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Romare Bearden and Albert Murray Enjoying a Harlem Afternoon

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The important African-American artist Romare Bearden was at one time good friends with my late author, Edward Robb Ellis, author of A Diary of the Century: Tales from American’s Greatest Diarist (1995). Ellis wrote at length about their friendship in that book, which reflected on Bearden’s upbringing in Pittsburgh, and the life he lived that led to his distinctive style of collage-making and painting. In the years since I worked  with Eddie, whenever I read about Bearden, I feel I almost know him, from Eddie’s fulsome recollections. When the writer and critic Albert Murray died last August, he was eulogized in many venues, most memorably for me by Paul Devlin in Slate, where I was delighted to be reminded that Bearden and Murray had also been very close, as friends, and indeed as frequent collaborators (when Bearden needed something written, Murray often wrote it). Typifying their relationship is the revealing video I tweeted out earlier tonight, and which I’m eager to share here, too.

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Album Covers as Art, or How Jazz LPs Changed Our World

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IMG_0442Thursday night my wife and I greatly enjoyed the reception and opening for the new exhibit, “Jazz. Covers. Politics–Album Art in an Age of Activism.” We had been invited by Elisa Pritzker, artist and art curator, who assisted Nathan Cummings Foundation and Romare Bearden Foundation staff in mounting and hanging the show. They’ve assembled over 150 album covers as examples of social activism from America’s civil rights struggle, the opposition to the Vietnam War, and the campaign to end apartheid, among many other historic milestones shown.Brochure cover

The musicians and albums on display constitute a veritable hall of fame of jazz recordings, including Max Roach’s “We Insist!,” the signature piece for the whole exhibit, that used for its cover a news photograph of three African-American activists sitting in at a segregated southern lunch counter, as they and the white-uniformed counterman, all eye the camera challengingly; Nina Simone’s “Emergency Ward!,” with its backdrop of war headlines from daily newspapers; and Duke Ellington’s “Liberian Suite,” with its red masks, and his “Afro-Eurasian Eclipse,” with a tableau showing dozens of faces from the human family. The artists whose work is found on these covers are equally important, from Jacob Lawrence’s painting decorating a Jelly Roll Morton LP to several Romare Bearden works, on Wynton Marsalis, Billie Holiday, and Ricky Ford covers. There’s so much more on these walls: Miles Davis’s “Bitches Brew,” Paul Robeson’s “Songs of Free Men,” Marvin Gaye’s “What’s Going On,” and dozens more.

The spacious quarters of the Nathan Cummings offices on Tenth Avenue were ingeniously used to hang the album covers, as each time we turned a corner there was something new and splendid to see and read about, with insightful text alongside the images. In addition, a room was set aside for a listening booth where we sampled the music from the albums on display, and another room was reserved for a video about the album covers, musicians, and artists. The exhibit can be seen Monday-Friday, by appointment via email to exhibits@nathancummings.org. It will be up through August 23, so if you’re in NYC I urge you to make plans to see it. As an indication of the wealth of material on display, here are some pictures I took during our tour of the exhibit last week. Click here to see all photos

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