Jazz at Wild Birds - May Day Concert

As the sun sets, the music rises.

A few blocks from my house in Crown Heights Brooklyn, the coolest, hippest, jamming-est, jazz club opened in the midst of the pandemic. Wild Birds set up a stage outside on the sidewalk with these crazy Persian carpets as a backdrop to a groove-based music from around the world - afrobeat, cumbia, rocksteady, Balkan brass, chicha, soul, funk, and all the various worlds jazz encapsulates.

On this night, Anant Pradhan and his big band rocked the place. Featuring drummer/singer/legend Larry McDonald and three other drummers, the band played reggae jazz with an african/reggae beat. They have a groove a mile long, and always have an audience stretching down the street.

This painting is from a May Day concert in which the band got everyone going. Anant’s kinda tall for the chair he sits in and there are just too many musicians for the stage, and it was the golden hour and everything came together like a Renaissance painting. Like the Last Supper, if Jesus could play the Sax.

Live music is special, but you can’t eat a labor of love.

Like a lot of clubs, Wild Birds has no cover and the band is paid by generous donations from the crowd. Most people pay a suggested donation of $10, but it just doesn’t add up to enough for more than just beer money. It’s just hard to make the economics work, even for a group as talented as this band.

This painting is a gift to the musicians of Wild Birds

All proceeds from sales of these prints go directly to a musicians’ fund and to the musicians who are playing at the time you make your purchase. This is a way you can celebrate live music, collect a memento of what it feels like to be there, and help musicians quit their day job.

The actual print is beautiful.

I am so excited about the quality of these prints. It's uncanny how they capture all the nuance and subtle coloration of the original. People who have seen these prints cannot believe that they are not looking at an original. It's not a poster, but rather a full representation of my vision.

I use a top-of-the-line Epson printer with pigment ink that is tested to last 200 years. I print on Hahnemühle German Etching all-cotton archival 310 g/mA Paper.

Each print is numbered and signed by me.

The original size of the painting is 20" x 14" so to get closer to the original, I recommend the larger size, but we're also offering a smaller more affordable version.