If you like jazz or art or both, then head over to the recently reopened Solano Town Center Gallery in Fairfield for a treat.
Carl H. Bradford III specializes in what he calls JazzArt. In a unique iconic style, he paints portraits of some of the greatest jazz musicians, past and present.
If you know them, you will be amazed at how Bradford captures their personality and expression. If you don’t know them, you will be equally amazed at how they seem to jump off the canvas and interact with you.
He currently has portraits of 11 jazz musicians on display — Cindy Blackman-Santana, Ron Carter, Roy Hargrove, Andra Day, Herbie Hancock, Billie Holiday, Tony Williams, John Coltrane, Craig Shaw, Joe Henderson and Chick Corea.
The gallery, which had been closed temporarily because of the coronavirus, is now open Wednesday through Saturday, 11 a.m. – 6 p.m., and Sunday, Noon – 6 p.m. Admission is free.
Bradford’s exhibit is featured along with a new show themed “Odd Things — Things That Don’t Fit!” The show is an artistic collection of odd things that were created by members of the Fairfield-Suisun City Visual Arts Association during the shelter-at-home mandate.
You will find some amazing pieces of art, from a photograph of a cactus that resembles an animal, to an oil painting of a cave with boulders, to the COVID-19 virus hiding and waiting to be released into the world.
The “Odd Things” visual arts exhibit and the artistic works of Bradford will be on display through July 11.
Born and raised in Washington, D.C., Bradford remembers his father preparing breakfast every morning listening to the music of Billie Holiday, Count Basie, Miles Davis and other jazz greats. But he says he went head-over-heels for jazz when he was in junior high.
“I am a drummer and I played jazz, top 40 and fusion,” said Bradford. “My shop teacher took to me a jazz camp that went through all the area high schools. He took me to see Count Basie. My shop teacher knew everyone from James Brown on. And we got backstage and he introduced me to Harold Jones, who was the drummer. I was just drooling and watching the whole show. They invited me to sit down on the drums.
“So there I am trying to replicate some jazz licks and people started walking out and the keys started twinkling and I look over and there’s Count Basie. I’m like, ‘Who’s going to believe that?’ So I get to jam with the dudes and it happened the same way with (jazz drummer) Louie Bellson the week after. So I’ve had jazz in my soul since I was a kid.”
Bradford also has had art in his soul since he was eight years old.
“My father was an artist,” he said. “He always made things available for me – art supplies, drafting desks, easels, I still have two of his watercolor brushes which are beautiful. I don’t paint with them. I just look at them. I’ve always had great supplies available and insight if I needed it.
“But he was not a pushy man. He would just kind of throw something in front of you and see how you react to it. I’ve always been in the gallery. When I got older, I showed with him through the Washington, D.C., Artists Association. I’ve been around art my whole life. That and music.”
Bradford started painting jazz musicians in the 1980s but had to put that project on the back burner as he was a very busy full-time graphic artist.
“Sometimes you come home from work you just lay down,” he said. “Graphic design consumed me so much because I was working on the side for The Washington Post and during the day I had a job at an ad firm or design firm or the marketing department of a design firm. So I always would paint, but not as much as I do now.”
Bradford, 64, worked for more than 30 years as a graphic artist.
“My father was an artist and my mom was a copy editor, so I became a graphic designer,” he said. “I’m a hybrid.”
He relocated to Atlanta where he worked as a broadcast and production designer for CNN. He helped launch the CNN Sports Illustrated network for Ted Turner, then became the design director for The Weather Channel.
In 2017 he and his wife, Jaime, moved to Vacaville to help her sister Jody care for their mom, who had dementia. Unfortunately, Jody passed away suddenly the next year through complications from a secondary infection and the flu. Carl and Jaime took over caring for Jaime’s mom.
It was just in the last few years that Bradford returned in earnest to his JazzArt.
“I started hitting it really, really hard in 2016 right after my mom died,” he said. “I just blew into it harder. I promised her, ‘I’m going back into the galleries.’ She said, ‘Your dad would be happy.'”
He described his creative process.
“I’ve got jazz playing all the time,” he said. “I think I drive my wife and my kids and my grandkids crazy most of the time, but they allow me my craziness. Once I have that music in my ears, it inspires me to create my jazz works on paper. I search everywhere for jazz imagery, or I look in my own personal image collection for that perfect shot. Then I hone in on an artist who is fully engaged in deep, musical thought.
“This is what pushes me to create the many layers that I call my JazzArt. It is free-flowing or graphic in nature. I work in a mixed medium approach using coffee grounds, watercolors, inks, dyes, pencils and pastels. I lock down each pass of the pastels with fixative, then add the next layer of emotion and color.”
He talked about how he was inspired to portray Andra Day.
“She’s not really a jazz singer but that’s in the show in the gallery,” he said. “She did Billie Holiday’s ‘Strange Fruit’ and man, it rose the hair up on my arms because she did the rendition so similar but so way out there. I stopped because I was researching who I wanted to do next. ‘Who is that? Andra Day? Is she doing jazz now?'”
He has met some of the jazz musicians he has painted, including trumpeter Roy Hargrove, bass player Scott Ambush of Spyro Gyra and bass player Craig Shaw. His future projects include saxophonist Bob Berg. He has already painted drummer Cindy Blackman (it’s on display in the gallery.) She is the wife of Carlos Santana. He promised her that he will paint several other drummers of note, including Art Blakey, Max Roach, Billy Cobham and Jack DeJohnette.
Carl and Jaime run Jazz Head studios, Carl’s gallery, out of their home. He continues his work in graphic arts as a consultant and freelancer.
You can see more of Bradford’s work at www.studiob3creative.com/jazzart-studios.
For more information about the ‘Odd Things’, Carl Bradford or the Fairfield-Suisun City Visual Arts Association, visit www.fsvaa.com or call Dennis Ariza at 688-8889.
