Improvisation in Jazz and Art

After reading two books on jazz…

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Gillaume: I finished two books on jazz: Ted Gioia’s How to Listen to Jazz and Herbie Hancock’s Possibilities.

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Max: Worthy works. What did you think?

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Gillaume: Ted’s was from the outside looking in, Herbie’s was from the inside looking out. I learned a lot. Especially about improvisation, about the players having to be ready to be ready to change direction at any time.

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Max: Jazz is incredibly broad. There are really uncountable ways of playing it. That’s maybe why Herbie titled his book “Possibilities.”

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Gillaume: And then there’s an album: Miles Davis - The Picasso of Jazz. And I wondered if Picasso was into jazz. I mean his paintings of the three musicians.

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Max: Maybe not so much. Picasso was very focused on visual art.

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Voice-over

That said, Picasso’s two paintings, both called The Three Musicians, representing as they did three artist friends, there is a jazz-like quality about them. Not just the instruments. Picasso was a great improviser. Maybe that’s what he had in common with jazz greats like Miles Davis.

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Reduction in Jazz and Painting

Picasso: Three Musicians

A jazz elder and an art critic compare blue notes…

Jazz Elder: Jazz is about simplifying. Play a bunch of notes, take out the ones you don’t need. Just leave the pretty ones. That’s what Miles said.

Art Critic: Like an artist simplifies all the clutter in a scene to its essentials, a few lines, a few colors. That’s what Pablo said.

Jazz Elder: And twelve basic notes can generate an infinite number of sounds.

Art Critic: A few lines can suggest an infinite number of shapes and three primary colors can generate millions of shades.
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Voice-over
A parallel conversation. Both saying the same thing. Quoting their gurus. Reaching the same conclusion. Manifestum est reductionem.
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Altamira

Henri chats to Emilie along the Rue de Rivoli.

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Henri: You draw diagrams?

Emilie: For books, manuals, yes.

Henri: Art for instructional purposes.

Emilie: More instruction than art.

Henri: Do you ever paint just for pleasure?

Emilie: Sometimes. Recently I…

Henri: Yes?

Emilie: Oh, nothing.

Henri: Go on.

Emilie: Well, I painted a bison.

Henri: For…instructional purposes?

Emilie: The cave paintings at Altamira show how it’s done, to show what it was like, to capture the method and the dangers, of hunting. I was drawn to this first example of … an illustrated manual.

Henri: Nice.

Emilie: I don’t usually draw for pleasure.

Henri: Did you find, like Picasso, that after Altamira all is decadence?

Emilie: Picasso was given to overstatement.

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Voiceover

It helps clarify our minds to explain why we do something. Henri may be following the kind of conversation that might occur in a film by Truffaut or Bresson. But his probing and encouragement suggest something is at the back of his mind. One wonders whether his recollection of Picasso’s remark was truly spontaneous or germinated as a subscript.

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