Leaving the Park Square Theatre after a terrific "Lady Day at Emerson's Bar and Grill" last April, I noticed a small display of paintings in the lobby. One I recognized immediately was a portrait of singer Debbie Duncan. The strong colors and dynamic composition captured her powerful stage presence. Beyond that, they conveyed the mood of a live performance, the crackling energy in the air.

I liked it a lot. I could imagine it hanging in my home.

The Debbie Duncan portrait is one of 47 jazz and blues performance paintings that go on display today at the Robbin Gallery in Robbinsdale. Artist and St. Louis Park resident Don Pulver will be present at tonight's opening reception.

Pulver began drawing as a child in Wichita, Kan. He studied at the Kansas City Art Institute, served as an Army medic in the United States and Korea, and worked as a commercial artist and art director in the Twin Cities, meanwhile taking art classes at the University of Minnesota, MCAD, and Metropolitan College. Since retiring from his last corporate job in February 1999, he has worked full time as an artist, something he dreamed of doing as a boy in Wichita.

He has had solo shows at the Art Resources Gallery in Edina, the Phipps Center for the Arts in Hudson, and the Hopkins Center for the Arts, and group shows in galleries in Minnesota and New Mexico. His paintings are in many private and corporate collections.

Working in oils and acrylics, Pulver also paints landscapes and still lifes of oversized fruits and vegetables – what he calls "kitchen art." His show at the Robbin is all performance paintings and those are what we talked about earlier this week. 

MinnPost: When did you start painting jazz and blues performers?
Don Pulver: I had played around with the jazz/blues theme for a number of years and seriously started pursuing it about four years before I retired. I started doing a lot of the early jazz and blues artists, the ones from the 1930s and '40s.

MP: Why did you paint them?
DP: So many of the great early people were dying. I felt the need to create a memorial. But my interest goes clear back to when I was a little kid. My older brother, Morris, was a huge jazz fan. He would play jazz records for me and talk to me about them. ... After I went to college and then into the service, I developed my own jazz interests. In Korea, a group of us were jazz fans. We’d sit around at night in a Quonset hut and play our 45s.

MP: What is your inspiration, the music or the people?
DP: It's the music, it’s the people, it’s the atmosphere when you're at a performance … it's everything. I like the creativity of jazz music. It has a lot of feeling. I try to create a performance scene and a mood that speaks of the music and the attitude.

MP: How would you describe your style?
DP: I've always been very experimental as an artist, and I have a lot of different styles. Part of that goes back to being a commercial artist; you're forced to be flexible. I was lucky because I loved to experiment with different styles and themes.

MP: What do you try to communicate in your paintings?
DP: Mood. Spirit. Even if I'm doing landscapes, but especially if I'm painting jazz. I would hope that you could feel what the performer is feeling through the coloration, the composition – whether it’s tension-filled or soothing, whether the colors are bright and active or soft and easy.

MP: Do you have any favorites?
DP: These are all my children. But right now it’s one called "King of the Night." It's a recent painting from a picture I found of an unnamed artist. It's more of a caricature – I don't like to use that term, it sounds cartoony – but it allows you to bring out a little more of not only the physical look but the mood. You can distort things and also get into some things with coloration you might not do on a regular painting. 

MP: Who's on your easel now?
DP: I'm a little burned out at the moment with jazz. Most of this show, probably 50 percent, was painted in the last 12 months. I just finished two last week. One is (slide) guitar player Bobby Kyle and another is Robert Lockwood Jr. Lockwood is one of the old-timers. Another 30 percent of the show was done in the last two years. A few pieces go back further. … I'm trying to show a certain evolution, but the show won’t be hung in chronological order.

Pulver's painting of saxophonist Roscoe Mitchell graces the cover of the current issue of "Brilliant Corners," the national jazz journal. In his notes for that piece, he wrote, "If I were to create the same concept tomorrow, it would end differently. … Each painting is a new learning experience, a new experiment … in that sense, at least, I share the aesthetic joys of a jazz musician."

What: Jazz & Blues Rhythms: Paintings by Don Pulver
Where: Robbin Gallery, 4915 42nd Ave. N., Robbinsdale (two blocks east of Highway 100 on 42nd Ave. N.).
Telephone: 763-537-5906.
When: Opening reception, 6 p.m.-8 p.m. Friday, Sept. 5. Show runs Sept. 5-27. Gallery hours: 5:30 p.m.-8:30 p.m. Tuesday-Thursday, noon-4 p.m. Friday-Saturday.

Upcoming picks

Concrete and Grass Lowertown Music Festival: Roads unblocked? Convention over? Tear gas gone? Reclaim St. Paul at this three-day, rain-or-shine, SPCO-sponsored music festival. It's not exactly heavy on jazz but you can catch Davina and the Vagabonds, Salsa del Soul, and at noon on Saturday the Jazz is NOW! NOWnet Quartet (Jeremy Walker, Kelly Rossum, Kevin Washington, Jeff Brueske). Mears Park (Fifth and Wacouta, downtown St. Paul). Friday-Sunday, Sept. 5-7. Free. Download the whole schedule here.

Dean Brewington: The beautiful Cue, the handsome Dean Brewington (he really is a model), and the swinging sounds of his quintet (or quartet, if Javier Santiago is back at school). I might try the Dean Brewington wine flight of "smooth, spicy, and soulful reds." Cue at the Guthrie, 8 p.m. Saturday, Sept. 6 (no cover).

Roy Hargrove Quintet: Wearing dreads or cornrows, hat or none, playing tender ballads or (with his group RH Factor) a blend of jazz, funk, hip-hop, soul and gospel, Grammy winner Hargrove is always worth seeing live. His new CD, "Ear Food," is a Billboard top jazz album. I hope he plays Sam Cooke's "Bring It on Home to Me." The Dakota, 7 p.m. and 9:30 p.m. Sunday and Monday, Sept. 7-8 ($40/$25).

Find jazz calendars online at Jazz Police. Click on Twin Cities, MN in the black menu bar at the top.