HOT HOUSE music series
Maria Dominguez
2007

My passion for Jazz and Latin Jazz led to The Hot House music series. Influences for it derived from several areas; one being my musician husband who is either practicing around me or performing in gigs as well as encouraging me to listen to new names and styles out in the market. Another is the local Jazz radio who unfolds and folds my day with the music. While listening earlier this year and upon completing the smaller pieces to the sounds of trumpeter Wynton Marsalis on the radio the jock mentioned the name of the CD — the Hot House Flowers it offered me the perfect name for the work.

The deep contrasting colors are gathered from my photos of live performances. Musicians are immersed by travelling color spotlights and are transformed almost into caricatures — diffusing their faces and hi-lighting others making them seem as if they are either in pain or pleasure to reach that particular note. There I witness the intensity the musicians apply to their instruments to bring us the pleasure of hearing it.