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May Issue 2005
Charleston Music Hall in Charleston,
SC, Features Art & Jazz
John Duckworth
Imagine seeing what a jazz composition would look like if it had physical form and what artwork might sound like This synergy is what world-renowned jazz drummer Quentin Baxter and acclaimed artist John Duckworth aim to create with their upcoming show Art Moves Jazz. Set to take place at the Charleston Music Hall in Charleston, SC, on May 7, 2005 the celebration will depict the four seasons in the Lowcountry with live jazz composed specifically for the event by Baxter and an original film featuring Duckworth's artwork series, Landscape Abstracts.
"We're going to take people on a sensory journey...," says Duckworth. "Our aim is elevate our individual art forms through collaboration to morph jazz and art into a truly unique performance."
A jazz trio, featuring Quentin Baxter on Drums; St. Helena, SC's Delbert Felix on Stand-Up Bass; and Atlanta, GA's Kebbi Williams on Tenor Saxophone, will play four original compositions (one for each season; with some improvisation) in the foreground, as an oversized screen displays an original film by John Duckworth, behind the band.
With this series, and his film, Duckworth focuses on the reduction of photographic images to the bare essentials - eliminating the details and leaving only the essence of the scene. The resulting images blur the lines between photography and painting. The images are abstract, but the reference to the landscape, the changing of the seasons and the subtle shifts in color and light is readily apparent. And according to Baxter, the music composition incorporates these elements and highlights the emotional essence of Duckworth's landscape abstracts.
"It was a wild experience to depict each other's work through our own art form," says Baxter. "I can't wait to share the finished product with an audience."
In an effort to celebrate both the visual arts and the musical components of the event, Art Moves Jazz has partnered with the Gibbes Museum of Art and The Charleston Jazz Initiative. A portion of the proceeds from sales of Duckworth's Landscape Abstracts will benefit the Gibbes Museum of Art, and share of the sales from Baxter's Art Moves Jazz CDs will benefit The Charleston Jazz Initiative.
Charleston artist John Duckworth's latest series, Landscape Abstracts, are Abstract impressionist renderings of the Lowcountry landscape, blending his passion for painting, photography and nature. These limited edition prints are available on paper and canvas in series or as standalone works of artwork. Over the past five years, Duckworth's paintings and photographs have been sold to collectors in New York, Charlotte, Los Angeles, Seattle, Atlanta, Charleston, and Canada.
Internationally renowned drummer Quentin Baxter regularly plays venues across the United States, Japan, Australia, Europe and South America. His recent major label recordings include work on Telarc and MaxJazz with pianist Monty Alexander and vocalist Rene Marie, respectively. Baxter is an Assistant Professor of music at the College of Charleston.
The Gibbes Museum of Art is dedicated to the cultivation of arts and arts education in the greater Charleston metropolitan area. Featuring artists and images from the Colonial period through today, the Gibbes's permanent collection of over 10,000 paintings, sculptures, prints and photographs provides a dynamic history of the visual arts in the Lowcountry. From 1905 through 2005, the Gibbes Museum of Art has emphasized building connections between art and life, between the past, present and future through the visual arts.
The Charleston Jazz Initiative began in 2003 as a multi-year research effort of The Avery Institute. The initiative's mission is to research, document and interpret, and archive the African American jazz tradition in Charleston and the SC Lowcountry, and it's movement throughout the jazz world between the late 19th Century and today. The Charleston Jazz Initiative fulfills this mission by recording oral histories, collecting documentary material, presenting public programs and archiving its findings.
Tickets are $17.50 and are available at the door, online at (www.artmovesjazz.com) and through ETIX (www.etix.com). The performance is sponsored in part by the Bennett Hofford Company.
For more information, please visit: (www.artmovesjazz.com).
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