Jazz & European avant garde

[cih]

John Richardson describes Picasso’s ‘La Danse’ as depicting a charleston (the artist was presumably much more interested in this visual aspect than the music that accompanied it) - anyway I went looking for references to jazz in 1920s European art circles (just out of a 'separate' interest in both), I found this 2004 article...'Jazz as Decal for the European Avant-Garde'

Can anyone recommend anything further that provides a comparison/analysis of these two sides of modernism and where they intersect or overlap - Or... even just something about jazz in Paris in the twenties... how was it regarded by the mainstream?

Re. La Danse - the nature of this picture does change somewhat when viewed as a jazzy dance I think

Edited July 5, 2010 by cih

[cih]

ok, relax - stop searching everyone... found what I'm looking for: Art Uber Alles

[Big Beat Steve]

John Richardson describes Picasso’s ‘La Danse’ as depicting a charleston (the artist was presumably much more interested in this visual aspect than the music that accompanied it) - anyway I went looking for references to jazz in European art circles (just out of a 'separate' interest in both), I found this 2004 article...'Jazz as Decal for the European Avant-Garde'

Can anyone recommend anything further that provides a comparison/analysis of these two sides of modernism and where they intersect or overlap - Or... even just something about jazz in Paris in the twenties... how was it regarded by the mainstream?

If you ain't checked out this ...

http://www.amazon.fr/Si%C3%A8cle-jazz-musique-photographie-Basquiat/dp/2081224240/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1278346218&sr=8-1

... you ain't seen much yet.

At any rate, this should answer most of your questions.

[AllenLowe]

the book The Banquet Years by Roger Shattuck addresses your questions in an indirect way - it's a brilliant look at the early Euro avant garde, Jarry, Satie, Picasso, Stravinksy, Dada, and more, and sets the whole stage for artistic turbulence in 20th century arts movements. I think it's quite essential; for me it also addresses the cross-disciplinary issue of what it means to be engaged with both performance/composition and critical approaches to performance/composition. By doing so, it also addresses what I perceived to be the anti-intellectual tendencies of the jazz world, especially as personified by the anti-intellectual surface intellectualism of the whole Crouch-Marsalis school.

this may seem far afield from your initial question, above, but really I think it's not.

Edited July 5, 2010 by AllenLowe

[Joe]

Have not read it, but heard good to mixed reviews of the following:

Jazz Modernism: From Ellington and Armstrong to Matisse and Joyce by Alfred Appel

http://www.amazon.com/Jazz-Modernism-Ellington-Armstrong-Matisse/dp/0300102739

[AllenLowe]

not that great, but just my opinion - sort of a a conservative approach to jazz history disguised as progressive - as it really only sees pre-avant garde jazz as related to the classic concept of the 20th century avant garde (sic).

[cih]

Thanks for all the recommendations - I've ordered the Shattuck book initially, because in fact my question (which I altered several times and still mangled) originally asked for an antidote to the writing of people like Franklin Rosemont and his Chicago surrealists (including Paul Garon)- and Roger Shattuck had a run-in with them in the pages of the New York Review of Books, so seems ideal.

I really should have read this kind of background stuff at college years ago but always went for the primary sources, which is great but you end up with only partisan points of view, and it's surprisingly difficult to break away from that false ideal.

[AllenLowe]

is that the blues Paul Garon? He's a bit of an ideologue -