Jazz is a form of music that has always brought people of different backgrounds together. Ethnic, economic, age, taste in music. Doesn’t matter. All that Jazz. I was honored to design the poster art for the 9th annual Springfield Jazz Festival. This small one-day festival has been a grass roots labor of love that the local city government (my employer) and Missouri State University Division for Diversity and Inclusion started nine years ago as an active way to support diversity in our town.

In my poster, I wanted to show energy and big sound, along with ghosts of Jazz sounds floating up out of headliner Ramsey Lewis’ piano. The percussion, the groove, the melody and harmony. All from one instrument. The piano has all the notes!

I have been experimenting with Cubism and Futurism the last few years, and in my studies I came across a related art movement called Synchromism. “Synchromism was an art movement founded in 1912 by American artists Stanton MacDonald-Wright (1890-1973) and Morgan Russell (1886-1953). Their abstract “synchromies,” based on an approach to painting that analogized color to music, were among the first abstract paintings in American art.” -Wikipedia

I thought Synchromism particularly fitted with trying to visualize Jazz. I may not have gotten too deep into the theory and might have bent some of its rules, but I will continue to figure it out. Art is like Jazz: there is always more to explore.