Weekly Worthy List #5: 10 Favorite Artists (all genres acceptable)

Walking through a downtown area miles away from home, taking in the smells of coffee and pastries from a nearby cafe. You round a corner to see cigarette smoke coming through the limbs of a tree, you walk into the sound of park bench conversation which disappears as quickly as it arises and is replaced by the less-than-subtle screeches of John Coltrane issuing forth from the neighborhood vinyl shop, a Dead Kennedy’s poster brazenly adorns the window. After a brief pause-in-gait to hear the crescendo of a great sax solo your eyes are drawn to movement across the street, a particularly translucent-almost-opalescent pigeon takes diagonal flight from the sidewalk upward taking your eyes directly to a print of Picasso’s “Old Guitarist” in the gallery window, children with brightly colored backpacks are walking to school. Nothing obviously spectacular is happening, but life seems to be imitating art on this morning.

Here are my top 10 favorite artists. Favorite is NOT meant to be synonymous with “best,” just to be clear. Oh yeah, don’t be shy!

1.) WA Mozart: The beauty, form, and movement of his music can not be overrated. Mozart, Django, and Joe Pass seem to be the only artists that never grow even remotely tiresome to my ears after prolonged exposure…it’s because they never run out of ideas and all of their ideas are good!

2.) Maxfield Parrish: Great artist, maybe not counted among the greatest, but I have to put him high on my list because I want to live in almost every one of his paintings. His portrayal of light and the effects of movement (fabric, clouds, etc…) to me, is haunting.

3.) Groucho Marx: Sarcasm, wit, innuendo, and potty humor in perfect balance…it’s hard for me to choose between him and Jack Benny…Jack may appear down the line.

4.) Frank Lloyd Wright: I am not an expert on architecture, or even a novice, but I love the way Frank Lloyd Wright designed his structures. In many cases it is hard to decide whether what you are seeing is rustic or modern when looking at his work, timeless.

5.) Jack Kerouac: People either love this guy or hate him, I love him. Kerouac’s ornate descriptions of the ordinary serve as a reminder, to those who let him in, that there is amazing script-worthy events and observables around all of us at all times.

6.) Django Reinhardt: So evocative…so funny, so sad, so playful, so… Because of Django and Joe Pass I find it intolerable to listen to a guitar player that I perceive isn’t “feeling it.”

7.) Joe Pass: Some might cringe at this, but I compare Joe to Mozart in certain ways. They both were able to become so comfortable on such a high level that their improvisations, recitals, and scriptings of the seemingly impossible seemed perfectly relaxed and organic. I love Joe’s solo guitar work and his collaborations with Oscar Peterson and Dizzy Gillespie.

8.) Jim Morrison: Ok, another icon, I know, but I really like the guy’s voice! His use of imagery, symbolism, and anthropomorphism in his lyrics and poetry, prose, ramblings…it’s just awesome and spooky in a way that I find special. I love the “Awake” sequence on American Prayer, his reading voice is great too.

9.) King David / King Solomon: The Psalm and Proverbs writers…I love these writings, they comfort me. I hope that in the afterlife I get the opportunity to hear the music that accompanied the Psalms and maybe attend a Solomonic reading of Proverbs.

10.) Johnny Depp/Viggo Mortensen (tie): For my money, these are the best actors out there, Johnny for his vast breadth of character portrayal, and Viggo for his ability to inject so much life and feeling into his character and somehow bringing the audience “in.” These guys for some reason never seem like “sellouts.”

Their giggling voices echo against the flower shop window reflecting the last pink remnants of sunrise. Who is orchestrating this? You think you know…”nah…couldn’t be.”