The marriage of Jazz and Art

The improvisational element of jazz is embodied in the techniques and visual language employed by artists whose style encompasses abstract expressionism. The urban nightclubs where the alto saxophonist Charlie Parker and the trumpeter Dizzy Gillespie played were frequented by artists and writers, and as a number of them came to prominence as members of the New York School of Abstract Expressionism or the Beat generation, the influence of the beboppers and improvisational playing on their work was quite evident. A perfect example is Larry Rivers’s famous 1958 oil painting ”The Drummer,” the lines and colors seem to reverberate, in that painting, as they repeat and stretch across the canvas, creating an illusion that viewers are not only seeing but also hearing the musician.