One of the questions artists are commonly asked is what kind of music do they listen to while they work. Since nobody’s asked, I’ll write a bit about it here :) For me, it all depends on what I’m in the mood of, but also the time of day.

I don’t know if this happens to anyone else, but I tend to enjoy certain genres at certain times of the day. For example, though my ‘main’ musical taste is electronic music and I can never get enough of it, I can’t seem to enjoy it during the afternoon as I do at night and very early in the morning.

Scratchy swing music from the 40s and prior is my usual afternoon condition. But nothing beats listening to Louis Armstrong recordings during a Sunday afternoon.

It all started one Sunday afternoon a few years ago as I sat in a cafe. As a fan of Satchmo, it was great to hear his music being played over the speakers and a further bonus of having my sketchbook with me.

The mix of Satchmo and sitting in a cafe with my sketchbook made me think of the clich?© artists hanging out at a Parisian cafe during the jazz era. I looked at my blank page as Satchmo’s baritone voice scatted and pondered what kind of art will eventually be drawn. So many ideas came to mind.

Then it was time to close.

Since that day, I’ve always been in the mood for scratchy jazz recordings by Louis Armstrong on Sunday afternoons.  Which also puts me in the mood to sketch, draw, paint, etc.

On my way back from the gym on Sunday afternoon, I turned on the radio to Radio-Canada and Louis Armstrong was singing about how he’s crazy about his baby and his baby is crazy about him. Creative inspiration immediately arrived and here’s my blog post.

I did a quick character sketch of Satchmo with conté crayon (see above) but I think he looks more like Jack Nicholson.

[tags]Louis Armstrong, Satchmo, jazz, artistic inspiration, drawing[/tags]