The Art of Jazz

These are the most interesting jazz images i’ve seen! The exhibition in Quai Branly museum in Paris was amazingly rich with visual complements to my favorite genre of music. Catch it if you can but if you don’t, here’s my report:

Birth of the cool Miles Davis 1949 michele roohani

Miles Davis remains one of my favorites—the following are mostly LP covers from the mid 20th century:

Bud Freeman,

Bud Freeman michele roohani

To go through all of my images and get inspired to prepare them for this post, I’ve been  listening to Mingus’ “better get it in your soul”.

Just look at this super cool Count Basie cover by Andy Warhol:

Count Basie michele roohani

Benny Carter plays pretty:

benny carter michele roohani

Sidney Bechet in Paris in 1952:

Sidney Bechet paris 1952 michele roohani

Dizzy Gillespie’s sextet,

Dizzy Gillespie michele roohani

Daddy plays the horn,

daddy plays the horn michele roohani

The beautiful music of Charlie (the Bird) Parker,

Charlie Parker michele roohani Bird

I like these very 50’s percussion disc covers,

persuasive percussion michele roohani

I am listening to Thelonious Monk and John Coltrane’s “Nutty”,

Thelonious Monk San francisco michele roohani

Now some posters from the 1920’s forward—Cary Hauser’s Jonny Mene La Danse from 1928:

Jonny Mene 1928 michele roohani

Look at the musicians here:

victoria attraction poster michele roohani

Grand Bal de Nuit,

Grand Bal de Nuit poster michele roohani

Jan Mara’s Mezze Mezzrow is soooo not “Kenny (my middle name is boring) G”!

Jan Mara Mezz Mezzrow michele roohani

A relatively more recent poster from the Lincoln Center:

jazz Lincoln center poster michele roohani

Now some paintings—Harlem Jazz by Winold Reiss, 1925:

harlem Jazz Winold Reiss 1925 michele roohani

The Lindy Hop by Miguel Covarrubias, 1936:

the Lindy hop Miguel Covarrubias 1936 michele roohani

James WeeksTwo Musicians;

two musicians james weeks 1960 michele roohani

Nicolas de Stael‘s Musicians:

musicians Nicolas de Stael michele roohani

Blues by Archibald J. Motley Jr, 1929

Blues Archibald J. Motley Jr 1929 michele roohani

Bernard Buffet‘s light drawings:

Buffet jazz drawings michele roohani

This Coltrane image is haunting:

sound of Coltrane michele roohani

and a very politically incorrect piece here called “cake-walk”—can’t imagine an American museum showing this:

le cake walk michele roohani

Last but not least was this fabulous Fred Astair’s homage to Mr Bojangles on a huge screen that I manipulated of course!

fred astair shadow  Bojangles michele roohani

to see him dance watch this absolutely great clip here.

century of jazz quai branly michele roohani

It was very hard to take these pictures (some were on very fast slide shows!) and to clean and edit them later but it was a labor of love; I’ve been wanting to do a post about Jazz for the longest time but where to start? Where to end? Who to cover? This was the shortest way I could record my visit to the Land of Jazz. Thank you Daniel Soutif!

jazz exhitbition quai branly ticket michele roohani

Voilà! Now you know…I have not even started talking about some of my other favorites: Louis Armstrong, Bill Evans, Fats Waller, Keith Jarrett, Ahmad Jamal, Lionel Hampton, etc…

To see some cool clips from the coolest of them all, Miles Davis and John Coltrane, go here

for a taste of the great Monk, go here

to hear the Bird,  click here

to see the genius of Fred Astaire here.