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"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 
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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
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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.
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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.
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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
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Sunday Morning Breakfast, 1967
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Thank You...For F.U.M.L. (Funking Up My Life), 1978 |
Jim Rotundi
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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
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Chelsea
Morning
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photo by Daniel Filipacchi
Lester Young
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All of Me
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Monet: On the Bank of the Seine, Bennecourt, 1868
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Love Theme From 'Spartacus'
Spring Is Here
by Bill Evans |
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| *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
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David Newman's Web Site
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Peace is the word,
Bunny
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"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
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Accent on Youth archive
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