ABOUT ART/JAZZ
Art/Jazz is a multimedia show mixing a performance of modern acoustic jazz accompanying slides of artwork with ambient avant-garde background music and artists' quotes on slide.
On one side of the stage is a screen, on the other side a four piece jazz group, The Matt Kendrick Unit, is staged. As the audience enters, there is taped ambient music of low drones and jungle sounds playing while a slide with the words Art/Jazz within a colorful design is displayed on the screen. The show begins when a slide with a quote about art is shown. This quote is by the artist whose work is about to be shown. The audience reads the quote and thinks about it for a minute or so. The ambient music is still playing. The quotes are short, but very powerful. Next, a slide of the first artwork is projected. At the same time the slide comes up the taped music ends and the live jazz group begins its first piece. This piece, of course, is based on and written for the first artwork. After the piece, the next quote is put up and the ambient music starts again. After the next song we like to do something a little different. We get the presenter to chose a slide from their collection or a local artist or whatever. The band does not get to see it or even know what it is. That work comes up on the screen and the musicians do an improvisation on the artwork, whatever it is. We explain this to the audience and they find it very interesting how it will come out. We can even discuss the process briefly, after the piece, when appropriate. After this another quote comes up and the ambient music starts again. Then a slide of the next artwork and the next piece by the group. Then intermission. This has proven to be very effective for many performances. The audience is taken on a trip of sight and sound, viewing and hearing, art and jazz, like they never have before. The quotes add an intellectual dimension that help people understand and consider or reconsider the creative process. We also have an interactive version of Art/Jazz for use with children and young adults. A lesson plan is available.
Art/Jazz Past Performances
Music was commissioned and composed for artworks from the galleries of these museums and then performed there.
The North Carolina Museum of Art
The Mint Museum of Art (Charlotte N.C.)
The Hunter Museum of Art (Chattanooga T.N.)
The Knoxville Museum of Art
The Reynolda House Museum of American Art (Winston-Salem N.C.)
Art/Jazz has been performed in many other venues.
Critical Quotes
Just when a reviewer begins to think there's nothing new in jazz themes, here is acoustic bassist Matt Kendrick. I listened again and again to the eight original compositions while viewing high-quality color photos of the art works that inspired them.
-- JazzTimes
I get the same eerie feeling from "The Old Artist" as I do from Leonard Baskin's ink-on-paper study of a dark face with gleaming eyes that suggests a death's head. Synaesthetically, this is the cut that really works for me.
-- Cadence
Hardbop, bebop, swing, avant-garde, free jazz, everything passes by in a tasteful row, played by unknown but very good musicians. Art/Jazz is published on Kendrick's own small record label but to me it seems very understandable for the major record companies to incorporate this band. There has to be a large audience to find for such refreshing jazz.
-- Jazz Nu
Eight challenging, highly improvised sonic canvases-Since the accompanying booklet includes full color reproductions, you too can experience the collision of sight and sound that occurred inside Kendrick's head.
-- Independent Weekly
An indication of where some talented musicians are taking modern Jazz today and as an example off the homegrown talent being nurtured in N.C.
- The Charlotte Observer
Matt Kendrick’s performance made you hear and see things beyond the notes and musicians themselves. He kept expressive dreams, youthful enthusiasm and the tug of musical structure in perfect focus, perfect balance.
- The Raleigh News and Observer
Kendrick, an extraordinarily talented bassman-composer.
- Durham Herald Sun
Kendrick, you see, is the most promising jazz composer in the state. In fact, the N.C. Art Council just awarded him a Jazz Composer Fellowship for the second time.
- Independent Weekly
This N.C.-produced effort, truth is, compares favorably to similar, higher-profile efforts by the Marsalis Brothers and Terence Blanchard & Donald Harrison. In other words, Matt Kendrick has most definitely has arrived.
- Spectator Magazine