Chasing Paint - High-Quality Acrylic Paint Set for Artists & DIY Crafts | Perfect for Canvas Painting, Home Decor & Creative Projects

Product Description In 2001 soprano saxophonist/ composer Jane Ira Bloom received a Doris Duke/ Chamber Music America Jazz Composition award to create a suite of compositions for her quartet seeking inspiration from the action paintings of Jackson Pollock. The piece entitled, Chasing Paint, which debuted at the Museum of Fine Arts in Houston in March 2002, captivated audiences with Bloom's interpretation of the motion and spontaneity in six Pollock canvases. Immediately after this performance, Jane brought the quartet into the studio to record Chasing Paint. The result from breathtaking melodies to arching free styling solos, Bloom and pianist Fred Hersch, basssist Mark Dresser, and drummer Bobby Previte create a musical canvas rich in feeling giving melodic shape to the energy and motion of Pollock's work. Bloom literally sculpts ideas with her saxophone attaining an almost telepathic interplay with her quartet, an ensemble that critic Bob Blumenthal described as "fearless musical explorers who share a commitment to beauty and adventure." Review "A great example of an artist in one field channeling the language of another with brilliant results." -- Detroit Free Press, 2003"Bloom and Hersch dazzle with the variety of their near telepathic interaction" -- NY Daily News, 2003"Her passionate interpretation provides insight into Pollock. . . It's as if (he) were directing the notes that fly from her horn." -- Jim Santella, All About Jazz, 2003 Jim Santella, All About Jazz"Music of absolutely mesmerizing grandeur" -- Tim Price, Saxophone Journal, 2003"The flash, motion and unexpected movement spills out of this CD like it does from the paintings which inspired it." -- Jim Wilke, Jazzbeat KPLU, April 16, 2003Given soprano saxophonist Jane Ira Bloom's interest in movement and the physical side of musical creation as well as her pioneering use of live electronics to shape her improvisations, it should come as no surprise that she should be interested in or inspired by the work of painter Jackson Pollock. Her latest CD, Chasing Paint, is a suite of music that aims to recreate the way that Pollock pushed paint around a canvas by allowing her quartet (Bloom, pianist Fred Hersch, bassist Mark Dresser, and drummer Bobby Previt) to move sound around the group in a sonically similar fashion. The results are fascinating and make for a provocative and challenging listening experience. Ultimately, you'll be glad you took the trip with Bloom and her band. The concept that Bloom is working with here is a heady and potentially rewarding one, since Pollack often sought to create visual art that mimicked the movement of sound. Now Bloom seeks to take the visual interpretation and interpret it again into sound, providing something like the sounds inside the artist's head that would have inspired the paintings in the first place. In lesser hands, this type of project could have become so dense and theory-laden that it never would have gotten off the ground, but Bloom is an uncommonly talented composer and improviser, and she's working with an amazingly sensitive and closely attuned group of musicians. The result is music that, while never facile, provides the listener with a unique experience and allows another way of understanding Pollock's work. Indeed, it may be easier for those who are attuned to sound to approach Pollock's paintings with the insight that Bloom's music provides.There is also never an attempt to provide an overly literal translation of Pollock's work. Instead, Bloom and company seem to take the kinetic energy, the color, and other elements of Pollock's entire oeuvre and render a sonic portrait that is much more of a treatise on all of Pollock's work rather than an interpretation of any individual painting. Nor is there an overabundance of concentration on the physical aspects, the energy, and the very masculine nature of Pollock's work. It's all there, to be sure, but it is balanced by the more introspective elements as well, without which the paintings would merely be pastiches of themselves. Listen, for example, to Bloom's playing at the beginning of the third track, "The Sweetest Sounds," which is meditative without being either tentative or outright boring, at the same time reminding the listener that Jane Ira Bloom is one of the best soprano saxophonists around. She is able to take an instrument that can either sound remarkably harsh (a la Coltrane at times) or incredibly saccharine (Kenny G) and makes it not only beautiful, but truly distinctive member of the saxophone family, defining its sound the way Ben Webster and Lester Young defined the tenor, Charlie Parker defined the alto, and Gerry Mulligan defined the baritone sax.Most importantly, Chasing Paint is a joy to listen to. The music here is restless and relentlessly inventive, and it leaves the listener wanting more. The connection between Abstract Expressionism and Free Jazz ought to be somewhat apparent, but it's easy for both the visual and aural form of this expression to become clichéd and hackneyed. Not only that, but both Abstract Expressionism and Free Jazz can be treated as museum pieces, artistic relics of a bygone era that no longer breathe or can be molded into something new. Bloom rejects this approach, building on both Pollack's ideas and the deconstructions of her Free Jazz forbears to move the concepts she is embodying forward into the present. That allows the music she and her cohorts create here to be appreciated completely separately from its context. It certainly enriches the listeners' enjoyment to know that this is music inspired by the work of Jackson Pollock and to have some understanding of that work, but it is not strictly necessary. From a purely musical point of view, Chasing Paint has its own pleasures to offer, and they would make this one of the most interesting jazz/improvisational music releases so far this year whether the connection to Jackson Pollock existed or not. -- Jazzitude From the Artist I've composed a suite of compositions inspired by the action paintings of artist Jackson Pollock where the performers create an effect as if they were "painting the sound." The piece is scored for quartet including soprano saxophone and live electronics, piano, bass, and drums. Try to imagine a jazz quartet that physically moves sound around the band like paint and you have an idea of what I'm after. The unusual melodic lines and doppleresque horn effects that I use are part of a musical vocabulary that I have shared and developed with my ensemble over many years. About the Artist Soprano saxophonist/composer Jane Ira Bloom has been steadfastly developing her unique voice on the soprano saxophone for over 30 years. She is a pioneer in the use of live electronics and movement in jazz, as well as the possessor of "one of the most gorgeous tones and hauntingly lyrical ballad conceptions of any soprano saxophonist - Pulse." Her continuing commitment to "pushing the envelope" in her music has led to collaborations with such outstanding jazz artists as Kenny Wheeler, Charlie Haden, Ed Blackwell, Rufus Reid, Billy Hart, Bob Brookmeyer, Julian Priester, Jerry Granelli, Jay Clayton, Matt Wilson, Mark Dresser, Bobby Previte, & Fred Hersch. She was awarded a 2007 Guggenheim Fellowship in music composition. Winner of the 2007 Mary Lou Williams Women In Jazz Award for lifetime achievement in jazz, the Jazz Journalists Award and Downbeat International Critics Poll for soprano saxophone and the Charlie Parker Fellowship for Jazz Innovation, she is the first musician ever commissioned by the NASA Art Program, and was also honored by having an asteroid named in her honor by the International Astronomical Union (asteroid 6083janeirabloom).
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