ABSTRACT
Around 1950, the first generation of the New York School attracted a small group of young artists who formed the early wave of the second generation. The New York School constituted a loose community which was primarily an open network based on personal relationships, more social than aesthetic in nature. Financial success became a possibility for New York School artists, but whereas it came late in life to the first generation, it came relatively early in the careers of many of the second. Thomas B. Hess pointed to this shift in sensibility in 1954, in a review of a large show organized by artists of the New York School and dubbed the Stable Annual. Jazz was attractive because it was open and energetic, the improvisation of the creative individual rather than the interpretive group, and because it was an urban music, reflecting the tempo, tension, and energy of the city, particularly New York.
