Manetizing the Spirit of Jazz

Some time ago I have mentioned my project for a new high quality fine arts printing company called Manetiz. I am proud to finally present to you the finished artwork. It is my first ever tryptic drawing, a three-part black and white tribute to jazz music. I worked with china ink fineliner and brushes to show a jazz septet, split over three canvas. Unsurprisingly, this is the artwork series that has taken me the longest yet, which you can see in the level of details.

The first part of the tryptic shows percussion, bass, saxophone and keys. It is called The Saxophone.

"The Saxophone"

"The Trumpet"

The second illustration, called The Trumpet, shows keys, trumpet and drums. Part three shows drums, guitar and percussion and is called The Guitar.

"The Guitar"

The Saxophone, The Trumpet, and The Guitar can be appreciated as standalone pieces or as a tryptic (the three together as a single piece) showing the full jazz septet.  Although I wrote part one, two and three you may have noticed that this order is actually arbitrary. I have drawn the tryptic as a loop, because jazz music is infinite. This means you could also start with the second artwork, then the third, and end with the first. Or start with three, then one, then two. The three artworks together form the collection Spirit of Jazz.

Jazz music is my favorite music genre and it was a pleasure to pay homage to this music. Believe it or the first recording happened exactly 100 years ago. A century old yet never dated, jazz is alive and well thank you, I therefore chose to illustrate a modern group, with a trumpet player, a saxophone player, a guitar player, a keyboard player, a bass player, a drummer and a percussionist. The spirit of jazz legends are represented as spirits guiding the young musicians, and also putting them under a lot of pressure: not easy to pick up a saxophone after John Coltrane, a trumpet player after Miles, a double bass after Mingus... Yet I’m glad some are courageous or crazy enough to carry on the torch, and even advance it into new territory. Two young performers, Keyon Harold and Kamasi Washington, are featured on an album I did the cover artwork for. They are extremely talented, the kind of young blood that pushes jazz to new directions. Both of them have just released new albums that I recommend highly. 

The framed tryptic exhibited at the Manetiz inauguration. More exhibitions to follow.

When Manetiz approached me and asked me to be part of their first collection, I was honored because they showcase renowed Swiss artists, mainly photographers. Only few other illustrators were chosen for the first collection, but you should definitely check out their awesome work on the Manetiz website. On the website you can also learn more about the special Manetiz frame, which is key to the final product. Each Spirit of Jazz artwork comes as a 30x30cm original or 20 piece limited edition high quality print in a tailor made frame, certified, and exclusively sold on their website.

But if you want to see what the illustrations look like on a wall, you can visit one of the upcoming exhibitions. The Manetiz collection will be showed in various locations in Switzerland and France, for instance in Montreux as part of the Montreux Art Galerie fair, from Nov 8-12, 2017.

My first CD cover artwork released in Japan

This summer I left behind my art studio in Switzerland and moved to the US. I am now in Ithaca NY for a new chapter in my career (more about my new hometown in a forthcoming blogpost) and you will not be surprised that except for some color doodles you may have seen on my Instagram account I have been a little more occupied with settling in than with new artistic productions. However, all the exciting projects mentioned in previous articles are well underway, and I am very happy to announce the release of a particularly pleasant collaboration: my very first CD cover artwork for the album "Empyrean Tones".

The CD features Jason McGuiness aka Analog Burners' best productions so far and has just been released by the established Japanese label Ultra Vybe (which celebrated its 30th anniversary - not a small accomplishment in the current record industry). The compilation is a great introduction to those not familiar with Analog Burners' catalogue. It also features a cast of great jazz musicians such as Kamasi Washington, Keyon Harrold and Phil Ranelin. As a music aficionado, I can’t tell you how excited I am not just to see my first CD cover artwork being released, but to see it in the form of a Japan import with a nice obi. Japan is well-known for their exclusive new releases and reissues, and this Japan-only compilation is another example of that.

Of course you can order "Empyrean Tones" online, for example via Disk Union (the world's biggest record store), Tower records Japan or HMV Japan, or you can ask your favorite record store to order it (and I really think it is always a great idea to support your local record store). For the time being, it comes only as a CD release, but there might be a vinyl edition if the album sells well. Fingers crossed. And above all, congrats to Jason McGuiness for this release. It makes it easier to wait for the release of the new album he is currently finishing.

The CD on the shelves of Tower reords in Tokyo (next to the Kamasi Washington album, an artist who is also featured on Jason's album).

Empyrean Tones: Keyon Harrold – Trumpet (D’Angelo, Maxwell, Miles Davis biopic, Kanye, etc) Duante St Louis – Keys/Organ Brandon Eugene Owens – Bass (Kendrick Lamar/Robert Glasper) Te’Amir Sweeney – Drums (Aloe Blacc) The role of art, at it’s most brave and brazen, has always been to provide unflinching reflections of reality. Music, the purest of all art forms, has the ability to crystallize moments and make history tangible. We’re living in the midst of current and historical pain, each new individual moment of destruction and despair opens deep wounds. From the opening sax notes, “We Could Be,” is a daring record in the tradition of grassroots music from the 60’s and 70’s. Bittersweet, it acknowledges the imbalance of pain within our communities. Bold, it refuses to buckle under that pressure and instead, it asks of us to step into the promise of previous generations. It proposes that we could be closer to freedom. While the lead track is a hard and hopeful aspiration, the flip side, “Empyrean Tones,” is the mind flight. This is where the heaviness of before dissipates like smoke and we are allowed to dream. Jason McGuiness, the projects’ producer, is in the old-school tradition of producers who need not pick up an instrument. With a vision and purpose, McGuiness culled an experienced group of music makers to create something that would reflect us back to ourselves. The instruments you hear are wielded by masters who have shared their talents with the likes of D’angelo, Kendrick Lamar, Kanye West, Robert Glasper, Aloe Blacc and more. But they’ve never done something quite like this. From Te’Amir’s drums to Mark de Clive-Lowe’s keys, up toKeyon Harrold’s sublime horns and HighScience Project’s timeless vocals, the magic here is in the submission of the individual in reverence of the collective. pre-order link: http://www.fatbeats.com/products/jason-mcguiness-ft-the-high-science-project-keyon-harrold-we-could-be-b-w-empyrean-tone-7

Introducing Oh ! the Beat Nomad

At the beginning of the year, I decided to take on an Instagram challenge and do « A drawing a day » as part of my new year’s resolutions. Not an easy task and like most new year’s resolution I couldn’t manage to do it for the whole year. Yet, after 4 months, I had posted more than 100 drawings and doodles (you can watch them on my Instagram account). I am proud of this as I had never produced so much day after day, or maybe yes, when I was a child. There is nothing like daily training to improve your skills and even though I don’t post a daily drawing anymore, I do practice daily.

Among other subjects, I drew a couple of Alien characters which got some positive feedbacks from the IG community. Even though I am not a social media die hard fan/user I do like me some Instagram where I post drawings as well as some pics of my vinyl records. What I like most about this particular social media is that you can follow and be followed not only by friends but by people from all over the world who share the same interests (a bit like twitter but using pictures instead of short texts I cannot write as you can see judging by my blog entries:) And this is thanks to Instagram that I have been approached by a beatmaker called OlogistBBB, BBB standing for the Better Beat Bureau collective out of Norfolk, Virginia. He saw some of my drawings and liked them very much, especialy the alien characters such as the one below.

I had heard of Ologist and the Better Beat Bureau who are Virginia underground hip hop best kept secrets. He had released a tribute album to Gil-Scott Heron composed of samples of the late poet. Those not familiar with hip hop might think : « well, they do not come from the main rap cities like NYC, LA or Atlanta ». Think again, Virginia is a major state when it comes to hip hop and R&B. The State is home to R&B icons such as Pharell Williams, Missy Elliott, Timbaland, D’Angelo as well as hip hop producers like Nottz or Bink! who appeared on albums by Jay Z, Busta Rhymes, Kanye West or even the last and excellent Dr Dre album (Bink ! did the soulful « it’s all on me » beat). Ologist is actually close to Nottz and Bink! and has been active on the scene for years, releasing good old hip hop beats, reminiscent of the mid 90’s so called « golden age » without being pale imitations.

So, Ologist contacted me on Instagram and asked me if I could draw a new alien character for him, one which would be kind of his alter ego, a bit like Madlib did with the Quasimoto character drawn by Stones Throw Art Director Jeff Jank. So I drew an alien character dressed like a B-boy and a real hip hop producer digging for records and using a MPC, one of the cult sampler/sequencer used by the best producers.

Ologist found the name « Oh ! The beat nomad » and soon after released a first track using the character, a nice little remix of « Rememory » by Chance the rapper, Donnie Trumpet & the social experiment ft Erykah Badu you can listen here :

The track was mentioned on a couple of major music blogs like 2dopeboyz and it felt really good to see our little alien in there. Then, Oh! the beat nomad struck again with a remix of « ...gointohell » by R&B’s newest star Miguel, a couple of days after the release of his album. The remix was also posted in some high profile blogs, and Miguel himself retweeted the remix on his account to give it a good exposure (he has more than 800k followers).

And this is only the beginning of « Oh ! the beat nomad » adventures as Ologist is working on his new EP called « Numb3rs » and I have the pleasure of doing the cover artwork. More info about exciting future collaborations very soon... To be continued