Photographer Hank O'Neal is out with a new book of stunning color images today—XCIA's Street Art Project: The First Four Decades. Starting back in the mid-1970s, Hank began photographing street art—mostly in New York. For those not in the know, street art is graffiti, murals and other works put up on public surfaces—at times illegally and at other times with permission. All good street art comes with outrage or a touch of the absurd and provokes us to think, laugh or reflect. As I wrote in the Wall Street Journal last Thursday (go here), Hank's passion has become a wonderful obsession. [Photo of Hank O'Neal, top, by Ian Clifford]
Here are three Q&A exchanges from my WSJ interview with Hank [all images are from his new book]:
WSJ: What initially attracted you to street art? When I started in 1976, I wanted to document a fleeting art form. Pieces went up in public places, but the art was soon covered over or demolished. There was no record that it even had existed.
WSJ: Is all street art worthy of being photographed? No. The aesthetic exists in the irony and subversive statements made by street artists about our times. Good street art starts with outrage—exposing right and wrong, calling for social justice, or just reinterpreting iconic images. How the art appears, sometimes in torn layers, also defines its quality.
WSJ: Do you consider it vandalism? Some of it is. But the best street artists respect the city's quality of life, choosing spaces like buildings marked for demolition or wood-panel walls around construction sites.
JazzWax pages: Hank O'Neal's XCIA's Street Art Project: The First Four Decades (Siman Media Works) is available at Amazon and other booksellers.
JazzWax notes: Hank will be exhibiting a collection of street art photos at the esteemed Howard Greenberg Gallery in New York (41 E. 57th St.) starting on March 29. For my earlier interview with Hank, go here.
For more on the book, visit Hank's site here and the site of his publisher, here.
JazzWax clip: Here's a promo video for the book...
I'm on the road this week, but I have lots of goodies planned for you. Today, I offer a fabulous video featuring Jane Morgan, who first became popular as a singer in France in the late 1940s. Her career in Paris was so successful that she had trouble breaking back into the U.S. market in the late 1950s. By then, audiences had pegged her as an ex-pat French club chanteuse, which is probably why today she isn't as well known as other vocalists.
Here she is in the mid-1960s, swinging C'est Si Bon with a French bossa beat. Dig that Twist move half-way in!
I'm happy to announce that my book, Why Jazz Happened,will be published in November by the University of California Press. The countdown begins! [Pictured above: Book by Saul Leiter, 1980s]
Why Jazz Happened is the history of jazz from 1942 to 1972—with an unusual twist. Instead of telling the story of jazz's golden age solely as a series of jazz-related events—musicians come to town, record new albums, etc.—my book looks at how major non-jazz events during this period forced jazz styles to change.
More information to come about Why Jazz Happened—as well as pre-order information and sneak peaks at the content as the months roll on. The cover is fabulous, and I'll share it with you as soon as the art department has finished fine-tuning the design.
Rhoda Scott. Rina Sherman has completed a documentary on organist Rhoda Scott. (My interview with Rhoda is here.) I'm not quite sure what Sherman wants you to do at this page, but I suspect the "buy" button will help you along.
Sheila Jordan radio. Jazz musician and writer Bill Kirchner will host "Jazz From the Archives" on Sunday on WBGO in New York. This week's subject: singer Sheila Jordan. The program will include a rare recording of Sheila singing with Bill's nonet. The show airs Sunday from 11 p.m. to midnight (EDT) and can be accessed from anywhere in the world by going here to WBGO's site.
Hip-hop and jazz. As I discussed in this space last Sunday and in my conversation with Robert Glasper, there's an interesting jazz-rap fusion emerging between black jazz and hip-hop artists, who add different flavors and styles to the jazz artists' vision. [Photos above and below from Bruce Davidson's Subway]
On Thursday, I received an email from Byron Pearson, a rapper and DJ. Byron sent along audio clips on how he has combined jazz tracks with his rap. The result is quite interesting (you can reach him by email here: steelhear@hotmail.com). Let Byron fill you in:
"Ecclesiastes is my favorite book of the Bible. I feel it speaks to the true human condition better than any other.I took the basic message of each chapter and interpreted them into hip-hop verses. Each of the 12 verses my Emcees Ecclesiastes is an interpretation of one of the 12 chapters. Then I split them over existing jazz tracks. I selected jazz tracks because I think this music is the best way to capture the vibe I'm trying to create, and because I love the music."
Here's Christian Scott's The Uprising with Byron's rap on top. Fascinating stuff. To hear all of the tracks in Byron's collection, simply click on the link above and select Byron's different jazz-rap tracks from the right-hand column of frames...
Booker's Place. Director Raymond De Felitta is about to release his latest film—a black-and-white documentary entitled Booker's Place: A Mississippi Story. In short, Raymond revisited the Southern town used as a backdrop for a documentary his father Frank directed in the 1960s to shed light on the racial tensions and terror of segregation. I saw Booker's Place several months ago, and it's a very powerful piece of work. The film tells the story of how a backwater town changed after Frank De Felitta's documentary was aired on TV, and how one of the subjects in the film wound up dead. I can tell you this: Booker's Place gives you a vivid feel for what life was like under segregation just 50 years ago and how expendable black Americans' lives were back then.
Booker's Place will premiere at New York's Tribeca Film Festival in April. Raymond is posting about the film at his blog, Movies Til Dawn.
Buddy Collette. Jim Eigo of Jazz Promo Services sent along this beautiful clip of Moonlight in Vermont. Dig Al Viola. What taste! And Buddy is superb, as always. Todd Selbert tells me this is from Bobby Troup's Stars of Jazz television show...
Ayelet Dekel is an Israeli blogger who pens Midnight East. Dig her write up of baritone saxophonist Ronnie Cuber, who was just there on tour.
CD discoveries of the week. I'm always leery of new CDs by vocalists that cover American Songbook standards. In most cases the efforts feel tired and forced. A big exception is Jane Scheckter's Easy to Remember (Doxie), a slam-bang collection of songs and swing. There's huge taste in the arrangements, and the musicians were splendidly chosen—Tedd Firth (piano), Jay Leonhart (bass), Peter Grant (drums) with special appearances by Bucky Pizzarelli, Warren Vache, Harry Allen and Aaron Weinstein. Most important, Scheckter has a wonderful, warm voice that fully understands how these songs were meant to be sung convincingly. She enters standards with just the right amount of optimism, never drifting into over-selling the lyrics or trying to mimic past singers. Instead, this album, with all of its finesse, sounds as though it's a newly found recording from the early '60s. Sample How Little We Know and Will You Still Be Mine. Easily the finest Songbook album of the year.
Bluegrass legend Bill Monroe is given a threshed-hay tribute on Tony Rice's The Bill Monroe Collection (Rounder). Guitarist Rice is a mighty picker and singer, and tracks here are flawlessly spirited and touching. There are '50s folk touches in Rice's voice, and his delivery betrays his deep passion for the music's history and Monroe's legacy. Sample What You Are Lonely, Stoney Lonesome and Gold Rush. This is music for an early summer's day, just after the first lawn is cut and friends are over the house lingering long to catch the last stretch of sun.
The Andrea Veneziani Trio's Oltreoceano features exemplary work by pianist Kenny Werner, who always strives for beauty. Bassist and leader Veneziani has a warm upright tone here reminiscent of the famed Bill Evans' bassists. What makes Veneziani's tone so rich is its warmth and ability to accompany like a vocalist rather than a metronome. Drummer Ross Pederson also displays a feathery tenderness that is more playful than domineering. Speaking of Evans, the trio takes on Time Remembered, and it's about as good as covers of the song go. Also here are Charlie Parker's Segment and Thelonious Monk's Pannonica.
Oddball album covers of the week. Naked was a popular cover theme for art directors in the 1950s. Well, not quite naked, but you get the drift. Various tricks were used to mask the nudity—or models were positioned in a way so that album covers could remain store-legal. Interestingly, art typically was added to emphasize beauty, taste and form over, well, plain old hubba-hubba-hubba.
Tonight, singer Patti Austin is appearing at New York's Carnegie Hall to perform Ella Fitzgerald's Gershwin Songbook. Best of all, Austin will be backed by the New York Pops Orchestra playing Nelson Riddle arrangements—courtesy of Christopher Riddle and the Riddle estate. Many of the charts haven't been heard behind a singer since Fitzgerald's monumental Gershwin Songbook recording in 1959. To see about last-minute tickets, go here.
Sunny isn't by George or Ira Gershwin, of course, but here's Fitzgerald and Tom Jones in 1970 singing Bobby Hebb's tune...
Back in the late 1940s, the number of radio stations in the U.S. multiplied rapidly thanks to the F.C.C.'s willingness to hand out licenses. Many of these stations filled airtime with records rather than live musicians. As a result, a station's success was highly dependent on the personalities and tastes of their disc jockeys. To promote their dj's and image, stations developed jingles and promotions. One of the first to help them with this strategy was Larry Greene—a Los Angeles jazz pianist, jingle-writer and advertising entrepreneur. [Pictured: Larry Greene in the early 1970s]
In the 1950s, Larry and his wife Toni became a one-two punch for radio stations. Stations brought them in to write catchy melodies and lyrics that sold stations like a box of detergent or a pack of gum. The Greenes' jingles were so catchy that listeners would tune-in just to hear them. And that was the point. This was certainly true of WNEW in New York, which by the late 1950s began commissioning the Greenes for large variations on the theme they had created.
In Part 2 of my two-part conversation with Larry, the 85-year-old jingle writer talks about coming up in the business and how he created the famed WNEW theme:
JazzWax: Where did you grow up? Larry Greene: I was born in Sioux City, Iowa. I had health problems, so our family doctor recommended more exercise. My mom enrolled me in dance classes. By the time I was 3 years old, I was making stage appearances. I also was singing, tap dancing and playing the ukulele on a local radio station in Sioux City. A year later, we moved to Los Angeles for the warmer weather.
JW: Did you keep dancing in L.A.? LG: Yes. When we came to L.A., my mom took me to a dance teacher named Dave King. Mr. King was associated with Fanchon & Marco, which owned all of Paramount's theaters. In those days, live stage shows accompanied the movies. I guess I was a cute kid and a bit precocious, because about a year later I was appearing in short films and stage revues with a bunch of really talented kids like Dickie Moore and Jackie Cooper. [Pictured: Paramount Theater in Los Angeles in 1933]
JW: You must have been quite a dancer. LG: Pretty good. In 1932 Dave King entered me in the Dance Olympics, and I won. After that, I sort of lost interest in dancing. But I really liked a girl who also was a student of Mr. King's. The girl's mother was our rehearsal pianist, so I kind of hung around the piano when she rehearsed her daughter, Frances.
JW: Who was the girl? LG: By the time she signed a contract with MGM, Frances' name had been changed to Judy Garland. But back then, I was through with dancing and singing. Instead, I was into learning to play the new piano my folks had bought me.
JW: What kind of music did you play? LG: I started by taking lessons from classical teachers. But it wasn’t until I started listening to jazz that the piano became a passion of mine. We had moved to Fresno by this time, and big bands would roll into town once a month. I would see Benny Goodman, Glenn Miller and Count Basie. By the time I was 14 years old, I was playing with my first band led by Kenny Baker.
JW: Where is Toni from? LG: Toni was born in New York. We met in San Francisco. A friend of mine was in the steel business and opened a nightclub and talent agency. I went up to San Francisco to see how things were going for him. When I walked into the talent agency, there was Toni. She came down to L.A. on a modeling job.
JW: How did you get started in advertising and jingle writing? LG: I had been involved in a number of things. I was a pianist who worked at the studios and taught students. I was into commercials, and one of my students worked for an ad agency. He said he had to come up with a jingle. That was Bob Sande. So we started making sound commercials. [Pictured: Album by the Sande & Greene Fun-Time Band]
JW: When was this? LG: This was in the late 40s. We were one of the only production companies out here that worked exclusively on sound. Most agencies did print and hired outside people to make sound ads. Jingle writing came easy to me. We worked with ad agencies that would give us a feel for the demographic we were trying to reach, and we'd create them. Naturally, we did a lot of work for radio stations.
JW: How did you start writing radio jingles? LG: Back in 1957, Toni and I created a jingle for KFWB in Los Angeles. By then, Toni was my wife and was learning the ad business. She had a fabulous, natural touch as a lyricist. After the ad with the jingle started airing, the station had a meteroric rise, going to #1 in the market in just 90 days. It was the first time a single melodic line was used to identify the station’s logo.
JW: What was the next big break? LG: Harvey Glascock, the general manager at WHK in Cleveland, wanted a similar package, as did WNEW in New York. Harvey loved what we gave him. I guess I was riding high on the enthusiasm that WHK showed for what we had done. So I sat down at the piano after everyone had left the room and started to play. And there it was—the WNEW jingle that wound up remaining on the air until the station went dark in 1992. Without Harvey’s intervention, I never would have had the opportunity to write for WNEW at all. [Pictured: Aretha Franklin at an WHK event]
JW: How did the “in the style of” series come about? LG: It was an “ah-ha” moment. The idea just came to me. I thought, “Why not kill two birds with one stone?” I could use the WNEW theme to underscore the station’s brand and also highlight the type of music the station aired. It would personalize their programming and add another subliminal dimension to the sound of the station.
JW: Where did the idea start? LG: When I had begun to create packages of jingles for radio stations, I had always written a long version of a jingle, usually as an instrumental. These versions were basically as long as an average 45-rpm single. Not only were the station’s call letters and frequency featured on vocal versions but also the city or coverage areas, and sub-themes, like seasonal versions. The sub-themes were longer and allowed me to introduce jazz solos and melodic lines to enhance the call letters and frequency logo while keeping the listener’s interest in the music.
JW: Sounds like making a record. LG: It was. As a matter of fact, our pop instrumental version for WHK ended up on Cleveland jukeboxes. In Baltimore, the long version we wrote for WCBM was featured by the Baltimore Philharmonic Orchestra, and Lalo Schifrin did a recording of the WNEW Metropolitan Radio Thematic called New Fantasy.
JW: In New York, was the Stan Getz and Bill Evans recording of the WNEW theme inspirational? LG: No. I had produced many in that series way before Stan and Bill did their version of the WNEW thematic in May 1964.
JW: How many "in the style ofs" were there? LG: I lost count. We started working with WNEW in 1959, completing a number of sessions a year. We continued on with Metromedia after the exclusivity part of our contract ended in 1973 or 1974 and kept doing stuff for WNEW and Metromedia until the late '70s.
JW: Whose styles did you replicate? LG: Off the top of my head, we did Count Basie, Duke Ellington, Hank Mancini [pictured], Ted Heath, Neal Hefti, Billy May, Woody Herman, Joe Harnell, Nelson Riddle, The Modern Jazz Quartet, Les & Larry Elgart, Burt Bacharach, Wes Montgomery, George Shearing, Oscar Peterson, Peter Nero, Toots Thielemans, Wynton Kelly, Les Brown, Perez Prado, Lionel Hampton, Charlie Barnet, Pete Jolly and Strings, Herb Alpert and the Tijuana Brass, Mantovani, Si Zentner, Mason Williams, Marty Paich and Cal Tjader. We even did Spike Jones, Guy Lombardo and other comedy cues.
JW: Who was in the band? LG: The spots were recorded on the West Coast. So we used top studio musicians of the period, including Ray Linn, Don Fagerquist, Al Porcino, Frank Rosolino, Milt Bernhart, Marshall Cram, Lloyd Ulyate, Ronnie Lang, Herb Geller, Gene Cipriano, Plas Johnson, Bud Shank, Hal Blaine, Shelly Manne, Alvin Stoller, Emil Richards, Larry Bunker, Lou Singer, Jack Costanzo, Red Callender, Chuck Berghofer, Morty Corb, Al Viola, Dennis Budimir and Alan Reuss. I was on piano or Paul Smith, Pete Jolly and Bobby Hammack.
JW: Pete Jolly? LG: Pete Jolly was only known locally when I first used him. Soon he did a couple of albums, so we decided to do an “In the Style of Pete Jolly” spot. As I wrote the spot, I left the solo for Pete to improvise. Pete asked me what I wanted him to do, and I told him to “Play Pete Jolly.” I finally had to sit down at the keyboard and show him what distinguished his playing.
JW: Did you arrange them? LG: I did all the instrumental and vocal arranging, all of the key contracting, most of the producing, and some of the piano work.
JW: Which “in the style of” gave the band the most trouble? LG: None of them did. I used pros who could read and play anything, and everything was written out for them. Even the solos were somewhat sketched out.
JW: Who plays the Charlie Barnet [pictured] sax solo in the Barnet version? It sounds like Plas Johnson. LG: I don’t remember for sure. Plas may have played it, but I think I used Justin Gordon on that particular cut.
JW: The Count Basie spot sounds pretty authentic. LG: It’s funny, when I spoke to Count Basie, he remarked how well he remembered doing the recording session. Of course, it’s not him. Subsequently, I was told other principals thought they remembered cutting the spots that we had produced. That was the height of flattery for me.
JW: Sounds like you've had a lot of fun. LG: I have. I’ve had a lot of great memories—playing for Count Basie [pictured], playing gigs on Central Avenue as a teen, playing a command performance for the King of Thailand, how I got Toni involved in the business writing lyrics... a lot of stuff I hadn’t thought about in years. Thank you for the opportunity to think about my life. I will be forever grateful to you for that.
Back in the late 1950s, Larry and Toni Greene created a series of radio jingles for WNEW-AM in New York. Larry wrote the jingle's melody line and his wife Toni wrote the lyrics. At the time, 1130 was one of the country's oldest and most loved big-band and pop stations on the dial. The jingle the Greenes had created remained a part of the station until its shuttering in 1992. The theme's breezy longevity is directly related to its carefully crafted, addictive melody line and lilting words. As a kid growing up in the '70s, I listened to the station and couldn't wait to hear the different themes. [Photo: Larry Greene in the early 1970s]
The WNEW jingle was so popular that in the early 1960s Larry and Nat Pierce wrote arrangements of it in the specific styles of different bands, combos and solo artists. Think of these as musical impersonations. Today, I'm going to let you listen to a handful. Tomorrow, I'm going to let Larry explain how they were done.
First, here's how the WNEW jingle sounded straight, which will plant the romantic theme in your head:
Now let's have fun. Here's the theme in the style of Charlie Barnet...
Here's the WNEW theme in the style of Count Basie...
Here's the WNEW theme in the style of Stan Kenton...
Here's the WNEW theme in the style of Nelson Riddle...
To wind up with exciting candid photos of jazz musicians, photographer Herb Snitzer [pictured] had to be part big-game hunter and part button-pushing bully. On assignment, Herb developed tricks for making himself invisible and stealthily moving in on subjects. But he also had to know when to prod a little to stir up a musician's human side. To produce the desired results, Herb had to be fearless, patient, invasive and congenial.
In Part 2 of my two-part conversation with Herb, the photographer talks about the start of his jazz career and the trickiest moments behind his camera's view-finder:
JazzWax: How did your jazz photography career start? Herb Snitzer: After my one-man show at the Museum of the City of New York, I approached Metronome, the jazz magazine. I could see from its pages that the editors enjoyed photography as an art form. [Photo: Central Park Series (Snowy Benches and Tables), by Herb Snitzer, 1959]
JW: Magazine photography was very different in the late 1950s, wasn't it? HS: It was, but so was photography in general. Nobody talked about photography as art in those days. In 1957, I can’t recall a single New York gallery that was showing photography. The arts were pretty much about painting, sculpture and music. I knew a little about jazz, but I did my homework before I met with the editor, Bill Coss.
JW: What did you do? HS: I looked at previous issues of Metronome. Though the publication loved to feature photographs, and the editors clearly enjoyed photography, most of the images didn’t hit me. They were a bit flat. One day Bill called and paired me with Bob Perlongo, the magazine’s associate editor. Bob was writing a profile of Lester Young, and Bill wanted me to go with him to the Five Spot to take photos.
JW: How was your first night on the job? HS: It was a turning point. I loved Lester’s music. I also was knocked out by my proximity to Lester’s sound. He didn’t mind that I moved so close to take photos of him. I don’t think he cared. It all became one: instrument, music and photographer. Poor Lester died six months later.
JW: What did you feel being so close to Young? HS: There was a vibration. When you’re at arm’s length, the space in between has its own energy. The closer you get the more intense that energy becomes. [The story behind the image above can be found here.]
JW: Weren’t you intimidated and afraid to get so close? HS: I was naive, I just barged ahead. I didn’t think there was anything wrong with doing this. I was so intent on doing it, and Lester didn’t mind. Most musicians weren’t bothered by it. I had to get pretty close, too. Remember, I wasn’t shooting with a long lens. It was a normal 50mm lens. To get a close-up, I had to get physically close.
JW: Actually, many of your images are surprisingly close. HS: Nothing held me back. I had a job to do, and projects just took me over. As I became better known among performing musicians, there was less and less initial resistance or suspicion. When I’d walk into a club, I’d just wave to them, and they’d acknowledge me.
JW: What was your greatest strength? HS: My height. I've always related jazz photography to combat photography. I’m a little guy—5-foot, 6-inches. All small people make small targets. I never felt musicians were intimidated by me because I was usually smaller.
JW: How did you get them not to flip out? HS: It takes time. They needed to know who I was. Familiarity helped.
JW: Did you ever have friction with a musician? HS: I was photographing Sarah Vaughan in 1987. She was performing at a festival in Switzerland, and I was covering it for the concert’s producer. I had known Sarah since the early ‘60s, so we were friendly. In Switzerland, she was at the piano during a morning rehearsal. She’s was a terrific pianist. She was playing up and down the scales. Suddenly, she took her tongue and placed on her upper lip. It wasn’t an ideal image, but it was different so I snapped the picture.
JW: What happened? HS: When Sarah heard the shutter, she glared at me. We both knew there was going to be a problem. Her look was “OK, no more—that’s it. I let you in, and now you’re out.” I immediately apologized and said, “I’m really sorry, Sarah. I’ll never publish that photo.” It wasn’t flattering, and we both knew it instantly. She appreciated my apology and promise, and said, “Thank you.” And true to my word, I never published the image.
JW: And yet many of your photos have an edge. HS: My goal isn’t to compromise the artists or make them look foolish by shooting weird photos. My mission is to find a perspective, an expression that captures who they are and allows them to stand out.
JW: But curiosity is driving you, too, yes? HS: Absolutely. I always want a finer understanding of the people I’m photographing. I want to go beyond mere composition. I’m always looking and waiting to expose their humanity. I want my photos to show what these people mean to me. My images are about the underlying thesis behind all this music and how special these people are as artists. That’s important to me.
JW: Did your own upbringing make you more sensitive to the humanity factor? HS: I think so. As a photographer, I set out to celebrate the exceptional talents of musicians and I do so by waiting patiently for that singular moment when an expression shows their humanity. Growing up in a poor neighborhood made me more aware of this. Each photo is a personal statement. When I take one of my images of Louis Armstrong and put a mat around it along with a frame and hang that image on a wall, I’m not only making a statement about the music but I’m also saying that this is someone who means something to me. JW: Which jazz artist was most interested in you? HS: Nina Simone. She really appreciated my work and would talk to me about it. She would make comments about my pictures, like, “You really captured that person” or “You really understood what that person is about.” That she took the time and had the interest is still amazing to me. [Photo of Herb Snitzer with Nina Simone]
JW: Which brings us to your famous photo of an optimistic Miles Davis backstage in 1958. HS: I took many photos of Miles over the years. Miles was very difficult. He liked to bust chops. I have a photo of Miles that he didn’t intend to have taken. [The story behind the image above can be found here.]
JW: What happened? HS: In 1988 he was in Boston performing as part of the Boston Globe Jazz Festival. Fred Taylor, the concert’s producer, said to me that Miles didn’t want anyone backstage. But Freddy and I were friends, and he said he’d sneak me back. He warned me to be discreet.
JW: Were you? HS: Yes. Miles was out on stage performing. Suddenly he turns and sees me in the wing. He was wearing sunglasses and lowered them, dropping his head to peer over the top. His eyes were glaring.
JW: Didn't he remember you? HS: Oh sure. But his eyes were still filled with anger. I said to myself, “What are you going to do Miles, beat me up?” I had a 180mm zoom lens, so I just kept clicking. I didn’t care that Miles was angry. I wanted that photograph. I wanted that look. I wanted something to remember him being a jerk. I sort of have the same feeling at Miles that Toscanini did when he said that great quote about Richard Strauss [whose activities during World War II were repugnant to Toscanini]: "To Strauss the composer I take off my hat; to Strauss the man I put it back on again."
JW: How did you view Davis' soul? HS: I saw Miles not as the hip and cool person he was made out to be. For him to constantly play the badass told me how insecure he must have been inside. That’s the kind of stuff I tried to work out as a photographer. [Photo of Miles Davis at the Newport Jazz Festival in 1990 by Herb Snitzer]
JW: What were you thinking when you were looking through your camera's viewfinder at jazz legends? HS: I was asking myself, “Who is this person really?” And then I'd wait for the expression that reveals the inner person. Before I'd arrive, I'd get as much information as possible about the artist and then try to make a visual statement about how I feel about the subject. I still do that.
JW: Are you patient? HS: Yes, very. You have to wait and wait and wait sometimes to get the right expression. I took one of the last photos of Miles performing at the 1990 Newport Jazz Festival. It was so iconic.
JW: How did you get it? HS: I was talking to photographer Herman Leonard. I was off to the right with a 180mm lens with other cameras around my neck. Miles looked up and had this pensive look. I said to myself, “Oh my god, how vulnerable.” I just felt it. It was intuitive. Once that camera went up to my eyes, my head went someplace else.
JW: Where’s the art in photography? HS: When I go into a museum and look at work from, say, 1912, I think that someone is going to do this in the future, look back on photos from today and maybe look at some of my work. Art doesn’t survive if it’s just a pretty picture. You have to create something that touches people, that moves them and reminds them that they’re human—and that jazz musicians are human as well. [The story behind the image above can be found here.]
JazzWax note:For more on Herb Snitzer, visit his site here.
JazzWax pages:Herb Snitzer's Glorious Days and Nights: A Jazz Memoir features his touching recollections and rich black-and-white photos. It's available at online book retailers and at Amazon.
What makes a jazz photographer tick? For years I have admired Herb Snitzer's unorthodox images of jazz greats Thelonious Monk, Louis Armstrong, Miles Davis, John Coltrane, Lester Young and many others. Herb's photos always have this "how did he take that?" quality, leaving you both baffled by their execution and grateful for his daring, since they expose new sides of these musicians' personalities.
In Part 1 of my two-part conversation with Herb, 79, he talks about life growing up in Philadelphia, years in the Army and how he wound up in New York with a one-man show at age 27.
JazzWax: You grew up in Philadelphia in the ‘30s and ‘40s. Tough life? Herb Snitzer: Poor. Even though the Depression technically had ended as the country began to build up before World War II, many people were still poor. To this day I still remember the struggle for survival that went on in my neighborhood. People had been out of work for some time, and no one felt the economy or country was truly stable. [Photo of Count Basie at a Roulette Records rehearsal in 1960 by Herb Snitzer]
JW: And how was your family’s world? HS: Our world was relatively stable. My father had a small corner grocery called Joe’s Place. We were never lacking for food, but there wasn’t much money and our neighborhood was Jewish and rather insulated and self-contained. My parents were refugees from the Ukraine and had come over here in 1905. Their world was their family. [Philadelphia City Hall]
JW: How did growing up poor affect you? HS: I became politicized very early, at age 15 or 16. Looking around and seeing so much inequality made me have empathy for people. As a child, I saw very rich people and very poor people, and couldn’t understand why there was such a big contrast. Also, I was a second child.
JW: How does that factor in? HS: My brother was 13 months older, and in an Orthodox Jewish family like ours, the first-born gets everything. Constantly feeling second-best contributed to my reality and made me more sensitive as an artist. Today, my brother is the founder and president of a mutual fund company. [Photo of Eric Dolphy and John Coltrane at the Village Gate in 1961 by Herb Snitzer]
JW: Did you always listen to jazz? HS: Not specifically. I listened to the radio a lot. It was a dancing time, and I was a pretty good dancer. I was aware of the various swing orchestras. But I had only a casual interest in music. I wasn’t sophisticated enough to go to clubs. I was more interested in football. I played on the high school team as a halfback, but I never lasted a game. Somewhere along the way I’d get knocked out.
JW: What did you do after high school? HS: I enrolled at the Philadelphia Museum School of Art. I was determined to be a painter or designer. I settled on becoming a furniture designer. My parents were appalled by my decision to draw and paint in college. I didn’t get much support from them.
JW: When did you graduate? HS: Before I had a chance to do so, I was drafted in February 1953, during my sophomore year. I was 20 years old. I did basic training at Camp Pickett near Blackstone, Virginia. I had always been athletic, so I was pretty good at training. The Korean War was on, and the last thing I wanted to do was kill or be killed.
JW: Were you sent over there? HS: Almost. The camp’s colonel knew me from my playing on the Army football team. I was pretty swift. He told me he would keep me from being sent over. He asked me what I wanted to do. I told him I wanted to be sent to Germany to study art. He said he couldn’t do that but could send me to Fort Belvoir in Virginia, just outside Washington, D.C.
JW: What did you do there? HS: I began to get involved with photography. Before the Army, I had made photos of family members with a Kodak box camera as early as 1948. I’d take the film to a drugstore to be developed. In the Army, I learned to develop negatives and make prints. I was with the Signal Corps’ photography department. I photographed mostly parachute jumps with a primitive 35mm camera.
JW: What next? HS: I was transferred to Fort Knox in Kentucky, where they put me in engineering school, which was removed from what I wanted to do. There was a lot of math and calculations for building roads and things like that. I had little interest, but it was better than going to Korea. At Fort Knox, I hung out with photographers and spent time painting watercolors. Everyone knew I wasn’t an engineer.
JW: What did you do there? HS: Eventually, I became a company artist and wound up making maps and graphics of soldiers on maneuvers. I would plot the maps and photographs that were necessary for simulation attacks. I had to come up with drawings and was pretty good at it. For some reason I also was good at shooting a rifle, even though I had never handled a weapon before.
JW: When did you get out? HS: In April 1955. I had been in the Army for 27 months. After my discharge I went home to Philadelphia to finish college on the G.I. Bill. I took a double major—furniture design and photography.
JW: When did you move to New York? HS: In June 1957, to look for work. My senior thesis had been an extended photo essay of Eugene Ormandy [pictured] and the Philadelphia Orchestra. I went up to New York because that was where everything was going on. I was a furniture designer, and all the companies were there.
JW: First time in New York? HS: No. During my last two years of college I had traveled to New York every other weekend. I’d stay at the YMCA in the West 60s for $4 a night and go to galleries, museums, and Broadway shows for 95 cents. I knew then that I’d move to New York as soon as I was out of college.
JW: When you moved up, where did you live? HS: At 58 West 70th St., between Central Park West and Columbus Ave. It was a five-story walkup. I was sure I would take the city by storm. I started to look for work immediately. I met Bertha Schaefer, who was an interior designer and gallery owner. She worked for the Singer Furniture Co. and hired me to do designs. I was sketching furniture all day, but I really wanted to be a photographer. I had set up a darkroom at my apartment in the bathroom, processing film in the bathtub.
JW: Did you enjoy drawing chairs and sofas? HS: Not really. I knew I needed to get a photography job. So I opened the phone book and found a photographer whose name I knew—Arnold Newman [pictured]. I called him up and told him I was looking for a job. I told him about my Ormandy project. He told me to bring it over. Newman turned out to be from Philadelphia, too.
JW: Where was his studio? HS: Nearby, on 67th St., off Central Park West. He looked at my small portfolio and offered me a second assistant’s job for $40 a week. I would go with him on shoots and carry the strobe lights, which were heavy. I also made prints.
JW: What was Newman like? HS: He was difficult. Everything had to be a particular way. You had to act just so. If something was the tiniest bit off in a print, you’d have to make it again. I stayed with him for three months and quit.
JW: Why? HS: I couldn’t take the endless harassment in front of other people. He was one of the top commercial photographers who took portraits of famous people and Presidents. But he could be brutal. [Photo of President Eisenhower by Arnold Newman]
JW: How did you find your next job? HS: By looking through magazines. I found a fabulous photo of Marcel Marceau, the mime, on the cover of one. The photographer was Robert Ritta. So I called him up, and he invited me over. I showed him my portfolio, and he hired me for three days a week at $25 a day. That beat Newman’s job.
JW: How long were you with him? HS: About a year. In that year, I started making photos. On days when I wasn’t working for Bob, I was photographing Central Park—the people strolling there and the landscape—and meeting people from the photo services. Someone at Magnum directed me to Grace Mayer, the curator at the Museum of the City of New York. I showed her my photos of Central Park, and she gave me a one-person show. [Photo of Grace Mayer by Berenice Abbott, 1936]
JW: Wow, talk about an opportunity. HS: I know. That’s what made New York so special and magical back then. I was 27 years old with my own show called Four Seasons of Central Park. It was a wonderful opening, and every newspaper covered it. The show opened work opportunities for me. [Central Park, N.Y.C., 1960, by Herb Snitzer]
Tomorrow, Herb talks about what went through his mind when he went out on assignment to photograph jazz legends starting in the late 1950s.
JazzWax note: For more on Herb Snitzer, visit his site here.
JazzWax pages: Herb Snitzer's Glorious Days and Nights: A Jazz Memoir features his touching recollections and rich black-and-white photos. It's available at online book retailers and at Amazon.
Throughout jazz history, new jazz styles have always been slow bloomers. Then, without warning, they explode, breaking free to become dominant forms. This cycle was as true of bebop as it was of jazz-rock fusion. Now jazz is shifting again after decades of relative stagnancy. It would seem that we're in the "emerging quietly" phase. How long this period lasts is anyone's guess. [Top: Light Trap for Henry Moore No. 1 by Bruce Nauman, 1967]
Like most earlier jazz styles, the new one that's pushing forward is being pioneered by black artists who are fed up with the status quo. A short time ago, trumpeter Nicholas Payton caused quite a stir when he announced that he will no longer refer to the music he plays as "jazz," preferring instead to use BAM, an acronym for Black American Music. [Clip interview below by Bret Primack]
Naturally, there was a strong reaction from jazz fans who found Payton's remarks polarizing. But were they really? I initially thought so, too. Payton's insistence on a new name for jazz seemed to be politicizing one of life's last refuges from the news, which is swimming in division these days.
But rather than write about Payton's remarks immediately, I chose to think about them for a while. After some deliberation, what I found most interesting is what Payton didn't say. Some of what he skipped over surfaced subtly last week in my conversation with pianist Robert Glasper. That's when I realized that Payton's intent wasn't really about labels at all. [Pictured: Untitled (Night View of Trees and Street Lamp, Burgkühnauer Allee, Dessau) by LyonelFeininger, 1928]
The bigger, unspoken point that I think Payton was making is that black musicians today are increasingly being disenfranchised from jazz. From the perspective of many black jazz artists, white tastes and corporate power have subsumed the genre, compelling musicians to repeatedly record tribute albums and Songbook fare. Many of these artists have had little choice, since many labels have rigid visions of what sells. Musicians have to eat, after all. [Photo: Anonymous]
But as history shows, the only way to break this tiresome cycle is to develop a new jazz style of your own. Bebop unfolded this way. The music was so complex and coded at first that other musicians had to wait until Dizzy Gillespie's and Charlie Parker's records came out so they could transcribe them and decipher what was going on. [Pictured: Jean-Michel Basquiat]
The same is true for nearly every major jazz style. Given enough time, jazz eventually advances out of necessity. Artists are constantly struggling to find ways to shatter the locks of institutional control. In most cases, the push forward to create new jazz styles has most often been driven by black musicians.
Personally, I'm always going to call this music jazz. I like the sound of it. It's familiar to me. And I like words that have two "Zs." But like Payton, Glasper and a growing number of black artists today, I am also fed up with jazz's atrophy. Which isn't the fault of white musicians. Jazz has become less personal, and commerce demands that successful formulas be applied again and again. But a growing number of black artists are making jazz personal and finding new ways to express their perspectives. [Pictured: Jean-Michel Basquiat]
I want to see jazz change. So do you. If it doesn't, jazz's development will cease. What has always made jazz exciting is its freshness. It's the music of artists rebelling against what is popular now. And the black experience in jazz is just as important as the white experience. Both are essential.
Whether you want to call the music BAM or jazz, we're now in a period of experimentation. Based on what I've heard recently, the new style is pretty exciting. Give it time. [Pictured: 5.Juli.1994, Gerhard Richter]
Celebrating Ella with the Nelson Riddle Orchestra. If you're in New York this coming Friday, grab tickets to Ella Fitzgerald's Gershwin Songbook at Carnegie Hall. Believe it or not, Patti Austin [pictured below] will be singing songs Fitzgerald made famous—backed by the New York Pops Orchestra playing Nelson Riddle arrangements, courtesy of Christopher Riddle and the Riddle estate. There also will be Gershwin works in their Carnegie Hall debut—including I Got Rhythm, 'S Wonderful and Our Love Is Here to Stay. The concert is being produced in association with the Ella Fitzgerald Foundation and the Nelson Riddle Foundation. For more information, go here.
Jimmy Ellis (1937-2012), the lead singer of the 1970s Philadelphia-based disco band the Trammps, died on March 8 from complications of Alzheimer's disease. He was 74.
Like Philippé Wynne of the Spinners and Lenny Williams of Tower of Power, Ellis' voice was soulful and urgent, with an intonation that was more church reprimand than Saturday night seduction.
The Trammps were best known for Disco Inferno, though most dedicated fans of dance music found this hit to be too obvious and the least interesting of the group's soul-disco recordings. All of the band's songs came with a locomotive beat, Stax-like horns and a revival-meeting vocal by Ellis.
Here's Ellis and the band on Wilson Pickett, Eddie Floyd and Steve Cropper's Ninety-Nine and a Half. Dig the muscle and energy on this thing. Ellis will be missed...
Happy birthday Bix. Today (March 10) is Bix Beiderbecke's birthday. The father of melodic cornet simplicity would have been 109. New York radio station WKCR will be playing Bix's music for 24 hours today. To whet your appetite, here's Singin' the Blues...
Art Pepper. Laurie Pepper, Art's widow, has made yet another track by the alto saxophonist available via streaming at her site. Click to hear Patricia.
John Graas. The French horn player, composer and arranger was celebrated last fall in LosAngeles by the L.A. Jazz Institute. Susan McKeever, Graas'neice, sent along this YouTube clip of Flip Tip...
Hal McKusick's band charts. Saxophonist, composer and arranger Hal McKusick is looking to sell or donate to an educational institution his book for a nine-piece band. Musical parts are for two alto saxes, a tenor and baritone sax, trumpet, trombone, piano, bass and drums. There are 55 charts in all. Scores include songs by Thelonious Monk, Duke Ellington and other composer greats. Most of the arrangements were by Mike Abene and Mike Longo. Hal says the charts were used for New York-area concerts in the late 1980s and '90s. Email for more information:hmckusick@ross.org.
CD discoveries of the week. There's something a little eerie and haunting about Rocco DeLuca on Drugs 'N Hymns (429). He has an unusual high alto voice, and the album's sound is both rudimentary and deep. This is an acoustic, dark folk-blues work in the spirit of Robert Johnson—devil deals, dilemmas at the crossroads, and nocturnal encounters with troubled spirits. What's fascinating about the recording is that all of the songs are originals and when lined up tell a gritty, unsanded story—the kind you hear in front of a spitting fireplace on a night when the wind won't quit. Think Neil Young holed-up at a rural church.
There are plenty of uneven beats to hold your attention on baritone saxophonist Brian Landrus' new album Capsule (BlueLand). What's more, Landrus doesn't behave like most bari players. There aren't grinding solos or basement-register honking. Instead, you have adult-contempo mixed with modern arrangements, and each track is compositionally different. Dig 71 & On the Road and Landrus' solo on Now. Contemplative stuff.
Frank D'Rone is a swinging, optimistic club singer who came up in the late 1950s and early 1960s. Discovered by Nat King Cole in Chicago, the vocalist recorded a series of albums for Mercury that remain classics. Well, Frank is still at it, performing at sold-out clubs in the Windy City. His newest album, Double Exposure (Whaling City Sound) retains the sass and seduction of his earlier dates. There are peppy big band numbers (When the Sun Comes Out, Pick Yourself Up, Speak Low) and intimate favorites (Make Someone Happy, Oh You Crazy Moon, The Very Thought of You). On the ballads, Frank accompanies himself on guitar, inventing terrific voicings. Learn more about Frank in my interview series with him here. And here's a clip from the new album...
Guitarist Royce Campbell takes his sweet time on All Ballads and a Bossa. He works through songs like Never Let Me Go, When the Sun Comes Out and I'm a Fool to Want You at an extra slow pace, giving you a chance to hear the beauty of his lines and chord voicings. Even Somewhere in the Night, which traditionally is done at a spirited mid-tempo pace, is caressed here by Royce's guitar. All of these songs sound different at a patient pace, giving you a chance to run your ear over every song's melodic twists and turns. In the process, these ballads become more engaging and relaxing, especially in Royce's hand. Learn more about Royce in my interview here.
Leland Sundries is a folk-roots band with an unshaven twang. On The Foundry, vocalist-guitarist Nick Loss-Eaton approaches the originals with an Anglican-country delivery. Dig Giving Up Redheads, with its Beatles-Stones feel, and the New Orleans-y Bywater Rag. It's all very Indy and jagged, but the songwriting lingers.
Oddball album cover of the week. This album by relaxed singer Lee Scott was recorded with the Tony Luis Orchestra. As for the cover, not so comfortable. Poor Scott had to endure this art director's creepy concept of turning a woman into a gift basket. And based on the hot light on the right, it appears the photographer didn't know how to manage flash lighting. You can hear samples here.
I was nosing around YouTube last week, as I do from time to time, when I spotted this video clip. The truth is the duet is so good—despite the ailing health of both great singers—that it makes you wish the pair had recorded an entire album together of the songs they made famous. Both of these artists are sorely missed:
Marc Myers writes frequently on music and the arts for the Wall Street Journal. He is author of "Why Jazz Happened" (University of California Press). In 2012, JazzWax was named the Jazz Journalists Association's "Blog of the Year."
