Originally released in 1989 and re-released in 1995 by Hearts of Space, Kindred Spirits was inspired by Manhattan's bustling sense of community. The album features John Boswell and some of his musical kindred spirits like soprano saxophonist Dave Koz and percussionist M.B. Gordy III. Kindred Spirits explores the different meanings of friendship and community -- thematically on songs like "Strength in Silence" and "Solidarity" and musically in "Night at the Beach," an improvisation between the friends. "James and the Giant Peach II" picks up where the first part of this piano instrumental left off on The Painter. In all, Kindred Spirits shows Boswell's growth as a performer and composer. ~ Heather Phares, All Music Guide
Kindred Spirits (1849) is perhaps the best known painting of Hudson River School painter Asher Durand. It depicts the recently deceased painter Thomas Cole and his friend the poet William Cullen Bryant in the Catskill Mountains. The landscape, which combines geographical features like Fawns Leap [1] in Kaaterksill Clove and a minuscule depiction of Kaaterskill Falls, is not a literal record of a particular site but an idealized memory of Thomas Cole's discovery of the region more than twenty years prior to the canvas's execution.
The painting was commissioned by New York art collector Jonathan Sturges and its title inspired by John Keats' "Sonnet to Solitude". Bryant's daughter Julia donated the painting to the New York Public Library in 1904. In 2005, it was sold at auction to Walmart heiress Alice Walton for $35 million, a record for a painting by an American artist. The Library was criticized for "jettisoning part of the city's cultural patrimony", but the Library defended its move stating it needed the money for its endowment fund.[2]
