The Hearing Eye
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$99.00 (06)Description
The widespread presence of jazz and blues in African American visual art has long been overlooked. The Hearing Eye makes the case for recognizing the music's importance, both as formal template and as explicit subject matter. Moving on from the use of iconic musical figures and motifs in Harlem Renaissance art, this groundbreaking collection explores the more allusive - and elusive - references to jazz and blues in a wide range of mostly contemporary visual artists.There are scholarly essays on the painters Rose Piper (Graham Lock), Norman Lewis (Sara Wood), Bob Thompson (Richard H. King), Romare Bearden (Robert G. O'Meally, Johannes Völz) and Jean-Michel Basquiat (Robert Farris Thompson), as well an account of early blues advertising art (Paul Oliver) and a discussion of the photographs of Roy DeCarava (Richard Ings). These essays are interspersed with a series of in-depth interviews by Graham Lock, who talks to quilter Michael Cummings and painters Sam Middleton, Wadsworth Jarrell, Joe Overstreet and Ellen Banks about their musical inspirations, and also looks at art's reciprocal effect on music in conversation with saxophonists Marty Ehrlich and Jane Ira Bloom.
With numerous illustrations both in the book and on its companion website, The Hearing Eye reaffirms the significance of a fascinating and dynamic aspect of African American visual art that has been too long neglected.
Features
- First book-length collection about jazz and blues influences in African American visual art
- Gives overdue attention to some important artists (especially painters Rose Piper, Norman Lewis and Joe Overstreet and photographer Roy DeCarava)
- Numerous illustrations, many in full color
- Powerful corrective to the "white-washing" of links between music and visual art
- Shows how America's music has been folded into core cultural production on a global level
- Written by top-notch scholars in the field
Reviews
"The volume features many attractive plates, supplemented by additional artwork and relevant musical tracks available on the press website. The book makes a convincing case that these artists share much common ground with jazz, particularly in reference to racial politics, a propensity for improvisation and the high value placed on developing a distinctive 'personal' voice."--ll About Jazz-New York
Product Details
384 pages; 51 color illus., 17 halftones; 8 x 10; ISBN13: 978-0-19-534050-1ISBN10: 0-19-534050-7About the Author(s)
Graham Lock
is a freelance writer, Special Lecturer in American Music, University of Nottingham, and author, Forces in Motion: Anthony Braxton and the Meta-reality of Creative Music
(Quartet, 1988), Chasing the Vibration: Meetings with Creative Musicians
(Stride, 1994), and Blutopia: Visions of the Future and Revisions of the Past in the Work of Sun Ra, Duke Ellington and Anthony Braxton
(Duke, 1999), and editor, Mixtery: A Festschrift for Anthony Braxton
(Stride, 1995).
David Murray
is Professor of American Studies, University of Nottingham, and author, Indian Giving: Economies of Power in Early Indian-White Exchanges
(Massachusetts UP, 2000), Forked Tongues: Speech, Writing and Representation in North American Indian Texts
(Indiana UP, 1992), and Matter, Magic and Spirit: Representing Indian and African American Belief
(Pennsylvania UP, 2007).
