I recently did a solo piano performance and discussed connections and similarities between the surrealist art movement and the development of jazz improvisation as part of a wonderful exhibition at the Flint Institute of Arts called Beyond Dreams: Surrealism and Its Manifestations. The exhibition featured well-known artists like Salvador Dalí, Joan Miro, and Leonora Carrington, as well as contemporary artists like Kenny Scharf, Sergei Isupov, and Peter Milton.
I had so much fun taking the audience on a journey focusing on well-known elements of surrealism like chance and surprise. Obviously these are things that already play a huge role in the language of jazz improvisation, but it was fun to really highlight and demonstrate them for a curious audience of people more focused on the visual arts. I may have even won over a few new jazz fans!
