Jazz Journalists Association
E.J. Gold, Wrapped in Sound, acrylic on canvas, 30" x 72"
With large, bold, rhythmic sweeps of color depicting jazz players in action against black or white backgrounds, painter E.J. Gold has created his trademark "JazzArt®" for events ranging from Wynton Marsalis gigs to Hollywood Bowl concerts, including IAJE conferences since 2003, and the JJA Jazz Awardssm since 2003.
Gold's paintings, previously presented at the Jazz Awards to "A Team" honorees such as Englewood Hospital and Medical Center and bought at auction for the New School Jazz and Contemporary Music program offices, again served as artistic enhancements at the JJA's Left Coast Jazz Party at the Jazz Bakery on May 29, and are again being contributed to the JJA for the Jazz Awards on June 14 at B.B. King's in New York City. "JazzArt®" also exists as theatrical backdrops, and as three-dimensional, larger-than-life figures – Billie Holiday and Louis Armstrong, among them – that can be grouped to congregate like a sculptural crowd.
E.J. Gold is a veteran renegade artist, happenings producer, merchandising and promotions innovator and writer on transformational psychology. He was born in New York City in 1941, the son of a celebrated editor of the science-fiction magazine Galaxy. He is a principal of Heidelberg Arts International, fine-arts publisher of the Grass Valley Graphics Group, itself a contingent of some 30 artists located in the foothills of the Sierra Nevada mountains. Most of these artists have studied or otherwise been associated with Gold; about a dozen of them are identified (at hei-art.com, which lists press releases on their many exhibits and events, as well as bios of the artists and thumbnail galleries of the art) as involved specifically in "JazzArts®." Several of those are also members of the Woodstock Impressionist Workshop, another artistic endeavor organized with Gold's involvement. A 1500-square-foot E.J. Gold Fine Art Academy also operates in Old Town Grass Valley's Business District.
Gold has discussed his aesthetic in several books, available from hei-art.com (along with many artistic "souvenirs" from the website's boutique). He also authored, with other members of the Grass Valley Graphics Group, a manifesto on "reductionism, an artistic movement at the cutting edge of experimentation that minimizes visual elaboration in order for the viewer's experiential expectations, previously experienced visual and emotional stimuli, and stored perceptual patterns to determine perception." Gold's work strikes this reporter as sometimes having a slapdash yet vivid, iconic effect, quite like a fast and memorable phrase of jazz.