John Davis performing Sunday night.
I love finding art that incorporates different themes, or maybe even two completely different subjects. That’s why I really liked this article from the New York Times that discussed John Davis, a musician who is celebrating the 175th anniversary of the birth of Mark Twain. This reminded me of when Professor Smaldone mentioned that Chopin’s 200th anniversary was being celebrated, and the article also mentions that pianists are commemorating Chopin’s anniversary this year as well by playing his music.
Mark Twain
Sunday night at Le Poisson Rouge, John Davis played pieces that Mark Twain was known to have liked, including a couple of pieces by Thomas Wiggins, a blind and possibly autistic musician who toured under the name “Blind Tom.” Two of his pieces were played, along with the reading of Twain’s own observations, which revealed that he was completely amazed with Wiggins and marveled at how he could play any piece of music after only hearing it once.
I find John Davis’ choice to commemorate Mark Twain with music a great twist to his art. Usually, musicians are celebrated by playing their compositions, and writers are celebrated by reading their literature. This crossing of different forms of media shows just how universal music, and any kind of art in general, can be.
I was kind of disappointed when I read that Mr. Davis’ performance already took place Sunday night at Le Poisson Rouge, because I would have loved to go to it, but John Davis released a new cd, “Halley’s Comet: Around the Piano With Mark Twain and John Davis,” that can give fans a taste of what they missed Sunday night.
It is very interesting to view one kind of art in the context of another. Hearing American music composed in the Era of Mark Twain is a good way of making aconnection between one specialty and another. It is only after viewing and hearing and thinking about many of these different strains that one gets a sense of “the arts” in a particular place and time. None of the arts lives in a vacuum, separated from the other arts, or separated from the world from which it emerges.