From one artist to another: Teaneck's Rufus Reid pays tribute to Englewood's Faith Ringgold

Ships salute each other with guns. Soldiers salute each other hand to forehead.

Artists salute each other with art.

"Coming to Jones Road Suite" is a musical gesture of respect — from celebrated Teaneck composer Rufus Reid to celebrated Englewood visual artist Faith Ringgold. She is his not-quite-neighbor in Bergen County.

The five-movement piece, scored for jazz quintet, pays homage to a series of artworks by Ringgold — at 92, one of the preeminent artists of her generation (her work has been shown at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, among other places), and as an African American woman, one of the great trailblazers.

Some of her own words are incorporated into the "Coming to Jones Road" presentation, as part of a "verbatim theater" project written by Bergen Community College faculty and performed by BCC students. Images of Ringgold's art will be shown on-screen. Piece and performance are funded by a $10,000 grant by the National Endowment for the Arts.

First time anywhere

The world premiere, 7:30 p.m. Thursday at BCC's Ciccone Theatre in Paramus, climaxes a major retrospective of Ringgold's work, in two Bergen County venues simultaneously — the first such tribute from her North Jersey neighbors. "Faith Ringgold: Coming to Jones Road" is ending its run at Gallery Bergen at BCC on Thursday; "The Art of Faith Ringgold" is at Puffin Cultural Forum in Teaneck through Friday.

"I'm anxious to see what everybody thinks about the music," said Reid, who is as eminent in his domain as Ringgold is in her's. He is a Grammy-nominated bassist, composer, author and teacher who has recorded over 500 albums, including discs with Dexter Gordon, Stan Getz, Kenny Barron, The Thad Jones/Mel Lewis Quartet and many others.

He's especially anxious to know what Ringgold herself thinks. He has yet to meet her.

"I would like to," he said. "Every time I thought I might, understand she was out of the country. And I've been busy myself."

Anybody who makes music, painting, stories or sculpture is attuned to —and sometimes excited or inspired by — what others are doing. In their own field, certainly But also in other, adjacent, vineyards.

Stravinsky's "The Rake's Progress," Mussorgsky's "Pictures at an Exhibition," Debussy's "La Mer" are all musical works inspired by painters. The 1960 Miles Davis-Gil Evans collaboration "Sketches of Spain" is an homage to the Spanish composer Rodrigo. Singer Billie Holiday took her timbre from trumpeter Louis Armstrong. Playwright August Wilson was said to be inspired by the artwork of Romare Bearden. Reid is not the first — and won't be the last — artist to be inspired by other people's art.

"You kind of have to go with what kind reaction it inspires," Reid said. "Does it make you angry, does it make you smile — whatever. I try to depict that in some of the music."

In this connection, he had an odd experience with "Quiet Pride — The Elizabeth Catlett Project," a similar commission, recorded in 2014. It was his salute to the famed African American sculptor, who died in 2012.

"I was performing my music up there in Schenectady (New York), and there was a student artist from the high school who painted something based on hearing my music," he said. "That kind of blew me away. It was like, 'Oh wow, I responded to her art, he responded to my art.' We bought it from the young man. It's hanging on my wall."

Many moods

The five movements of his Ringgold suite, to be performed on the Thursday by Mark Gross (alto sax), Roberta Piket (piano), Freddie Hendrix, (trumpet) Kenneth Salters (drums), with Reid himself on bass, will play with various moods and ideas inspired by Ringgold's work.

One movement, "Tar Beach," is based on her famous images, from a child's perspective, of parties and picnics on the rooftops of Harlem — with the George Washington Bridge incorporated into the cityscape.

"In 'Tar Beach,' she talks about flying over the bridge," Reid said "So I have a waltz. It's like she's kind of dancing and flying. We have some fun with it."

Some of the music is darker. "Coming to Jones Road" is based on a series of pieces Ringgold did in response to an ugly episode in 1992.

Neighbors in Englewood, where she had just moved, tried to block her construction of a new studio, on the grounds that it would be a disruption to the neighborhood. The chilly welcome she got, and the years of zoning board meetings and litigation that followed, inspired her series of works about the universal experience of Black refugees, seeking sanctuary in places — North Jersey among them — that aren't always so friendly.

"The journey is ominous, but with hope," Reid said. "So that's how we're going to start it."

Go...

"Coming to Jones Road Suite," 7:30 p.m. Thursday at Ciccone Theatre, Bergen Community College, 400 Paramus Road, Paramus. $25. Call 201 447-7428 or visit tickets.bergen.edu

This article originally appeared on NorthJersey.com: A jazz suite honoring artist Faith Ringgold