"Bunny M." is a seventeen-year-old Dallas resident who plays drums, piano and clarinet.  Her passion for jazz and the challenges she faces as a youthful fan of it is the focus of her Jerry Jazz Musician column, "Accent on Youth." Listen to Dinah Washington sing Accent On Youth ___________________________ Accent on Youth by Bunny M. "Chorus of Images" a painting by Miles Davis Interacting Art Forms: A conversation with musician and poet David Newman ___________________________      When people hear the word "artist," the first image that comes to mind is probably that of a palette-and-easel-toting eccentric painter clad in a color-splattered smock. Yet the American Heritage Dictionary defines "artist" as "One, such as a painter, sculptor, or writer, who is able by virtue of imagination and talent or skill to create works of aesthetic value". As two fellow poet-musicians, my friend David Newman and I embarked on a verbal sojourn into the question of how art forms, especially music and visual arts, interact and influence one another across boundaries of medium and creative discipline. *      David Newman is an accomplished poet and musician whose unique and innovative vision has never failed as a source of inspiration for my own creative pursuits. When not occupied by his "small, puttering" Literary Services Agency (he can occasionally be found playing different genres in local venues on an irregular basis around the NYC-tristate area. Previous gigs include Saturdays at the World Renowned Landmark Pub in Park Slope, Brooklyn, playing solo synth free jazz, and various eclectic collaborations with the Knitting Factory. Writing achievements include an M.A. in Creative Writing at New York University and poems published in such prestigious literary magazines as The Red River Review in Texas and the bohemian portal on Irkonomix.com. Attempts to join the New York Poets movement have proven futile however, because "I think they hate the fact that I grew up in Cleveland." He is currently in a teaching and writing phase, and has approximately 150 hours of collaborative recordings he is interested in getting streamed online. _____________________________________________ Bunny  How do you personally think jazz and art relate to each other? David  They both have A's in them, are less than four letters, have three consonants or less and denote a form of motion. But seriously, art and jazz intersect along innumerable meridians as ice does in water. They are spiritual symbols of heartfelt statements. A good song lyric is a poem, a moving work of art is said to be like poetry or poetic. All acts of focused imagination share components on the stage. Each art form has been used literally in the history of art to enhance and embellish the other -- as the beats recited poetry to jazz or visual artists used the written word to highlight meanings within painting and sculptures. And art, aix era y no era, has appeared front and center in many a great poets tongue. The two varied art forms, of which poetry is the most verbally relevant, are all drawn from the same well of imagination -- or as a reaction against such tedious labor. Tennyson once said, "As sure as eagles fly/ it is art not poetry that is in my eye". Bunny  I am reminded of the art of Romare Bearden. While living in New York he became good friends with Duke Ellington and other jazz greats of the time -- a fact which undeniably influenced his work; many of his paintings are portraits of jazz artists like Billie Holiday, or of jazz musicians in general. Even the non-jazz ones still have a very strong flavor of jazz in them.   It seems like a change in musical trends often brings on a change in other art forms, or vice versa; would you say there is room for further inspiration of either one by the other? David  Not only is there room, there is space and time and a necessity for the fluid enactment of the one upon the other. Without water there can be no sea, without sea no fish, without fish no humankind. So it is with one art form inspiring another. In fact, they not only inspire they absolutely inform one another. Bunny    Agreed. I've always thought as all of art being a sort of chain of many links, and each discipline of it being another link which is dependent on both links preceding and following it. Or maybe it's more like a web, with every discipline reaching out to every other; to cut off one would be to starve the whole. I think that all artists are driven by the exact same force -- or spirit -- regardless of how they choose to express it. The specific medium they choose is merely a handle for our senses to tangibly perceive the inner essence; sort of the relationship of ice, liquid, and vapor -- all different forms of the same substance. David  There are more connections than writers to document them, more collaborations than critics to discuss them, more egos than gurus to humble them, etc. Bunny    As a poet, how has music, specifically jazz, influenced your writing, if at all? David    It forms a ground as the lilypad does to the frog who, leaping and kissed, turns into a prince who falls into the pond [to be] fished out by servants, upon which occasioned a poem, thus turning the frog into a poet, and so on. Having roommates for five years who were jazz musicians left a permanently resonating cacophony which spills over into every sound I hear, of which poems are but a few. And playing jazz myself organizes this cacophony into sound hierarchies lending motion to air surely as a wafting kite resting in cumulus floats by. Bunny   I find myself often listening to music when I write -- usually jazz but sometimes some very different things. And I find that the same "color frequency," if you will, or "vibration of creativity" that distinguishes jazz, also permeates my work -- or at least that's what I strive for. Jazz to me, as a genre, seems to have this royal blue tinge about it, and the quality of lightly, agilely, moving very delicately on the air like a fine mist.  I'm a synesthete so please bear with me. David  You do have a slight polychromatic aura I think. Art of Romare Bearden Profile/Part II, The Thirties: Uptown Sunday Night Session, 1981 * Sunday Morning Breakfast, 1967 * Thank You...For F.U.M.L. (Funking Up My Life), 1978 Jim Rotundi _____ Iron Man Embraceable You Bunny   Do you sometimes listen to music when you write? David    For years I wrote on our couch while the great jazz musicians of New York City would be jamming next to me; that was the coolest. I think I enjoyed the music more than they did. To write a poem is fine -- with a bebop jazz band, divine. Bunny  You mentioned once you used to room with a jazz trumpet player. What effect did that have on your own creative pursuits? David   I was very moved by his brand of bebop brilliance and also the singularly solid solo note he blew for a seeming eternity as a warmup each day. Jim Rotondi is a fantastic trumpet master who can regularly stun a roomful of patrons into a mesmerized mass of rice pudding. I was a touch envious of this. Bunny    I was on his Web site some time ago and read up on his biography -- a very accomplished player with a lot of excellent experience under his belt. I don't think I've ever heard his playing though.  How would you describe it or liken it to the style of another well-known musician? David    It was like, I imagine, living next to Miles Davis would've been. He's a straight ahead bebop player, and plays with Eric Alexander a lot. They are on the radio regularly on the jazz stations. Bunny    Were you musically involved prior to these jazz-room experiences? David    Yes, I started playing as a kid and seriously at about fourteen. Bunny    What did you play? David    First a crib, then a rattle, then a spoon, then a spoon and fork, which led to crayons and later . . . the piano, drums, bass, and ,of course, lead guitar in a series of awful punk rock bands. Bunny    I remember you mentioning the punk bands, as well as the musical projects involving innovative instruments . . . David    My friend and artistic collaborator Pito is a web designer.  He used to be a photographer in a past life, and when he lived in New York City, we made about one hundred recordings together -- all ninety-minute cassettes, ready to beam across the infiniverse -- mostly making music with strange, unusual instruments and products.  It was improvisational music, sort of Coltrane's idea that you can make the most beautiful music with three notes if you play them right.  I think we probably use more than three though. Bunny   What sort of unusual instruments? David    Pretty much anything that makes sound was used; the clacking of this keyboard against the birds I hear outside would be fair game, an old broken bike turned upside down and pedaled with a stick playing percussion on the wheel and chain -- you name it. (Su-Ling Miles). Bunny   Who are some of your favorite artists, and how would you describe their contributions to the music in terms of an artistic discipline besides music? David    Joni Mitchell is a great musician who is also a painter, and to me, it is all one vision, two sides of a coin. I love all good music, and think all genres have some. Of course it is subjective, but I know it when I hear it. Louis Armstrong, Sonny Rollins, Django Reinhardt, Bird -- the usual culprits. They all lived their art in particular ways, and I think that their lives reflected it. Bunny   A person who is probably the epitome of that is Lester Young, with his eccentric ways -- the porkpie hats, and his unusual way of speaking (and renaming people, such as "Lady Day" for Billie Holiday) that only he fully understood.  To me, he seemed sort of like a wandering soul through life -- but then he'd pick up that sax and just rip your heart out with his clarity of communication.  The same could be said about Monk, who also had that artist's eccentricity about him. David   They probably ate spaghetti with style and counted the rhythm as they munched. Bunny   Tuning each noodle to its own unique frequency... I think it's interesting how a lot of jazz musicians are also artists in some other way: George Gershwin was a painter, bassist Paul Chambers was a sculptor, one of Benny Goodman's most favorite past times was visiting art museums in every city he traveled to, and Artie Shaw has written a couple of collections of short essays or stories, as I recall. There's plenty others though, even outside of jazz -- John Lennon comes to mind especially.  I always thought of him as the most artistically aware and genuine of the Beatles, a fine modern example of a true artist. Todd Rundgren -- if not necessarily active in art outside of music  -- more than makes up for it with his masterful musical artistry, like empty aural space is his canvas and sound is his medium. (Lost Horizon). David   An artist is an artist is an artist is my opinion. I imagine if Picasso wasn't tone deaf he would've made a significant contribution to jazz. Bunny    (Laughs) Now there's an interesting concept -- artists as musicians. I've always thought that Salvador Dali might have made a good eclectic musician; he might have played some bizarre or uncommon instrument and made musical revelations as yet unknown to man. I think, though, that he probably wouldn't have been very successful commercially, but would have been extremely dedicated to musical integrity. Personally I see Picasso as perhaps expanding on the modal jazz movement of the fifties -- his cubism reminds me of the straightforward lines of pared down jazz. And finally, I think Bill Evans is the jazz musician Debussy -- or even Monet -- would have been had they lived during the past sixty years. Joni Mitchell: Banquet, 1973 _____ Chelsea Morning * photo by Daniel Filipacchi Lester Young _____ All of Me * Monet: On the Bank of the Seine, Bennecourt, 1868 _____ Love Theme From 'Spartacus' Spring Is Here by Bill Evans _____________________________________________ *The           Fire A million shades of bland ripe perfection succulent to the       cornea, ebullient polychromatic shape festivals parading back n forth through the mirrors never in focus bits of desire that burn in the fire. by David Newman * David Newman's Web Site ______________________________   Peace is the word, Bunny * "Bunny M." is a seventeen-year-old Dallas resident who plays drums, piano and clarinet.  Her passion for jazz and the challenges she faces as a youthful fan of it is the focus of her Jerry Jazz Musician column, "Accent on Youth." You can contact Bunny at: lotusflower1922@hotmail.com * Accent on Youth archive