CLOSE YOUR EYES

Eyvind Kang, Bill Frisell and your Uncle Jim performing at Invisible Dog in Brooklyn Sept 15. This was Bill's idea. He wanted me to draw as if I were part of the band, interactively. Naturally I agreed without thinking. It was really difficult to work out an approach that provided a framework for both improvisation and good results, but eventually one was attained. We rehearsed until it was obvious it would at least sound great and look okay. But at the event it opened up and took on this power to shape itself in the most amazing way. We all did play off what we were each doing and it amplified everything in a way that felt like pure magic to me. Obviously musicians know this feeling but it was new to me.I was ecstatic when it ended and it seemed that the others were too. It can all be laid at Bill's feet. That guy is from another, better world.
The way it unfolded was something. The shapes in the drawings were unrecognizable as anything relating to the natural world until they began to synch up toward the end and form figures. The final image, of two supplicants approaching an exalted personage, worked as a drawing; and the music entered a final ethereal segment as the symbols representing the different orientations of the side figures appeared in the sky; and then it ended just as the last stroke was put down. I realize that sounds like a lot of pretentious hogwash but I swear to God that's exactly what happened. It was flabbergasting to me how it all came about.