Sunday, February 27, 2011

Untitled


T. Renner, "Untitled," 2011, acrylic on paper, 4" x 6".

Saturday, February 26, 2011

Untitled


T. Renner, "Untitled," 2011, acrylic on paper, 4" x 6".

Friday, February 25, 2011

Why Can't I Find the Egress?


T. Renner, "Why Can't I Find the Egress? (for P.T. Barnum)," 2011, acrylic on paper, 4" x 6".

Thursday, February 24, 2011

Why Can't I Get Rich Quick?

T. Renner, "Why Can't I Get Rich Quick? (for Sigmar Polke and Ivy Cooper)," 2011, acrylic on paper, 6" x 4".

Wednesday, February 23, 2011

Untitled

T. Renner, "Untitled," 2011, acrylic on paper, 4" x 5".

Tuesday, February 22, 2011

Improvisation for Alban Berg

T. Renner, "Improvisation for Alban Berg," 2011, acrylic on paper, 4" x 6".

Monday, February 21, 2011

Ursa Major

T. Renner, "Ursa Major," 2011, acrylic on paper, 6" x 4".

Saturday, February 19, 2011

Untitled

T. Renner, "Untitled," 2011, acrylic on paper, 4" x 6".

Friday, February 18, 2011

Untitled

T. Renner, "Untitled," 2011, acrylic on paper, 4" x 6".

Thursday, February 17, 2011

Improvisation for George Shearing & Jack Kerouac #2

T. Renner, "Improvisation for George Shearing & Jack Kerouac #2," 2011, acrylic on paper, 6" x 4".

Jazz pianist George Shearing passed away on February 15. Shearing was 91. The Los Angeles Times said:
George Shearing, the elegant pianist who expanded the boundaries of jazz by adding an orchestral sensibility and a mellow aesthetic to the music, has died. He was 91.

Shearing died Monday of congestive heart failure at Lenox Hill Hospital in New York, said his manager, Dale Sheets. Shearing had not performed publicly since taking a fall at his New York City apartment in 2004, but he continued playing piano.
Jack Kerouac's On the Road has several passages describing jazz performances. Here's one on George Shearing performing at Birdland:
Dean and I went to see Shearing at Birdland in the midst of the long, mad weekend. The place was deserted, we were the first customers, ten o'clock. Shearing came out, blind, led by the hand to his keyboard. He was a distinguished-looking Englishman with a stiff white collar, slightly beefy, blond, with a delicate English-summer's-night air about him that came out in the first rippling sweet number he played as the bass-player leaned to him reverently and thrummed the beat. The drummer, Denzil Best, sat motionless except for his wrists snapping the brushes. And Shearing began to rock; a smile broke over his ecstatic face; he began to rock in the piano seat, back and forth, slowly at first, then the beat went up, and he began rocking fast, his left foot jumped up with every beat, his neck began to rock crookedly, he brought his face down to the keys, he pushed his hair back, his combed hair dissolved, he began to sweat. The music picked up. The bass-player hunched over and socked it in, faster and faster, it seemed faster and faster, that's all. Shearing began to play his chords; they rolled out of the piano in great rich showers, you'd think the man wouldn't have time to line them up. They rolled and rolled like the sea. Folks yelled for him to "Go!" Dean was sweating; the sweat poured down his collar. "There he is! That's him! Old God! Old God Shearing! Yes! Yes! Yes!" And Shearing was conscious of the madman behind him, he could hear every one of Dean's gasps and imprecations, he could sense it though he couldn't see. "That's right!" Dean said. "Yes!" Shearing smiled, he rocked. Shearing rose from the piano, dripping with sweat; these were his great 1949 days before he became cool and commercial. When he was gone Dean pointed to the empty piano seat. "God's empty chair," he said. On the piano a horn sat; its golden shadow made a strange reflection along the desert caravan painted on the wall behind the drums. God was gone; it was the silence of his departure. It was a rainy night. It was the myth of the rainy night. Dean was popeyed with awe. This madness would lead nowhere.

Wednesday, February 16, 2011

Improvisation for George Shearing & Jack Kerouac #1

T. Renner, "Improvisation for George Shearing & Jack Kerouac #1," 2011, acrylic on paper, 6" x 4".

Jazz pianist George Shearing passed away on February 15. Shearing was 91. The Los Angeles Times said:
George Shearing, the elegant pianist who expanded the boundaries of jazz by adding an orchestral sensibility and a mellow aesthetic to the music, has died. He was 91.

Shearing died Monday of congestive heart failure at Lenox Hill Hospital in New York, said his manager, Dale Sheets. Shearing had not performed publicly since taking a fall at his New York City apartment in 2004, but he continued playing piano.
Jack Kerouac's On the Road has several passages describing jazz performances. Here's one on George Shearing performing at Birdland:
Dean and I went to see Shearing at Birdland in the midst of the long, mad weekend. The place was deserted, we were the first customers, ten o'clock. Shearing came out, blind, led by the hand to his keyboard. He was a distinguished-looking Englishman with a stiff white collar, slightly beefy, blond, with a delicate English-summer's-night air about him that came out in the first rippling sweet number he played as the bass-player leaned to him reverently and thrummed the beat. The drummer, Denzil Best, sat motionless except for his wrists snapping the brushes. And Shearing began to rock; a smile broke over his ecstatic face; he began to rock in the piano seat, back and forth, slowly at first, then the beat went up, and he began rocking fast, his left foot jumped up with every beat, his neck began to rock crookedly, he brought his face down to the keys, he pushed his hair back, his combed hair dissolved, he began to sweat. The music picked up. The bass-player hunched over and socked it in, faster and faster, it seemed faster and faster, that's all. Shearing began to play his chords; they rolled out of the piano in great rich showers, you'd think the man wouldn't have time to line them up. They rolled and rolled like the sea. Folks yelled for him to "Go!" Dean was sweating; the sweat poured down his collar. "There he is! That's him! Old God! Old God Shearing! Yes! Yes! Yes!" And Shearing was conscious of the madman behind him, he could hear every one of Dean's gasps and imprecations, he could sense it though he couldn't see. "That's right!" Dean said. "Yes!" Shearing smiled, he rocked. Shearing rose from the piano, dripping with sweat; these were his great 1949 days before he became cool and commercial. When he was gone Dean pointed to the empty piano seat. "God's empty chair," he said. On the piano a horn sat; its golden shadow made a strange reflection along the desert caravan painted on the wall behind the drums. God was gone; it was the silence of his departure. It was a rainy night. It was the myth of the rainy night. Dean was popeyed with awe. This madness would lead nowhere.

Tuesday, February 15, 2011

St. Louis Cardinal

T. Renner, "St. Louis Cardinal," 2011, digital photograph.

Saturday, February 12, 2011

Improvisation for Blossom Dearie


T. Renner, "Improvisation for Blossom Dearie," 2009, acrylic on paper, 6" x 4.5".

Originally posted 2/10/09.

Wednesday, February 9, 2011

"Kiki of Montparnasse" is On the Auction Block, Friday, February 11


I'm donating "Kiki of Montparnasse," to a fund-raising auction for Tim Meehan's "Mom's Project". Tim is raising money to pay an editor for his video installation project on moms. The auction will be held from 7:30 to 11:00 p.m. on Friday, February 11, at Schlafly Bottleworks, 7260 Southwest Avenue, in Maplewood.

Framed and matted "Kiki" is 8" x 10", and the starting bid will be $25.

Tuesday, February 8, 2011

Imaginary Landscape (Monoprint)

(SOLD) T. Renner, "Imaginary Landscape (Monoprint)," 2011, oil on canvas, 12" x 9". (SOLD)

Monday, February 7, 2011

Improvisation for Paul Motian #2

T. Renner, "Improvisation for Paul Motian #2," 2011, acrylic on paper, 6" x 4".

Paul Motian (born March 5, 1931, died November 22, 2011)
obituary from the Guardian:
The American percussionist, composer and bandleader Paul Motian, who has died aged 80, was perhaps most famous for enhancing the work of a brilliant jazz pianist. This he did not just once, but three times: in Bill Evans's pioneering trio from 1959 to 1962, over the next two years with Paul Bley, and then with Keith Jarrett from 1966 to 1977. Motian added "beautiful" to the adjectives associated with the drummer's art, and was much in demand by the most adventurous jazz improvisers.

The saxophonists Joe Lovano, Joshua Redman, Chris Potter and Tim Berne had their ideas unobtrusively reshaped by Motian. So did the guitarists Bill Frisell and the Austrian Wolfgang Muthspiel, the bassist-bandleader Charlie Haden – Motian was for some years the drummer in Haden's rousing Liberation Music Orchestra – and the pianists Geri Allen, Alan Pasqua and Marilyn Crispell. The careers of Lovano and Frisell gathered pace during their creative apprenticeships with the drummer, which began for both of them in 1981 and ran on through the 1990s.

Motian's method lay between the supply of texture, colour and rhythm that a classical percussionist sporadically injects and the groove-laying drive of a jazz drummer. If swing was needed, he could swing superbly, though often with darkly whispering cymbal sonorities and low-pitched kick-drum sounds of his own. But his innovations really lay in a conversational, instantly reactive approach.

In rethinking the connection between the rhythmic pulse and the improvised melodies unfolding around him, Motian was as significant a drummer as Charlie Parker's partner Max Roach had been in the 1940s, and played a key role in transforming the sound of small jazz ensembles from the 1970s on. As a composer, he produced original material of quietly persuasive character that offered irresistible invitations to improvisers – beginning with the album Conception Vessel (1972), with Jarrett on flute or impressionistically free-jazzy piano, and Haden in the lineup.

Motian (pronounced "motion") had Armenian ancestry, was born in Philadelphia and raised in Providence, Rhode Island, taking up drums at the age of 12. After serving in the navy during the Korean war, he studied music at the navy school of music in Washington until 1954, and then at the Manhattan School of Music. He also began working with leading figures, including the composer-arrangers Gil Evans and George Russell, Thelonious Monk, the saxophonists Stan Getz, Zoot Sims and Al Cohn – and in 1958 with such architects of the low-key "cool school" style as the pianist Lennie Tristano and the saxophonist Warne Marsh.

Motian also met Evans, classically trained and a student of Tristano's dynamically restrained, extended-improv methods, and played on Evans's debut album, New Jazz Conceptions (1956). Evans's trio with Motian and the bassist Scott LaFaro was noted for its collaborative and spontaneously contrapuntal approach. When the 18-year-old Manfred Eicher heard it in New York in 1961, the experience inspired him to found, eight years later, the influential ECM record label, in order to document a new kind of improvised, jazz-influenced chamber music.

Though his employers included more orthodox artists such as the blues singer-pianist Mose Allison (1965), Motian gravitated increasingly towards free jazz. Through the self-help Jazz Composers' Orchestra Association, he worked with the saxophonist Ornette Coleman, the trumpeter Don Cherry and the composer Carla Bley, another figure associated with the Liberation Music Orchestra. Motian also began touring his own music from 1977 – at first in trios including the saxophonist Charles Brackeen, and from 1981 in a highly creative threesome with Lovano and Frisell. The group stunningly re-examined the music from Conception Vessel on It Should've Happened a Long Time Ago (1984), explored a shared devotion to the work of Monk in Misterioso (1986) and recast standard songs in launching the On Broadway series of recordings that continued with various lineups into Motian's last years. Sound of Love (1995), a live session from Village Vanguard, New York, confirmed the trio's continuing creativity.

Motian formed the co-operative trio Tethered Moon with the Japanese pianist Masabumi Kikuchi and the bassist Gary Peacock in the early 90s; recorded in that decade with Paul Bley, Muthspiel and the Italian pianist Enrico Pieranunzi; and in 1992 formed his Electric Bebop Band, exploring a funkier electric-jazz from his own lateral perspectives. He displayed a mischievous fascination with the improv possibilities of doubled-up instrumentation, particularly using two guitarists of contrasting styles.

Though after heart surgery in his 70s he restricted his perambulations to Manhattan, Motian had been unfazed by life on the road for decades, often travelling simply with a single cymbal and relying on a succession of more or less ramshackle locally supplied drumkits. John Cumming, director of the UK promoters Serious Productions, recalled managing European tours involving Motian in the 1980s: "He had a kit that was falling apart in mid-gig with the Liberation Orchestra once. Two of us were fixing it with hammers and nails. He'd look round, still playing, and hiss, 'Have you been to the hotel yet? What's the restaurant like?' He was funny, modest, very calm, a bit solitary, but a wonderful collaborator."

In his last years, Motian launched ventures involving the saxophonists Chris Potter and Bill McHenry, and the pianist Jason Moran, and made the ECM album Live at Birdland (2009) with Haden, the saxophonist Lee Konitz and the pianist Brad Mehldau. With The Windmills of Your Mind (2011) he enlisted Frisell and the alt-rock vocalist Petra Haden, daughter of Charlie, to give such potentially cheesy materials as Tennessee Waltz and Let's Face the Music and Dance a new bite.

Almost till the end – he last played at the Village Vanguard in September – Motian was stirring the same mix of tickling cymbal figures followed by exclamatory slams, softly whispering brushwork and brief surges of swing. Lovano once told me how a piece based on a very perfunctory structure "takes total shape on its own" with the right players. "Playing with Paul Motian taught me about that. Feed in the melody, then let it happen, and how it flows from that moment on comes completely from your imagination and everybody's collective imagination. Man, that's an exciting place to be."

Sunday, February 6, 2011

Improvisation for Paul Motian #1

T. Renner, "Improvisation for Paul Motian #1," 2011, acrylic on paper, 6" x 4".

Paul Motian (born March 5, 1931, died November 22, 2011) obituary from the Guardian:
The American percussionist, composer and bandleader Paul Motian, who has died aged 80, was perhaps most famous for enhancing the work of a brilliant jazz pianist. This he did not just once, but three times: in Bill Evans's pioneering trio from 1959 to 1962, over the next two years with Paul Bley, and then with Keith Jarrett from 1966 to 1977. Motian added "beautiful" to the adjectives associated with the drummer's art, and was much in demand by the most adventurous jazz improvisers.

The saxophonists Joe Lovano, Joshua Redman, Chris Potter and Tim Berne had their ideas unobtrusively reshaped by Motian. So did the guitarists Bill Frisell and the Austrian Wolfgang Muthspiel, the bassist-bandleader Charlie Haden – Motian was for some years the drummer in Haden's rousing Liberation Music Orchestra – and the pianists Geri Allen, Alan Pasqua and Marilyn Crispell. The careers of Lovano and Frisell gathered pace during their creative apprenticeships with the drummer, which began for both of them in 1981 and ran on through the 1990s.

Motian's method lay between the supply of texture, colour and rhythm that a classical percussionist sporadically injects and the groove-laying drive of a jazz drummer. If swing was needed, he could swing superbly, though often with darkly whispering cymbal sonorities and low-pitched kick-drum sounds of his own. But his innovations really lay in a conversational, instantly reactive approach.

In rethinking the connection between the rhythmic pulse and the improvised melodies unfolding around him, Motian was as significant a drummer as Charlie Parker's partner Max Roach had been in the 1940s, and played a key role in transforming the sound of small jazz ensembles from the 1970s on. As a composer, he produced original material of quietly persuasive character that offered irresistible invitations to improvisers – beginning with the album Conception Vessel (1972), with Jarrett on flute or impressionistically free-jazzy piano, and Haden in the lineup.

Motian (pronounced "motion") had Armenian ancestry, was born in Philadelphia and raised in Providence, Rhode Island, taking up drums at the age of 12. After serving in the navy during the Korean war, he studied music at the navy school of music in Washington until 1954, and then at the Manhattan School of Music. He also began working with leading figures, including the composer-arrangers Gil Evans and George Russell, Thelonious Monk, the saxophonists Stan Getz, Zoot Sims and Al Cohn – and in 1958 with such architects of the low-key "cool school" style as the pianist Lennie Tristano and the saxophonist Warne Marsh.

Motian also met Evans, classically trained and a student of Tristano's dynamically restrained, extended-improv methods, and played on Evans's debut album, New Jazz Conceptions (1956). Evans's trio with Motian and the bassist Scott LaFaro was noted for its collaborative and spontaneously contrapuntal approach. When the 18-year-old Manfred Eicher heard it in New York in 1961, the experience inspired him to found, eight years later, the influential ECM record label, in order to document a new kind of improvised, jazz-influenced chamber music.

Though his employers included more orthodox artists such as the blues singer-pianist Mose Allison (1965), Motian gravitated increasingly towards free jazz. Through the self-help Jazz Composers' Orchestra Association, he worked with the saxophonist Ornette Coleman, the trumpeter Don Cherry and the composer Carla Bley, another figure associated with the Liberation Music Orchestra. Motian also began touring his own music from 1977 – at first in trios including the saxophonist Charles Brackeen, and from 1981 in a highly creative threesome with Lovano and Frisell. The group stunningly re-examined the music from Conception Vessel on It Should've Happened a Long Time Ago (1984), explored a shared devotion to the work of Monk in Misterioso (1986) and recast standard songs in launching the On Broadway series of recordings that continued with various lineups into Motian's last years. Sound of Love (1995), a live session from Village Vanguard, New York, confirmed the trio's continuing creativity.

Motian formed the co-operative trio Tethered Moon with the Japanese pianist Masabumi Kikuchi and the bassist Gary Peacock in the early 90s; recorded in that decade with Paul Bley, Muthspiel and the Italian pianist Enrico Pieranunzi; and in 1992 formed his Electric Bebop Band, exploring a funkier electric-jazz from his own lateral perspectives. He displayed a mischievous fascination with the improv possibilities of doubled-up instrumentation, particularly using two guitarists of contrasting styles.

Though after heart surgery in his 70s he restricted his perambulations to Manhattan, Motian had been unfazed by life on the road for decades, often travelling simply with a single cymbal and relying on a succession of more or less ramshackle locally supplied drumkits. John Cumming, director of the UK promoters Serious Productions, recalled managing European tours involving Motian in the 1980s: "He had a kit that was falling apart in mid-gig with the Liberation Orchestra once. Two of us were fixing it with hammers and nails. He'd look round, still playing, and hiss, 'Have you been to the hotel yet? What's the restaurant like?' He was funny, modest, very calm, a bit solitary, but a wonderful collaborator."

In his last years, Motian launched ventures involving the saxophonists Chris Potter and Bill McHenry, and the pianist Jason Moran, and made the ECM album Live at Birdland (2009) with Haden, the saxophonist Lee Konitz and the pianist Brad Mehldau. With The Windmills of Your Mind (2011) he enlisted Frisell and the alt-rock vocalist Petra Haden, daughter of Charlie, to give such potentially cheesy materials as Tennessee Waltz and Let's Face the Music and Dance a new bite.

Almost till the end – he last played at the Village Vanguard in September – Motian was stirring the same mix of tickling cymbal figures followed by exclamatory slams, softly whispering brushwork and brief surges of swing. Lovano once told me how a piece based on a very perfunctory structure "takes total shape on its own" with the right players. "Playing with Paul Motian taught me about that. Feed in the melody, then let it happen, and how it flows from that moment on comes completely from your imagination and everybody's collective imagination. Man, that's an exciting place to be."

Saturday, February 5, 2011

Ice and Sun

T. Renner, "Ice and Sun," 2011, digital photograph.

Friday, February 4, 2011

Composition in Red, Black, and Blue #3

T. Renner, "Composition in Red, Black, and Blue #3," 2011, acrylic on paper, 6" x 4".

Thursday, February 3, 2011

Composition in Red, Black, and Blue #2

T. Renner, "Composition in Red, Black, and Blue #2," 2011, acrylic on paper, 6" x 4".

Wednesday, February 2, 2011

Composition in Red, Black, and Blue #1

T. Renner, "Composition in Red, Black, and Blue #1," 2011, acrylic on paper, 6" x 4".