Pick Three Plus One

Zsavon Butler, Mathieu JN Baptiste, Jazz on Film, and Charles Ives Remembered.

Welcome to Pick Three Plus One, a twice-a-month public post highlighting stellar gallery and museum exhibits in Houston, TX, plus one other band, book, film, or whatever that has captured my attention.

1. Zsavon Butler at Art Is Bond

(Zsavon Butler, We Dream In Dark Times, mixed media on archival paper, 2025)

It’s always exciting when a new show goes up at Art Is Bond. Now on view through June 28, 2025, is UNheard (UNherd) — a multidisciplinary solo exhibition by Houston-based artist Zsavon Butler. I missed the opening because I had my own multidisciplinary event that evening, so I’m glad the show will be up through June 28. The gallery’s website needs an update, so I suggest following Art Is Bond on Instagram or Facebook.

Butler’s practice includes painting, mixed media, encaustics, ceramics, and assemblage. The works throughout UNheard (Unherd) subtly, and sometimes not-so-subtly, speak to the erosion of reproductive rights, with images of decrepit Romanesque architecture; birds, butterflies, and livestock; and women, sometimes exuberant and joyful, and at other times comforting one another as if recovering from witnessing some level of violence. In a press release, Butler explains, “This work was born from grief, but also from a fierce need to resist. I wanted to create a space where rage and tenderness could coexist—where we could confront what's happening, together.” It’s a sentiment every artist I know, in this moment of our history, can get behind.

UNheard (Unherd) is available to view by appointment. To schedule your visit, email info@artisbond.gallery.

2. Mathieu JN Baptiste at Heidi Vaughn Fine Art

(Mathieu JN Baptiste, Ce Qui Dort en Moi (What Sleeps Within Me), acrylic, oil, and ink on canvas, 2025)

Mathieu JN Baptiste’s first solo gallery show, Don’t Give Up On Your Dreams Just Keep Sleeping, is on view at Heidi Vaughan Fine Art through June 21. Born in Port Au Prince, Haiti, and now based in Houston, JN Baptiste’s paintings, sculptures, and works on paper speak to his Haitian heritage, and what it feels and looks like to be both Haitian and American. (Baptiste relocated to Houston in 2013, and became an American citizen in 2022.) With this new body of work, beautifully realized with acrylics, graphite, and ink, JN Baptiste turns his eye to kids, specifically, tweens or “in-between kids,” and that stage of development when a child is begins to consider and shape their ambitions and dreams. As both an artist and a dad, JN Baptiste holds a special place in his heart for those he describes as “the daydreamers, the misfits, the kids who sketch in the margins of their notebooks, and the ones who’ve been told to sit still when their spirit wants to run.”

3. Jazz on Film at the MFAH

This weekend and next, June 13-21, the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, continues its annual Jazz on Film series, curated by Peter Lucas. On Friday, June 13, you can check out director Shirley Clarke’s 1985 film Ornette: Made in America (1985), which follows iconoclastic saxophonist and composer Ornette Coleman as he prepares to debut a new work in his hometown of Fort Worth. Coleman remains an artist whose music shares as much with the fields of architecture, painting, and poetry as it does with the foundations of jazz, and a tradition of group improvisation that goes back to the music’s earliest incarnation in New Orleans. Preceeding Ornette: Made in America will be Dick Fontaine’s rarely seen short film David, Moffett, and Ornette, which features the Ornette Coleman Trio at a Paris studio in 1966.

Also on tap this weekend is Spike Lee’s 1990 film Mo Better Blues, which stars Denzel Washington as a trumpet player attempting to balance his practice schedule, crummy career management, and the affections of not one but two doting women.

I saw Mo’ Better Blues when it came out back in 1990, when I was studying music composition at Capital University’s Conservatory of Music, and . . . I didn’t dig it. It’s still my least favorite on-screen depiction of day-to-day life as an independent musician and continued commitment required to seek out and maybe discover your full potential as an artist. It’s a beautiful film to look at, and the acting is pretty damn good, although there’s plenty of stereotyping. I went to see it with a good friend who was studying jazz guitar and is now a fantastic guitarist, bassist, composer, and bandleader, and we pretty much laughed at not with the scenarios and tensions between the characters that made no sense and (I’m sorry to say this) the film’s title tune, which isn’t a blues. We weren’t mean spirited or snobs. Maybe, as students of the craft, we were just too close to the material?

But, and this is a big but, I know at the time of its release, Mo’ Better Blues resonated very, very differently for different audiences. For some, it was a gateway to this music, and expanded the range of their listening. The score, featuring numbers by the Branford Marsalis Quartet and master trumpter and composer Terence Blanchard, and music by Lee’s father Bill, is excellent, and that music, along with the release of albums by Wynton Marsalis, each containing longwinded liner notes by Stanley Crouch, sparked a genuine interest in this music by presenting it as something just as cool to listen to as pop music.

Mo’ Better Blues screens June 14. Maybe Lucas and the brilliant Jason Woods a.k.a. Flash Gordon Parks will, in the post-screening talk-back, offer a thoughtful critique of the film while celebrating its innovations, and cemented place in music and film history?

+ Charles Ives Remembered

This book was gifted to me by a friend who attended my aforementioned multidisciplinary event. Charles Ives Remembered is indeed an oral history; a collection of fifty-eight edited interviews with friends, family, work colleagues (Ives famously earned his living selling life insurance), musicians, and fellow composers. The range of composers interviewed is jaw dropping, and includes Elliott Carter, Bernard Herrmann, Lou Harrison, and Darius Milhaud. The details about work habits, the nuts and bolts of producing music, and family life throughout are fascinating and enlightening, even if you are already familiar with Ives’ biography and music. Highly recommended!