{"id":1682,"date":"2011-05-29T09:08:00","date_gmt":"2011-05-29T09:08:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/artjournalstg.wpenginepowered.com\/?p=1682"},"modified":"2015-09-16T18:28:33","modified_gmt":"2015-09-16T18:28:33","slug":"city-of-degenerate-angels-wallace-berman-jazz-and-semina-in-postwar-los-angeles","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/artjournal.collegeart.org\/?p=1682","title":{"rendered":"City of Degenerate Angels: Wallace Berman, Jazz and <em>Semina<\/em> in Postwar Los Angeles"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Wallace Berman designed the cover for this 1947 78rpm record set on the Dial label that showcased the emergence of bebop jazz. Berman and his friend Robert Alexander were in the studio when a drug-addled and increasingly erratic Charlie Parker made this notorious recording of \u201cLoverman.\u201d On this hot and rainy night, as Alexander recalls in a 1988 interview, Parker stormed off shirtless down Sunset Boulevard with his saxophone around his neck.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe Chase\u201d features tenor saxophonists Dexter Gordon and Wardell Gray, to whom Berman dedicated one of his issues of his art and poetry journal, <em>Semina<\/em>. In this 1952 concert recording in which they trade solos, Gordon and Gray demonstrate the battle of musical wits that made them famous in Los Angeles\u2019s Central Avenue nightclubs during the 1940s.<\/p>\n<p>I discuss the album cover and the game-like nature of \u201cThe Chase\u201d as examples of Berman\u2019s strategies of art making and community building in postwar Los Angeles that shaped his production of the underground journal <em>Semina<\/em>.<\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" width=\"900\" height=\"705\" src=\"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/nX4Kb-pSZUk?rel=0\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>Charlie Parker, &#8220;Loverman,&#8221; <em>Bebop<\/em>, Dial Records, 1947 <\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" width=\"900\" height=\"542\" src=\"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/ltwu25KH6CA\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>Wardell Gray &amp; Dexter Gordon, \u201cThe Chase,\u201d Recorded live, &#8220;Just Jazz Concert&#8221;, Pasadena, California February 2, 1952<\/p>\n<hr \/>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Ken D. Allan introduces two videos related to \u201cCity of Degenerate Angels: Wallace Berman, Jazz and <em>Semina<\/em> in Postwar Los Angeles,\u201d his contribution to the Spring 2011 issue of <em>Art Journal<\/em>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9,"featured_media":1800,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"kia_subtitle":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[74,8,13],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1682","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-archive","category-from-art-journal","category-related-media",""],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/artjournal.collegeart.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1682","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/artjournal.collegeart.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/artjournal.collegeart.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/artjournal.collegeart.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/9"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/artjournal.collegeart.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1682"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/artjournal.collegeart.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1682\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/artjournal.collegeart.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/1800"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/artjournal.collegeart.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1682"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/artjournal.collegeart.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1682"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/artjournal.collegeart.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1682"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}