…

“PROMISES ARE FORGOTTEN BY PRINCES, BUT NOT BY THE PEOPLE”

Hay que acordarse siempre de las falsas promesas y las mentiras, no de los príncipes pero de los que aspiran a gobernar o a continuar su mandato. Ya bastante nos ha mentido el que okupa ahora la Moncloa… No hay derechas ni izquierdas, hay honestidad o corrupción.

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We cannot forget the false promises and the lies, not of the Prince but of those who govern us or hope to be elected to do so. We’ve been lied to enough… There is no right wing or left wing, there is only honesty or corruption.