time art space art
JAMES JORDAN “SOUTHWEST”
How this all got started
Paul writes: Jim Jordan, I and my wife created an artist collective in fall 2019 in Northern Michigan to support each other’s painting. We met daily to share our work, talk about the artistic process, and inspire each other. Jim also accepted the role as teacher and mentor for me in my fledgling acrylic painting endeavors, guiding me with systematic assignments. “Southwest” began in our collective. As it gradually emerged over many weeks, we three subjected it to frequent scrutiny. The day Jim felt that “Southwest” was finished, very spur of the moment I asked Jim if I should get my double bass to a musical interpretation of the painting. My double bass practice time during the preceding months of my sabbatical from the University of Colorado had been spent improvising to various scales and Indian ragas, an intensification of my long-time interest in the modal approach to improvising, using one scale/raga as the basis of an improvisation accompanied by the Indian tambura drone establishing a tonal framework. With “Southwest” on a chair, my bass and I dove into the painting and journeyed around many of the sections and details of the painting I had come to know quite well. As I played, a particular scale emerged along with some melodic ideas that for me conveyed the mood of various facets the painting and of Jim. Jim was very happy with the musical rendition. In my subsequent bass practicing, I further explored the scale and melodic ideas that had emerged during that first “reading” of the painting. A few weeks later, I gave a house concert performance of four solo improvisations, one being the public unveiling of “Southwest” on an easel to my right. As I performed, rather than look at the painting, I had “Southwest” on my laptop in front of me. Audience members who had studied the painting before the concert expressed to Jim and me afterwards that as I performed “Southwest,” they began to see many more things in the painting than they had initially seen. Jim and I were very gratified to see the enthusiastically animated response. We felt that our visual/musical collaboration had value and should be pursued further. Shortly afterwards, Jim said that what we are doing is “TIME ART SPACE ART because Music happens in time and Art happens in space.”
PAUL ERHARD
Double bassist Paul Erhard performances include solo recitals, concertos, orchestra, chamber music, jazz, improvised raga music of India, and solo improvisations. His recitals feature traditional solo works, commissioned new works, chamber music, and improvisation. As a concerto soloist, Erhard premiered in February 2020 the L. Subramaniam Double Concerto for Violin and Double Bass with Dr. L. Subramaniam, violin, and the CU Symphony Orchestra, Gary Lewis, conductor. He also recently performed the Nino Rota Divertimento Concertante double bass concerto with four orchestras in Colorado and Washington. An active chamber musician, his collaborations with the Grammy-winning Takács Quartet include the Schubert Trout Quintet in 2019 at Lincoln Center, New York City. He has his Masters and Doctorate from The Juilliard School, his Bachelors from Eastman School of Music, and also studied for two years in Germany at the Munich Music Hochschule. Erhard is professor of double bass at the University of Colorado College of Music in Boulder.
Since 1998, Erhard has explored adapting the improvised solo double bass to the classical music of India. In 2005 and 2007, Bangalore India-based flutist Butto Pattanaik and tabla drummer Muthu Kumar and Erhard toured the USA with their Indo-Western fusion trio ATMIC VISION. Erhard and his singer and cellist sons have performed close to 50 concerts with their “Indo-Western fusion with a twist of jazz” family trio SANDS AROUND INFINITY. A 2013-2015 Fulbright scholar, Erhard’s research project “Training the Musical Mind” explored how 35 prominent classical musicians in India use the tambura drone, among other things, to develop a strong sense of pitch for singing and playing in tune.
TIME ART – SPACE ART is Paul Erhard’s newest venture into the creative world of improvisation, drawing upon his performance background as a classical double bassist (solo, orchestra, chamber music), jazz bassist, and explorer of improvised raga music of India as he and his “bowed double bass” create improvised music collaborations with painters, photographers, poets, and dancers. First emerging in November 2019 with his musical rendering of Jim Jordan’s newly completed “Southwest” painting, TIME ART – SPACE ART has branched out to use improvisation as a means of finding languages for collaborating with painters Jamey Barnard, Jenni Bateman, Philip Joseph, Leslie Laskey, photographers Robert De Jonge and Patti Sevensma, poet Phoebe Jordan-Klain, and dancer Yali Rivlin.
James Jordan
James Jordan received a Bachelor of Science in Art Education from Western Michigan University. He also studied painting, pottery and life drawing at the University of Michigan and The Cranbrook Institute post graduate. He took a special interest in photography which he incorporated into his teaching. He taught early childhood education, including Head Start through Secondary education for 30 years. During those years he raised a family with 2 daughters, built a house and participated in art shows with his paintings and pottery. Retired now, he still paints every day, encouraging his granddaughters to paint along with him. He has an interest in studying the night sky through a self-designed telescope in his Northern Michigan home. Jim hopes his art makes a point of the meaningful depiction of planet earth, it’s history and evolution in the universe. He envisions to raise consciousness of a future healthy planet. Consequently among his interests lie the study of the night sky through and self-designed telescope in his Northern Michigan Home. Jim and double bassist Paul Erhard began collaborating in 2019 exploring the intersection of musical interpretations of Jim’s completed painting “Southwest.” This was followed by Jim painting to a recording Paul made for him of improvised bass playing. During the summer of 2020, in the outdoors Jim and Paul ventured into a new realm of TIME ART SPACE ART with simultaneously improvised music and painting. In January 2021 Jim and Paul have continued developing their improvisations remotely over zoom in preparation for performing on Paul’s January 19, 2021 CU College of Music Faculty Tuesday recital. With Jim in Traverse City Michigan, and Paul in Boulder, the two have worked out the technical challenges of creating over zoom. Jim and Paul’s goal remains the same of enjoying the of fun coming together as friends with a rapport for improvising with “Brush & Bow.”. See more about Jim at the “Bass & James Jordan” and Gallery pages.
