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 Kind of Blue & Body and Soul: Introduction
Kind of Blue, by Arthur Secunda Body and Soul, by Arthur Secunda










Introduction, by C. Edward Wall

Supporting himself during the early years of his art education and formative art career by playing jazz piano, music and musicians have remained a vital part of Secunda's life. Over the years Secunda has created many works of art on musical themes of all genres, from his early watercolors of Sidney Bechet in the jazz clubs on 52nd Street in New York, to lithographs and paintings of Pablo Casals at the Prades Festival in France, and, later, major works of Charlie Parker, Sonny Rollins, and Steve Lacy. Secunda has rarely parted with these works, viewing them collectively as his "private album" of special friends, events, relationships, and memories.

In 1990, when Lacy and his group toured the United States and appeared at the Catalina Cafe in Los Angeles, Secunda took numerous photographs of the group in action--in particular, of saxist Steve Potts, a longtime member of the small Lacy entourage. Later, Secunda montaged his photos, digitized them with the help of computer expert Barbara Smith, then transferred the imagery to a silk-screen, reworking by hand the final touches in preparation for printing these intimate and personal homages to alto-saxist Steve Potts and jazz. (As a side note related to "continuity" in Secunda's work, recall the photo-collages that were incorporated into Secunda's important "Watts" lithographs, which were created at Gemini Ltd. with master printer Ken Tyler in 1965.)

In these prints, Kind of Blue and Body and Soul, Secunda captures the visual equivalent and moods of extended chords, rhythmic textures, and unexpected counterpoint reflecting the probing depths of feeling that characterize both art and jazz. The underlying sense of the blues that Secunda has rendered here using the elements of repetition, continuity, minor key color harmonies, dark dissonances, and chordlike modulations represent a complex and memorable reminder of the commonality of all the arts.

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