Caravan, considered a jazz standard today, was composed by Juan Tizol and Duke Ellington in 1936 while residing in New York City. This piece was arranged by John Wasson for the film Whiplash. The evolving culture of the arts scene in New York City can be understood by listening to this arrangement. While many may be skeptical of how a song with no lyrics can explain the culture of New York City and Smith’s evolution into an artist, this song accomplishes both through its instrumentals.
One of the key aspects of shaping Patti Smith into the artist she became was the space of New York city. By occupying such a space, Smith was never allowed true privacy one might experience in a more rural area; the densely populated nature of the city forces one to never truly have his or her own privacy. This can be seen during Patti Smith’s arrival at New York City. During her first day, she sat down in Washington Square Park to take in the sights and sounds of the city; she would see and hear “the sounds of bongos and acoustic guitars, protest singers, political arguments, activists leafleting, [and] older chess players challenged by the young” (27). These different interactions occurring in such a relatively small space helps give the reader an idea of the culture of New York City; while one may be having their own private interaction with another person, the interaction is never truly private due to sheer amount of people present. However, for an artist and, especially Patti Smith, this clash of private spaces was what helped shape her ideas of art. The lack of privacy would eventually lead to the collaboration of ideas between other artists; such a collaboration allows an artist to discover what it is that he or she is truly trying to accomplish.
The forced merging of private spaces is seen during her time at Hotel Chelsea, a location where artists from all different backgrounds came together in order to realize their dreams. Caravan conveys this idea into a more auditory way; there are many different instrumentals present in this piece such as a piano, drums, saxophones, trombones, and trumpets. When listening to this piece, it is quite obvious that each instrument at first is struggling to find its “voice.” When related back to the book, it can be seen that each instrument represents different artists that happen to be occupying the same space.
The struggle of creating art is a hardship that all artists understand due to their own experiences of failure. This struggle allows for support among the artists that occupy the same space. In Just Kids, Patti Smith and Robert Mapplethorpe arrive at Hotel Chelsea without a lot of money. However, they are able to survive and create new connections with the other occupants of the hotel. During their stay there, the people they meet and the interactions they have with them allow them to refine or even change their previously held beliefs of what they were trying to accomplish. The interactions of these artists can be heard as well while listening to Caravan. In the piece, the instruments, after their initial struggle of trying to define themselves, learn to interact with each other and find their own “voice.” The initial interactions between the instruments can be heard as struggle for the spotlight. Each instrument is performing its own “voice” with understanding for what is going on around them; each of the instruments are in their own bubble. However, the merging of these different instruments causes each of these bubbles to be popped, thus learning from each instrument and refining their “voices.”
The refinement or change in one’s views is also seen in Just Kids when Robert Mapplethorpe decides to separate from Patti Smith. After learning from his interactions with other people and from Patti Smith, Mapplethorpe believes that their separation would be their only of finding their own voices as artists. One of the reasons for leaving was due to his change in sexuality after his time in New York. Mapplethorpe would end up moving to San Francisco where he would go on to find a new boyfriend and eventually return. In Smith’s interview with NPR, she states that he would return to create “photographs with explicit, sometimes shocking nudity” (NPR).
By the end of the piece, all the instruments in Caravan embark on a journey with the common goal of creating art. In the end, the instruments work together in harmony in order to create a classic in Jazz. Just Kids is just like Caravan in that creating art is a journey; it is a journey to learn who they are as artists because at first, they were “just kids.”