Most artists will tell you that the inspiration derived for their greatest works comes from the avenues and alleyways of music.
However, every so often artists will look beyond the confines of music for inspiration, to create an album based on a single overall theme or to tell a single story.
When a musician takes this approach it’s called a concept album.
Just a few of the more famous concept albums include Pink Floyd’s “The Wall,” The Beach Boy’s “Pet Sounds,” and a bit more recent, Neutral Milk Hotel’s “In the Aeroplane Over the Sea.”
With help in the form of a grant from The Philadelphia Jazz Project and The Philadelphia Art Museum, Bucks jazz piano teacher Tom Lawton will compose his own concept composition based on and inspired by the works of Philadelphia born artist Man Ray.
Lawton has been playing piano for 53 years and is considered by many to be one of Philadelphia’s brightest undiscovered talents.
Among the many grants he has received, Lawton has performed everywhere from New York City to Italy, Norway and Finland.
Lawton spends the majority of his time playing in Philadelphia clubs, like the Four Seasons and Chris’ Jazz Café, with various trios, quartets and duos.
Lawton himself has been a player on over 30 albums and has a double CD set of his own original compositions entitled “Retrospective/Debut” on Dreambox Media Records.
Lawton teaches a course in jazz piano and coaches a jazz ensemble at Bucks, and is an adjunct professor at Temple University and The University of the Arts in Philadelphia.
Hailing from South Philly, Ray was a visual artist who significantly contributed to the Dada and Surrealist movements, and spent much of his life in France where he was best known as a renowned fashion and portrait photographer.
By delving into Ray’s past and his renowned work, Lawton’s research has greatly influence his composition.
“I wouldn’t have come up with the same material, musically, had I not based it on his work. If you were to hear it on the radio, without any knowledge of it, there’s just no way you could connect the art with the music,” said Lawton.
Lawton explained that research is all a part of the process of turning visual interpretation into an auditory impression of the artist’s work.
“When we talk about basing music on visual art, it’s sort of loose. It’s not really literal. You do a lot of research on the person and their art. You look at it and most of it ends up being an auditory impression of what you’ve seen,” said Lawton.
Lawton draws a similarity between himself and Ray in their exploration of various genres of the arts.
“There’s lots of symbolism in [Ray’s] work. He was very traditionally rooted and he had a weird, demented sense of humor and he worked in all these different genres, which I like to do. I like playing all different types of jazz and a lot of its abstract. He has a lot of abstractions in his work and I can latch onto those as musical motifs. I relate to him because he was very eclectic,” said Lawton.
While Lawton has found inspiration in analyzing the life and works of Ray, improvisation plays an important role in composing jazz.
When it comes to jazz improvisation, legendary jazz bandleader Duke Ellington put it this way: “You’ve got to find some way of saying it without saying it.”
“In jazz we almost always play together live because interaction is so important. Every take is different. The improv is totally different every time,” said Lawton.
As of now, Lawton doesn’t know the full extent of the instrumentation that will be used, but expects to work with a 6-piece group consisting of bass, drums, sax, trombone and violin.
To promote Lawton and Ray’s works, The Philadelphia Art Museum will hold a concert for Lawton’s hour-and-a-half composition in the fall as part of the museum’s “Art after 5” held on Friday evenings.
It will be mixed with podcasts including discussions with both Lawton and the curator of the modern art department.
For the event, the museum will display some of Man Ray’s work.