THE COLOR OF MUSIC
A Visual History Project Exploring New Orleans Musical Pioneers
in Jazz, Blues, & Gospel who Developed These Iconic Genres
in the Brutal Heat of Segregation During Jim Crow
Has WON a
JAZZ & HERITAGE FOUNDATION
Community Development Grant AWARD
The Color of Music is a new series of expressionistic and colorful portraits
on paper created by award-winning visual artist
José Torres-Tama.
These works explore New Orleans’
musical pioneers of Jazz, Blues, and Gospel, who forged these
iconic "American" genres during an era of segregation.
The Jim Crow South of 20th century New Orleans was a challenging time
for people of African descent, but racial oppression gave rise to
musical innovations that changed "American" music.
Jazz, Blues, and Gospel were born out of a great necessity for creative expression,
and people of color made music as an act of personal empowerment
and collective salvation.
The portraits are marked by the replication of the wooden signs
that were commonplace in New Orleans and the South,
marking the racial barriers for whites and colored.
Contemporary portraits of
Jelly Roll Morton,
Buddy Bolden,
Mahalia Jackson,
Sidney Bechet,
Louis Armstrong,
Danny Barker,
Lulu Barker,
and many others are rendered from archival photographs
of these musical giants of the 20th century.
Pictured above is the main piece that defines this series,
and it's titled Louis Armstrong: Between Two Worlds.