Seeing Jazz: Artists and Writers on Jazz

Smithsonian Institution Traveling Exhibition Service
(San Francisco: Chronicle Books, 1997).
ISBN 0-8118-1732-6.

Reviewed by Roy R. Behrens

Some people are capable of"synaesthesia," which results in a kind of connection among the various senses. The Russian painter Wassily Kandinsky, for example, often heard specific sounds when looking at colors, or saw colors when listening to sounds. The intent of this book is not dissimilar, in the sense that it tries to establish a link between the musical experience of jazz and the sensory experiences of other art forms, including painting, sculpture, photography, and the written word. The result is a kaleidoscopic assortment of more than 160 visual artworks, anecdotes, poems, lyrics, and jazz-related writings, including, for example, four Romare Bearden collages; Piet Mondrian's famous Broadway Boogie Woogie; Lee Friedlander's photograph of Sweet Emma Barnett; and poignant excerpts from Ralph Ellison's The Invisible Man and Jack Kerouac's The Beginning of Bop. Divided into three sections (Rhythm, Improvisation, and Call and Response), each introduced by a brief essay by Jazz scholar Robert O'Meally, this is the catalog for a traveling exhibition that began at the Smithsonian in October 1997 and will travel around the country until July 1999.