CORY REYNOLDS | DATE 10/21/2015

Jack Whitten: Five Decades of Painting

"Sigmar Polke, yeah. I knew immediately the fucking guy was on drugs," Jack Whitten says to Robert Storr in their extensive, extremely engaging interview published in Jack Whitten: Five Decades of Painting. "Immediately I knew. Why did I know? Because I recognized the light. We in America had been there. We did it. It has a specific light. Anyone who is high and uses paint, that light comes up, I know immediately what they’re doin’. There’s a structure to it. It gives you a way of turning loose, alright? I knew that from the early jazz musicians that I met here in New York. I used to hang out in the jazz clubs. You know, you’re talking to somebody that actually knew Thelonious Monk, John Coltrane, Kenny Dorham, Miles Davis—I actually knew those people. Jackie McLean—that was my thing, hanging out in jazz clubs. ‘Cause even up into the early ‘60s, I still thought that I had a shot with my tenor saxophone." Featured image is Brilliant Corners (For Thelonious 'Sphere' Monk) (1973).