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Jazz In Tent: A Portrait of Shamarr Allen
by Carl Crawford
 
Shamarr Allen is a dreadlocked phenom – A music-writing singing powerhouse with a blazing trumpet. He ranges over trad jazz, pop, rock, funk, rap and hip-hop as easily as a half-track conquers the landscape. After perfecting his chops as a member of the Hot 8 and ReBirth Brass bands, he has risen to national prominence in the past two years, touring with Willie Nelson, doing sessions with Ray Price, Leon Russell and R.E.M., and playing for President Obama. His Saints anthem with Dee-1, Bring ‘Em to the Dome, racked up over a half million YouTube hits - the 21st century metric for measuring a cultural breakout. Allen is keeping the New Orleans trumpet tradition alive as he lends it a newly relevant voice wrapped in an energetic body.
Carl Crawford, a young artist from Columbia, South Carolina, plows the art fair circuit, including exhibiting annually at Congo Square at the Jazz Fest where he garnered Best in Show and MostUnique art awards in 2010 and 2011, respectively. He has forged a modern synthesis of Lawrence and Bearden that he calls “Collage Illusion.” His work, inspired by the African-American experience, is created by hand cutting subtly shaded color slivers from magazines and painstakingly gluing them to glass to compose an image. From a distance the resulting works look lushly painted. On closer inspection they are revealed as intricate collages of breathtakingly nuanced detail.
In this, his first poster commission, Crawford envisions Shamarr Allen in traditional mode, playing where he first came to prominence in the Jazz Tent at the Fair Grounds. Crawford’s earth-toned overhead tent palette offsets the blues of the band behind Allen, with Allen intensely realized in saturated primary colors. The magic of his collage technique is not lost in this magnificent silk-screen. Our master printmakers have preserved the subtle shadings of the original, breaking down the boundaries between the mediums and crafting an original stunning work of art in its own right.