#11 - Offline Journal Newsletter

Jazz and artifacts in photography & personal Notebooks

Aug 11, 2020

Hello again. Happy August!
(Santa will be here again before we know it…)

With Covid-19 lockdown easing (now and again it seems) and with little happening in terms of photography exhibitions and events in Wales to discuss here currently, I thought I’d continue bringing more photobooks to your attention and perhaps stimulate some discussion.
(Just to remind you that comments are welcome at the bottom of each of these Newsletters using the ‘Write a comment’ area and I encourage you to add your thoughts, ideas or constructive rants).

As issue #005 of Offline Journal is now very busy in production - I’ll be reverting to one of these Newsletters per month due to workload until the next issue and both its supplements start shipping out to Journal Subscribers in early October.

In case you hadn’t spotted it - I’ve now got Offline’s own website up and running to provide info on new and past issues of the Journal, Offline Essays and related activities. Be sure to keep an eye on it as I have ideas and new content underway that weaves this Newsletter and the website together.
www.offline.wales

Jazz and artifacts in photography

I’ve been a big fan of the guitar as long as I can remember.

Like any aspiring rock-legend, my teen music listening was accompanied by a fair amount of bad air guitar - at least until a budget gut-string instrument appeared one Christmas morning and that was me - hooked. Recognising I could carry a tune and enjoyed playing, my parents funded a few years of lessons with a guitar teacher who happened to live on the same street. At five pounds for an hour’s private lesson in the mid 1970’s, I came to realise that most guitar tutors were very likely retired school teachers or nocturnal professional musicians earning some extra daytime dosh. Frank Hendry was one of the latter - with a great sense of humour and a big, dark bushy beard that opened up to reveal a massive smile. His front lounge in Lanarkshire served as my weekly conservatoire and, over time, became a temple of guitar worship. It transpired that Frank didn’t just play guitar professionally, he also prepared and serviced acoustic and semi-acoustic instruments for other guitarists from across Scotland. Big Frank knew his stuff. Expensive and rare Gibson, Fender, Guild, Gretsch, Martin and other top-end guitars would be entrusted to him - greeting me teasingly one week but gone the next - their bridges replaced, string action tweaked, frets filed or pickups serviced. Lemon oil, bees wax and wood polish ensured the instruments would go back to pining owners looking stunning but their scent lingered in his lounge giving it a ‘eau de guitar’ I’ll never forget.

Top and above: Royal Welsh College of Music & Drama students performing upstairs in the old Dempseys (formerly The Four Bars), Cardiff, November 2016 © Brian Carroll

It also emerged that Frank wasn’t just any old axe player – he was a Jazz session guitarist. That required him to be expert on his own instrument and adept in walking into a studio or onto a live stage and playing with other talented musicians, many of whom he’d be meeting for the first time. Music - often sheet music - was the common language these professionals understood but Jazz is a genre of music where deviation from the script (or stave) is encouraged to allow individual players to express themselves. Improvisation is an essential ingredient in Jazz.

There’s a lesser known and bohemian period in the career of W. Eugene Smith where improvisation and Jazz were entwined in the language of his photography:

January 29, 1960
W. Eugene Smith sits at the fourth-floor window of his dilapidated loft at 821 Sixth Avenue, New York City, near the corner of Twenty-eighth Street, the heart of Manhattan’s wholesale flower district. He peers out at the street below, several cameras at hand loaded with different lenses and film speeds. His window faces east from the west side of Sixth Avenue. The dawn light begins to rise behind the Empire State Building and other Midtown skyscrapers looming over the modest neighborhood. Three musicians stand together on the sidewalk below talking and laughing. One holds an upright bass in its case, another has a saxophone case slung over his shoulder, and the other is smoking a cigarette. It is six o’clock in the morning; the temperature is a moderate thirty degrees. The musicians are going home after a night-long jam session. Smith snaps a few pictures.

The excerpt above is taken from the prologue of The Jazz Loft Project: Photographs and Tapes of W. Eugene Smith from 821 Sixth Avenue, 1957-1965.

Above: the back, spine and front cover of the book using Smith’s photography and a few examples of the reel- to-reel audio tape boxes in the photographer’s collection.

When W. Eugene Smith joined Magnum as an associate in 1955 he was already widely acknowledged as a top photojournalist and a pioneer of the photo essay. A Loft on Sixth Avenue in New York would become his refuge immediately following his epic and exhausting three year Pittsburgh project which was never fully published in the manner Smith envisaged and deemed a failure by the photographer himself. Eugene Smith was obsessive when throwing himself into a project and following Pittsburgh, photography would mix with music and audio recording for nearly eight years.

His Jazz Loft work between 1957 and 1965 in Manhattan had Eugene Smith experimenting and improvising with his photography day and night in a single location - his fourth floor window position giving him an eagle eye view of the daily life of the characters in the busy commercial flower district in Manhattan. And when light started to fade, Smith would turn from the window and draw inpiration from the talented Jazz musicians who visited the floors below regularly to relax and jam with each other into the wee small hours. In terms of Jazz Loft creative output for Smith, he recorded 4000 hours of unique audio tape and took 40,000 photographs during his own self-imposed ‘lockdown’.

Above: a spread showing two of Eugene Smith’s images of the street from his Loft vantage point

Above: a few of Smith’s relaxed and candid shots of the Jazz jam sessions in the loft

Like good guitars, I believe work by talented photographers matures and grows on you over time as you begin to notice and appreciate skillful consistency (with dollops of surprises) and rhythm in their photography. Low cost and mass produced guitars are everywhere these days, most with laminate tops with a thin veneer to disguise the more inferior but affordable wood underneath. The solid wood found on quality instruments not only ages with playing; their resonance improves noticeably as they get older. As with the photography of W. Eugene Smith.

A charateristic of many good books on photography is the reluctance by many publishers to gamble beyond the single edition print run and, in turn, make those books rare and highly desireable. If you enjoy photography and happen to see this book offered for sale (in very good or near-fine condition) around the £100.00 mark then, disposable funds permitting, consider buying it for both enjoyment and investment. It’s a cracker.

The Jazz Loft Project: Photographs and Tapes of W. Eugene Smith from 821 Sixth Avenue, 1957-1965
Hardcover
Published: 2009
Publisher: Alfred A. Knopf and Duke University
288 Pages / 180 Photographs
Dimensions: 10" x 11" / 254 x 279mm
ISBN: 978-0-307-26709-2
Price at publication: $40.00/£30.00. Currently around £125.00 used, circa £500.00 upwards new

The astonishing archive of photographs, recordings and artifacts that Smith left behind now forms an important part of the collection at The Center for Creative Photography in the University of Arizona. From this rich archive, researchers and producers not only produced the The Jazz Loft Project book, but an accompanying award-winning documentary film, The Jazz Loft According to W. Eugene Smith, is available to rent or buy for just a few pounds on either YouTube > or Amazon >

And if audio is your preference, a (free) ten episode WNYC radio series on The Jazz Loft is also available as a Podcast >

Paper Jamming…
Photographers sketchbooks and journals

A question I’ve asked interesting photographers when interviewing them is whether they keep a journal or sketchbook. Many don’t and those that do are often reluctant to show them for a variety of reasons but insecurity is a primary one.

Of course, a journal or notebook isn’t a prerequisite to being a photographer: an inqusitive mind and a camera would trump a bundle of paper any day - at least to my mind. Having gone through Art School, I used both paper and a camera. I still do.

Photographers Sketchbooks is one of those interesting books offering a glimpse into the developmental process and organisation (or lack thereof!) of ideas by creatives - photographers in this case. As stated in the introduction…

It brings together images and personal statements contributed by 49 photographers from around the world who excel at locating a singular, personal vision at the heart of their practice. Most are the habitual image-takers and image-makers for whom the camera – be it a Leica or high-end digital device – is a constant companion.

The co-authors of the book are themselves well known in publishing and online photography circles - Stephen McLaren is a professional photographer and was a founding member of the Scottish collective Document Scotland. Bryan Formhals is a photographer, blogger and was co-host of the very good but now-defunct LPV Show podcast (still available on Soundcloud and well worth a listen).

Above: the comprehensive contents listings for ‘Photographers Sketchbooks’

For anyone passionate about photography but who hasn’t studied it formally, this book offers some great insight on project planning, experimentation with work prints, creative sequencing and layout. Interview segments by photographers in the text sit alongside spreads of their photographs, sketchbooks and images of final exhibitions of work.

I found the case studies on Peter van Agtmael, Alec Soth, Paul Trevor and Trent Parke very interesting and insightful. And the piece on Dutch artist Anouk Kruithof was particularly interesting on her approach to presenting her photography in experimental books and installations - a topic covered in an article in issue #005 of Offline Journal.

Two four-page essays by Bryan Formhals – Projects and Publishing – provide informative and contemplative breathing space amongst the many illustrated photographer case studies in this tome. Projects, being a much-discussed topic amongst professional and enthusiast photographers alike, has Formhals dig into the distinction between personal and professional projects, ideas and the role of sketchbooks in documenting and honing ideas. With Publishing still undergoing big changes, Formhals looks at the transformative impact of online platforms, Blogs, the personal website and digital printing - all available to photographers who have either a specific or general audience in mind.

Above: the opening spread of a meaty section on Alec Soth’s sketchbooks, planning and workflow

Photographers Sketchbooks is a thick book and still readily available new through Amazon and other online booksellers for around £20.00. This is a book you will pick up more than once to top up your creative juices or just enjoy away from online distractions.

Photographers Sketchbooks
Hardcover
Published: 2014
Publisher: Thames and Hudson
320 Pages
Dimensions: 302 x 38 x 221 mm
ISBN: 978-0500544341

Be sure to check your email inbox for next months Newsletter!
Brian

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