Jazz Cubano #02 Arturo and Elio’s Dos Y Mas © 2013, Papers, oil, flashe, pencil, MSA gel, 42” x 42”
Jazz Cubano #03 Arturo and Elio’s Dos Y Mas © 2013, Papers, oil, flashe, pencil, MSA gel, 42” x 42”
Jazz Cubano #04 Arturo and Elio’s Dos Y Mas © 2013, Papers, oil, flashe, pencil, MSA gel, 42” x 42”
Jazz Cubano #05 Arturo and Elio’s Dos Y Mas © 2013, Papers, oil, flashe, pencil, MSA gel, 42” x 42”
Jazz Cubano #06 Arturo and Elio’s Dos Y Mas © 2013, Papers, oil, flashe, pencil, MSA gel, 42” x 42”
Jazz Cubano #07 Stefon’s Brown Belle Blues © 2014, Papers, oil, flashe, pencil, MSA gel, 42” x 42”
Jazz Cubano #08 Stefon’s Brown Belle Blues © 2014, Papers, oil, flashe, pencil, MSA gel, 42” x 42”
Jazz Cubano #09 Stefon’s Brown Belle Blues © 2014, Papers, oil, flashe, pencil, MSA gel, 42” x 42”
Jazz Cubano #10 Stefon’s Brown Belle Blues © 2014, Papers, oil, flashe, pencil, MSA gel, 42” x 42”
Jazz Cubano #11 Stefon’s Brown Belle Blues © 2014, Papers, oil, flashe, pencil, MSA gel, 42” x 42”
Jazz Cubano #12 Stefon’s Brown Belle Blues © 2014, Papers, oil, flashe, pencil, MSA gel, 42” x 42”
Jazz Cubano #20 Arturo and Elio, Thinking Out Loud © 2016, Papers, oil, flashe, pencil, MSA gel, 32” x 32”
Jazz Cubano #21 Arturo and Elio, Thinking Out Loud © 2016, Papers, oil, flashe, pencil, MSA gel, 32” x 32”
Jazz Cubano #22 Arturo and Elio, Thinking Out Loud © 2016, Papers, oil, flashe, pencil, MSA gel, 32” x 32”
Jazz Cubano #23 Arturo and Elio, Thinking Out Loud © 2016, Papers, oil, flashe, pencil, MSA gel, 32” x 32”
Jazz Cubano #24 Arturo and Elio, Thinking Out Loud © 2016, Papers, oil, flashe, pencil, MSA gel, 32” x 32”
Jazz Cubano #25 Arturo and Elio, Thinking Out Loud © 2016, Papers, oil, flashe, pencil, MSA gel, 32” x 32”
Jazz Cubano #26 Arturo and Elio, Thinking Out Loud © 2016, Papers, oil, flashe, pencil, MSA gel, 32” x 32”
Jazz Cubano #27 Arturo and Elio, Thinking Out Loud © 2016, Papers, oil, flashe, pencil, MSA gel, 32” x 32”
Jazz Cubano #41 Percussion Drawing © 2012, Flashe and pencil on paper, 30” x 30”
Jazz Cubano #42 Percussion Drawing © 2012, Flashe and pencil on paper, 30” x 30”
Jazz Cubano #43 Percussion Drawing © 2012, Flashe and pencil on paper, 30” x 30”
Jazz Cubano #44 Percussion Drawing © 2012, Flashe and pencil on paper, 30” x 30”
Jazz Cubano #45 Percussion Drawing © 2012, Flashe and pencil on paper, 30” x 30”
Jazz Cubano #47 Percussion Drawing © 2012, Flashe and pencil on paper, 30” x 30”
Jazz Cubano #48 Percussion Drawing © 2012, Flashe and pencil on paper, 30” x 30”
Jazz Cubano #49 Percussion Drawing © 2012, Flashe and pencil on paper, 30” x 30”
Jazz Cubano #50 Percussion Drawing © 2012, Flashe and pencil on paper, 30” x 30”
Jazz Cubano #51 Percussion Drawing © 2012, Flashe and pencil on paper, 30” x 30”
Jazz Cubano #52 Percussion Drawing © 2012, Flashe and pencil on paper, 30” x 30”
Jazz Cubano #53 Percussion Drawing © 2012, Flashe and pencil on paper, 30” x 30”
Jazz Cubano
The movement and space in Afro-Cuban jazz has long fascinated me, especially the percussion. In my new Jazz Cubano Series I take those complex rhythms and melodies apart to reconstruct them visually.
I began work in 2012 with the music of Cuban percussionist Arturo Stable and Cuban pianist Elio Villafranca using their duo recording Dos Y Mas. Arturo was very generous with his time, trying to teach my very non-Afro-Cuban ears to hear the music’s ‘bones’ more clearly.
In order to find a visual translation I found I had to break the music down into its simplest components – literally, single percussion sounds. Those fueled a series of fifty brush studies. Next I transferred pairs of them one over another and painted into them – the Percussion Drawings. Only after many months was I comfortable beginning the larger brush studies and paintings.
Making our work a ‘conversation’, Arturo and Elio improvised from my brush studies in April 2013. I composed new pieces from music informally recorded in that session – layered, collaged paintings titled, Jazz Cubano: Arturo and Elio, Thinking Out Loud.
The second phase of Jazz Cubano is based on a piece from Stefon Harris’, David Sanchez’ and Christian Scott’s Ninety Miles Project. “Brown Belle Blues” was composed by vibraphonist Stefon Harris. The overlays of rhythms caught my imagination instantly when I heard them perform it live at a jazz festival in the summer of 2011.