Corbett, John — Bob Thompson: Live at the Five Spot

Chicago / New York, Corbett vs. Dempsey / Michael Rosenfeld Gallery, 2015. Softcover. small, square eggshell white wrappers w/ blue illustration. 28 pgs w/ 14 color plates. Live at the Five Spot exhibited newly discovered drawings by the artist Bob Thompson at Corbett vs. Dempsey in Chicago. In the years leading up to his untimely death in 1966, Thompson was a habitué of downtown New York’s underground jazz clubs, where he watched the great innovators of free jazz, including Ornette Coleman and Milford Graves, as well as the towering figures of post-bop and hard-bop, including Sonny Rollins and Art Blakey. Himself an amateur drummer, Thompson was one of the most admired young figurative painters of his era, and he was friendly with many of these musicians. His masterwork The Garden of Music (a 12-foot wide canvas in the collection of the Wadsworth Atheneum) depicts all of these players. Organized in collaboration with Michael Rosenfeld Gallery, who represents the Thompson Estate, this exhibition unveils sizzling linear portraits of Blakey, Rollins, Graves, trumpeter Enrico Rava, and Coleman, the latter drawn during the saxophonist’s legendary 1960 run at the Five Spot Café. A single painterly watercolor, more akin to Thompson’s canvases, is titled Charlie Parker Waits in the Wings. Of 1000 Copies.--Michael Rosenfeld Gallery. VG+. light edge-wear, scuffs & scratches.