Lyn Horton

Lyn is first and foremost a visual artist. Her second love is music and the musicians who make it.

About Me

My indoctrination to the jazz music world occurred in high school with a performance by the original Dave Brubeck 4tet : Paul Desmond, Eugene Wright and Joe Morello. It was not until I was studying at CalArts & going to my studio daily that I plunged deeper into the music when I listened to KBCA.

After Cal Arts, my penchant turned to contemporary classical and its obvious antecedents. I rubbed elbows with Morton Feldman, John Cage, Iannis Xenakis, Steve Reich (from whom I have not yet turned away), George Crumb and Nils Vigeland.

Mixing the three disciplines of mainstream jazz, contemporary classical music and my making visual art, I somehow developed the capacity to write about creative improvised music, first introduced to me by Michael Ehlers, the founder of Eremite Records. A performance by Joe McPhee, playing an improvised piece on the valve trombone dedicated to Denis Charles, re-opened my ears to hearing the innuendos of sound. That was a remarkable turning point in my listening life. With that, my art-making began to coalesce further thematically. I have never looked back.

My position as Contributor to this website ended with the last entry of My Top Ten List for 2010.

Having written also for Jazzreview.com, The New York City Jazz Messenger, Downbeat and JazzTimes.com since 1996, I have managed to create an audience for my blog, The Paradigm for Beauty, which is now the only venue for my writing.