Chris

Chris Buck, Parkdale, Toronto, June 1990

MY GOOD FRIEND CHRIS BUCK HAD HIS BIRTHDAY THIS WEEK, and as I promised a year ago at this time, I thought I'd dig out some more portraits I took of him back when we were young photographers, testing out film and equipment with each other as subjects. I found these buried in a binder of unedited slides, and found them interesting, if only for technical reasons.

They were taken in my Parkdale studio, shortly before Chris moved to New York. We were constantly on the search for any technical or creative edge we could find while still searching for something like a unique style, and while playing around with cross-processing, old cameras and alternate printing processes, we came across Polaroid's line of instant slide films.

Chris Buck, Parkdale, Toronto, June 1990

Polachrome (the colour film) and Polapan (the black and white version) looked like regular 35mm canister film, but had to be developed with a hand-cranked film processor and a pack of processing chemicals. Eager for any sort of edge we could find, we both bought a batch and went to work in my studio/bedroom, setting up seamless backdrops and strobe lights.

If you zoom in close on the colour scans, you'll notice the very wide grain, separated into red, green and blue. It was a film-chemical process, but the result anticipated digital photography for some reason I can't explain. It produced a pointillist sort of effect that I very much liked, but after testing the film out with a variety of filters and exposures, I think we both came to the conclusion that it was risky to work with, mostly because we couldn't guarantee a consistent result that we could sell to a client.

The black and white film, on the other hand, had a remarkable smoothness - a grain-free texture that was reminiscent of Polaroid's Type 55 positive/negative film. Unfortunately both films left a notable amount of debris on the film - a cinch to Photoshop away today, but a deal-breaker back in the days of drum scanners, before digital image processing was cheap and easy.

Chris Buck, Parkdale, Toronto, June 1990

Chris was - still is, I'm sure - a ham in front of the camera. These are a selection of some of the more restrained poses from the slides. I promised him I would try to respect his dignity when choosing photos for these posts.

I think Chris must have been going through a Morrissey period when I took quite a few of our portraits of each other, but since I didn't have vases of gladioli sitting around the studio, he had to make do with looking moody and a bit diva-esque.

From the #bucklikeness Instagram series - photos by Chris Buck, 2015

Chris has been having a good year down the States, as far as I can tell - surviving the shrinking of the ice shelf that is editorial portraiture by branching out ever further into corporate and illustrative work. He's also begun a series for Instagram featuring a 3-D printed likeness of himself, which he carries around and poses daily wherever he goes.

He's having more fun with this than I think he'd like to admit. And for the first time I think he's found a subject that's as pliant and cooperative as he's always wanted.

AN APPEAL: This blog is celebrating its first anniversary, and hard use has taken its toll on my old HP scanner, which now only produces clear scans on a narrow strip on the right margin of its glass. I'm on the market for a new scanner, but the only comparable replacement costs several hundred dollars beyond my budget, so I'm asking anyone who's enjoyed what I've been doing here - and wants to see more - if they can chip in and help. There's a PayPal button up near the top, and anything would be appreciated. Also, if you feel moved, please click on my Amazon.com links - a small percentage of anything you buy helps fund this blog. Thank you so much in advance.

 

Photographer, Havana

Photographer, Parque Central, Havana, 1991

THE OLD MAN SET UP HIS CAMERA IN THE PARQUE CENTRAL, just across from the Capitol building and a block up the street from my hotel, the Inglaterra. He was one of the few private businesses that was operating in Havana at the time, just after the Soviets cut off aid to the country, and just before they ceased to exist altogether.

I don't know whether he had to pay someone off for the privilege or whether the authorities made an atypical exception for this sort of activity, but I saw him there nearly every day. I had to get a portrait done as soon as I saw him, and asked his permission to photograph him while he worked. I'm sure I asked him his name, but if I wrote it down it's in a notebook that I've either lost or filed away somewhere obscure even to me.

He worked in a method that's common in poor parts of the world, but has come to be known, apparently, as the "Cuban Polaroid." He had a large view camera on a tripod fitted out with a long cloth sleeve on the back, a porthole viewer on the top, and a little drawer near the base. His machine was both camera and darkroom, and he seemed to be doing a booming business with both locals and tourists.

Film was scarce in Cuba - you could buy a few rolls with US dollars in the tourist shops that were out-of-bounds for locals, but the single camera store I saw in downtown Havana had none for sale. They did have an artful and tantalizing display of boxes of Eastern European film in the window, all of which were empty and covered in a layer of dust, upon closer inspection.

The old photographer somehow managed to get photo paper - I don't know if it was imported, manufactured locally or coated with homemade emulsion - and used that for his negative. He would take his photo with a strict process, setting up his big view camera, focusing by distance and composing with a little wire frame, then stick his hand in the camera and look down the porthole at the top as he developed the paper negative.

He would extract the paper negative from the little drawer at the bottom of the camera and stick it, still wet, to a piece of wood that folded up in front of the lens. He would take another photo of the paper negative, put his hand back inside the camera and develop the print he'd just made of the negative.

When he was done he handed you a little black and white print, just 2 1/2 by 3 1/2 inches, with ragged edges, still wet and smelling of vinegary fixer. It lacked detail and grain but was sharp and well-composed, and seemed to have come from some sort of time machine, with a slight sepia tint and a flattering softness.

My buddy Howie and I briefly conferred before we paid him a few US dollars - I'm sure his tourist price was higher than the one for locals, but it was so cheap in any case that you couldn't imagine complaining. Howie said we should put on our shades and try a pose like we'd seen in old photos of the Dadaists. My Rolleiflex is around my neck, my camera bag on the ground by my feet.

It's a fantastic photo, and it's held up well after nearly a quarter century, considering how primitively it was produced. I'm amazed at how thin I am; my girlfriend had recently broken up with me and I hadn't been eating well. I can't imagine that the old man is still working in the Parque Central with his camera today, but I hear there are still photographers there making their Cuban Polaroids.

Me and Howie Cramer, Parque Central, Havana, 1991. Photographer unknown.

AN APPEAL: This blog is celebrating its first anniversary, and hard use has taken its toll on my old HP scanner, which now only produces clear scans on a narrow strip on the right margin of its glass. I'm on the market for a new scanner, but the only comparable replacement costs several hundred dollars beyond my budget, so I'm asking anyone who's enjoyed what I've been doing here - and wants to see more - if they can chip in and help. There's a PayPal button up near the top, and anything would be appreciated. Also, if you feel moved, please click on my Amazon.com links - a small percentage of anything you buy helps fund this blog. Thank you so much in advance.

 

Slim

Slim Gaillard, Toronto, Nov. 1989

MY BEST FRIEND FROM HIGH SCHOOL HAS A HABIT of using the suffixes "-aroonie" and "-areenie" as a sort of antic affectation. I think he got it from old movies or Looney Tunes. One day, years after high school, he told me he'd run into an amusing, rather eccentric older gentleman at the Squeeze Club, a pool hall and hangout of ours. The man, he recalled with amazement, also used "-aroonie" and "-areenie" liberally when he spoke. It was the strangest thing, he said.

"You idiot," I told him. "That was Slim Gaillard. He invented '-aroonie' and '-areenie.' It was part of a made up language he came up with in the '40s called 'vout.'"

My friend didn't believe that someone - some actual person - had come up with that whole thing. I had to pull out a record and play it for him to prove it. I might have even had to find a couple of passages in a copy of a book I knew he'd never read:

"...we went to see Slim Gaillard in a little Frisco nightclub. Slim Gaillard is a tall, thin Negro with big sad eyes who's always saying 'Right-orooni' and 'How 'bout a little bourbon-arooni.' In Frisco great eager crowds of young semi-intellectuals sat at his feet and listened to him on the piano, guitar and bongo drums. When he gets warmed up he takes off his undershirt and really goes..." 

"... Now Dean approached him, he approached his God; he thought Slim was God; he shuffled and bowed in front of him and asked him to join us. 'Right-orooni,' says Slim; he'll join anybody but won't guarantee to be there with you in spirit. Dean got a table, bought drinks, and sat stiffly in front of Slim. Slim dreamed over his head. Every time Slim said, 'Orooni,' Dean said 'Yes!' I sat there with these two madmen. Nothing happened. To Slim Gaillard the whole world was just one big orooni.'"

- Jack Kerouac, On The Road 

Slim Gaillard, Sneaky Dee's, Toronto, Nov. 1989

Slim Gaillard came to Toronto in the fall of 1989 for a series of frantically booked and rehearsed gigs organized by my friends Jane Bunnett and Larry Cramer. They had played with him before - I don't know if they backed him up for this show, but it's likely - and were used to the benign chaos Slim brought with him.

I already knew about Slim. I'd read about him a few years earlier and had a dubious British bootleg record that mixed some old radio sessions with some later, Latin-themed recordings. I thought he was fantastic. While I'd been struggling to understand jazz with records like Kind of Blue, Slim's weird, cartoonish pre-bop sides helped me get the music better than anything else.

And so I had to tag along when Jane and Larry told me that Slim would be playing an impromptu gig at Sneaky Dee's, a hole-in-the-wall Mexican eatery on Bloor Street that would later become a legendary punk and alt-rock venue when it moved south to College. (It's still going today.)

I stationed myself at the corner of the stage and shot the very loose, rehearsal-like show, with a band that Larry had pulled together at the last minute. I was transfixed by Slim, who effortlessly made himself the focus of the room, and wondered that the guy who recorded "Cement Mixer Putti-Putti" and "Flat Foot Floogie" was just a few feet away from me.

Slim Gaillard, BamBoo Club, Toronto, Nov. 1989

A few days later I got a panicked phone call from Larry asking if they could borrow my electric guitar - Slim wasn't in the habit of traveling with one, and they had a gig coming up at the BamBoo. I can't believe it, but I was actually hesitant; my guitar wasn't a collector's item or anything, but I'd saved up for a while to buy it and money was scarce enough that I wouldn't have another if something happened to it.

I made Larry promise to keep an eye on it all night and to make sure, I asked if I could come along and shoot the show, as a document of Slim Gaillard playing my guitar.

So I ended up with another couple of rolls of Slim live, full of great frames. The camera loved the man. What I can't understand is why, with Slim spending so much time in Toronto, I didn't ask for Jane and Larry to bring him by my studio - just around the corner from their house - for a quick portrait session.

Perhaps it was the customary madness that seemed to surround Slim wherever he went. Perhaps I felt intimidated. Perhaps I assumed that he'd be back in town to play with Jane and Larry again, and that my live shots would be a nice calling card to grease the wheels for a few minutes in the studio. In any case I was very pleased with the photo at the top of this post, and let myself believe it would be a close stand-in for a portrait until I had another shot at Slim. My mistake, and I regret my lack of initiative to this day.

Slim Gaillard died in London on February 26, 1991.

AN APPEAL: This blog is celebrating its first anniversary, and hard use has taken its toll on my old HP scanner, which now only produces clear scans on a narrow strip on the right margin of its glass. I'm on the market for a new scanner, but the only comparable replacement costs several hundred dollars beyond my budget, so I'm asking anyone who's enjoyed what I've been doing here - and wants to see more - if they can chip in and help. There's a PayPal button up near the top, and anything would be appreciated. Also, if you feel moved, please click on my Amazon.com links - a small percentage of anything you buy helps fund this blog. Thank you so much in advance.

  

Steve

Steve Lacy, Toronto, April 1990

I SUPPOSE JAZZ HAS ALWAYS STRUGGLED TO SURVIVE, but at the turn of the '90s in Toronto, it was painful to watch venues and promoters struggle to find venues. This was, ironically, when the music was undergoing probably its last rally as a commercial music, when major labels still had jazz divisions and jazz festivals still featured jazz musicians.

Clubs were closing all the time here, though, and promoters were desperate to find places to book gigs, which is probably how soprano sax player Steve Lacy, a veteran player for over three decades, ended up in the backroom of Clinton's, a slightly shabby tavern in Toronto's Koreatown.

Lacy was a big influence on my friend Jane Bunnett, so I made an effort to show up during the soundcheck, where I obviously convinced him to sit for a portrait. I remain puzzled about my motivations in trying to collect portraits of so many jazz musicians from the late '80s into the early '90s. I obviously loved the music, and perhaps I had an idea that I was capturing a vital period in its history - which would be giving me too much credit, I suspect - or maybe I thought that there was a real market out there for this kind of portrait work.

Steve Lacy certainly wasn't a minor figure. He was prolific, with at least 120 albums under his own name and countless more with frequent collaborators such as Mal Waldron, Roswell Rudd, Gil Evans, Evan Parker and others. He had a deal at the time with Novus, the jazz subsidiary of RCA, which meant that the pace of his record releases only slightly increased during this period. He had an enviable spot somewhere between the mainstream and the avant-garde, and was considered a major interpreter of Thelonious Monk.

Steve Lacy, Toronto, April 1990

Clinton's might have been a bit of a dump, but they had these banquettes upholstered in red vinyl that made for a natural place to do my shoot with Lacy. I had obviously brought a light along, though despite the flash bounced into an umbrella I used high ISO film to encourage the grain and contrast I loved so much at the time. I shot a whole roll of Lacy and ended up pleased with the results, especially the saturated red background that popped against Lacy's grey suit.

I've looked through my negative files thoroughly, and unless I've missed something, it seems I didn't take any live shots of Lacy. It was at around this time that I had a conversation with Brock May, a photographer whose jazz shots I admired quite a bit, who told me that he'd found that shooting shows got in the way of actually listening to them, so he'd been doing a lot less of it.

It really struck me at the time, so it's possible that I took him to heart that night and, sure that I'd gotten a good portrait, left my cameras at home and just enjoyed Lacy's show. In any case, to make up for it here's some video of Lacy performing at around the same time I took these photos.

Steve Lacy died in Boston on June 4, 2004.

AN APPEAL: This blog is celebrating its first anniversary, and hard use has taken its toll on my old HP scanner, which now only produces clear scans on a narrow strip on the right margin of its glass. I'm on the market for a new scanner, but the only comparable replacement costs several hundred dollars beyond my budget, so I'm asking anyone who's enjoyed what I've been doing here - and wants to see more - if they can chip in and help. There's a PayPal button up near the top, and anything would be appreciated. Also, if you feel moved, please click on my Amazon.com links - a small percentage of anything you buy helps fund this blog. Thank you so much in advance.

   

Anniversary

 

THIS BLOG IS A YEAR OLD. I frankly thought I'd be finished with the thing by now, so I suppose the great surprise of this project so far is just how much worthwhile - or at least worth talking about - work I've been excavating from my files.

I intended this to be ultimately about reassessing my work when I started posting here a year ago, but any meaningful conclusions I can make about its worth might still have to wait. In the meantime, now is as good a time as any to look at how this blog has affected my work, and my "career" as a photographer.

The first real by-product of the blog came late last year, when the nice people at Catholic Insight - thanks to my friend and editor Paul Tuns - used one of my images from the "Church Shop" post for the cover of their October issue. I'd appeared in CI as a writer before, but it was a special thrill to get one of my "portraits" of the Virgin out of the files and in front of people. I had a very nice response, and intend to revisit the Church Shop shoot again this year.

At around the same time I put up a post looking back at the influence Irving Penn had on my work and that of my good friend Chris Buck. I scanned and posted a group portrait I did of cartoonists Seth, Chester Brown and Joe Matt as an example of that influence at its most blatant, and after sending a link along to Seth, he told the nice people at his publisher, Drawn & Quarterly, about the shoot.

They were in the process of compiling a massive book celebrating their 25th anniversary, and asked if they could use the contact sheets from that shoot as part of a double page spread. It came out late last spring and I think it looks fabulous. I also intend to revisit my shoot with Seth, Chet and Joe later this year, in much greater detail.

In December, I posted a selection of the photos I've shot over the years of Jon Spencer and his various bands. Out of courtesy, I sent a link to his publicist and within a couple of hours got an e-mail from Jon, who ended up asking if he could use one of the shots of the Blues Explosion from 1993 on the back cover of the band's new record. Naturally I was thrilled; I had always wanted to see my work on a Blues Explosion record - who cares if it took twenty years?

I was quite pleased with the result, and when the JSBX passed through town on tour earlier this summer I used it as an excuse to try my hand at live music photography again after a long layoff. The gig ended with an impromptu portrait shoot with the band, and was probably one of my most rewarding evenings with a camera in many years. Thank you very much, Jon, Russell and Judah!

Rowland S. Howard drawing by Alice Cauchois

Traffic-wise, my most popular post on this blog to date is - yes, I'm surprised, too - one featuring my photos of Rudolf Nureyev, followed closely by The Replacements, Lollapalooza '92 and Karen Finley. (And no, I don't know why.) On Tumblr, my Green Day photos were by far the most popular set, but the most satisfying response I've gotten this year was from my photos of Rowland S. Howard and his band These Immortal Souls, shot in 1988 and unseen since then.

I posted a link to a tribute page to Rowland S. Howard on Facebook, which prompted a very warm and enthusiastic response from his fans, and in short order one of them did the very fine drawing above, using one of my shots as a model. Lovely work, and thank you, Alice!

The biggest disappointment this year was coming this close to getting one of my portraits of Spalding Gray published in the New Yorker. Looking forward, there are a couple of projects involving my shots that I'm not able to talk about at the time, but I'm quite excited about them, and hopefully there will be more.

Probably the best result of this blog is that I'm excited about shooting again, though the conclusions I'm coming to about the viability of a career in photography at this particular point in time are hardly encouraging. I'm not quite at the halfway point of my excavation through my files, so if luck and enthusiasm holds out, I'll be able to do this for at least another year. Thank you all for reading, and if you'll notice the little spot of blegging below, I'd like to ask you for a bit of help.

AN APPEAL: This blog is a year old, and hard use has taken its toll on my old HP scanner, which now only produces clear scans on a narrow strip on the right margin of its glass. I'm on the market for a new scanner, but the only comparable replacement costs several hundred dollars beyond my budget, so I'm asking anyone who's enjoyed what I've been doing here - and wants to see more - if they can chip in and help. There's a PayPal button up near the top, and anything would be appreciated. Also, if you feel moved, please click on my Amazon.com links - a small percentage of anything you buy helps fund this blog. Thank you so much in advance.

  

Dizzy

Dizzy Gillespie, Berlin nightclub, Toronto, March 1989

THERE WAS NO WAY I WASN'T GOING TO TRY AND PHOTOGRAPH DIZZY GILLESPIE when he came through town. Even forty years later, he was still synonymous with bebop and the revolution in jazz he helped pioneer with Charlie Parker, Thelonious Monk, Bud Powell and others. The fact that he was still alive and touring made trying to get a shot of him an imperative. It was like collecting baseball cards: you'd always be able to find a Reggie Smith or a Mike Easler, but you had to have a Hank Aaron and a Mickey Mantle.

Dizzy came through town twice in less than a year, the first time during the jazz festival, playing a gig with his United Nation Orchestra at Roy Thompson Hall, the big prestige venue downtown where the symphony played. I got accredited and took my place at the lip of the stage, enjoying the very bright stage lights and working hard to get the photo I felt I needed to have - Dizzy, cheeks fully inflated, the bell of his "bent" trumpet pointed into the air.

Dizzy Gillespie and the United Nation Orchestra, Roy Thompson Hall, Toronto, June 1988

That it was a photo many other people had managed to get didn't bother me - putting one in my files was a rite of passage, or so I thought. I also ended up with a lot of photos of Dizzy mugging for my camera, and at least one that captured the showman he'd become in his later years, providing a worthwhile return for the price of a ticket for the audiences he could still pull.

Dizzy Gillespie, Roy Thompson Hall, Toronto, June 1988

It wasn't a secret that Dizzy wasn't nearly the player he once was; when he came through town again nine months later, playing two nights at Berlin, a dodgy uptown nightclub, he had Cuban expat trumpeter Arturo Sandoval in the band to provide the trumpet pyrotechnics for which Dizzy had once been famous. He had, by the late '80s, come to fill the spot Louis Armstrong once filled late in his life - a roving ambassador for the music, but while Armstrong was still capable of a spectacular performance as a singer or trumpeter in the studio, it had been a long time since Dizzy released an essential record.

For jazz fans, it was Dizzy's band that was usually the draw - he had a rhythm section that included bassist John Lee, guitarist Ed Cherry and drummer Ignacio Berroa, and also toured at this time with a band that would feature Jon Faddis, Moe Koffman, James Moody, Paquito D'Rivera and Sam Rivers - the last being the big draw for my circle of jazz fan friends on both of Dizzy's visits. Dizzy was considered a good gig for musicians - you'd get a couple solo spots every night, you'd travel to nice places, stay in good hotels, and come home with some decent money.

Dizzy Gillespie, Berlin nightclub, Toronto, March 1989

My favorite shot of Dizzy from the shows I shot is probably this one, which I've only ever printed in any form with this post. I must have tried at least once to get a portrait, but obviously nothing could be arranged. One of the iconic trumpet shots probably ended up in contention for a group show of jazz photos, and might have spent a few months in my portfolio until I realized that nobody who would give me the work I wanted cared about my live jazz photos. Essentially, none of these have been seen anywhere in well over twenty years.

Dizzy Gillespie died in Englewood, New Jersey on January 6, 1993.

AN APPEAL: This blog is approaching its first anniversary, and hard use has taken its toll on my old HP scanner, which now only produces clear scans on a narrow strip on the right margin of its glass. I'm on the market for a new scanner, but the only comparable replacement costs several hundred dollars beyond my budget, so I'm asking anyone who's enjoyed what I've been doing here - and wants to see more - if they can chip in and help. There's a PayPal button up near the top, and anything would be appreciated. Also, if you feel moved, please click on my Amazon.com links - a small percentage of anything you buy helps fund this blog. Thank you so much in advance.

   

Sam

Sam Rivers, Toronto, March, 1989

I DIDN'T KNOW MUCH ABOUT SAM RIVERS when he passed through town with Dizzy Gillespie's big band during the jazz festival in the summer of 1988. Friends who knew his reputation told me to keep an eye out for him while I shot Gillespie and his band at Roy Thompson Hall, the big prestige concert venue downtown.

I was mostly intent on capturing some decent frames of Dizzy - the only surviving bop giant still performing at the time - but I obviously had an eye for Rivers, because I caught this shot of him near the end of the show, at the end of my last roll of film.

Sam Rivers, Roy Thompson Hall, Toronto, June 1988

Somewhere between the jazz fest gig and Rivers' return to the city with Dizzy's band nine months later, I picked up a copy of Fuchsia Swing Song, Rivers' first record, and Conference of the Birds, an ECM album with bassist Dave Holland. They were very different records and I was still puzzling out Rivers' style when I shot him onstage at Berlin, an uptown supper club with a slightly dodgy reputation.

I was only vaguely familiar with the "loft jazz" scene where Rivers had recently been a key figure, but records by Rivers and the bands he performed with at Rivbea Studios were scarce and expensive even then, so I had to satisfy myself with the knowledge that Rivers had done something impossible in New York City today - renting a loft space downtown on a jobbing musician's income, where he could play for rent money and organize concerts for like-minded musicians.

Sam Rivers, Berlin nightclub, Toronto, March 1989

This time I devoted at least a third of my shots to Rivers, who was nonetheless hard to capture in the dim light of the club - a much more challenging place to shoot than the big concert venue downtown. It was a two night stand, so I must have asked Rivers at some point if he was available for a quick portrait shoot the next day; I was intent on getting a session with every reputable jazz musician who passed through town in those days.

Sam Rivers, Toronto, March 1989

The tapestry was a standby background for me, which is how I know these were shot at the (now closed) Sutton Place hotel on Bay Street. I relied on fast film, pushed to pull out the grain, and whatever available light I could get in the hallway where the tapestry was hanging.

I struggled to establish some kind of rapport with Rivers while I shot - not surprising since we'd only met the day before and I was imposing on his downtime between shows. The roll I shot showcases a variety of expressions, however, so he must have been trying to meet me more than halfway; the best, I think, is the shot at the top of this post.

Sam Rivers, Toronto, March 1989

Rivers is considered an unsung figure today - a technically accomplished player who helped create a line from bop through free jazz, and who could still play "inside" enough for a band like Dizzy Gillespie's. It took me a while to get what he did, but what helped me "click" with Rivers was his duets with with Holland, where the bassist provides a bubbling riverbed of rhythm and key notes for Rivers to create long, confident storylines on top of with his tenor.

At least one of my Rivers portraits ended up in my portfolio for a couple of years, and I'm sure I printed one of the live shots for a group show of jazz photography, though I'm not sure if it made the cut. Apart from that, these shots haven't been seen in twenty years.

Sam Rivers died on Dec. 26, 2011 in Orlando, Florida.

AN APPEAL: This blog is approaching its first anniversary, and hard use has taken its toll on my old HP scanner, which now only produces clear scans on a narrow strip on the right margin of its glass. I'm on the market for a new scanner, but the only comparable replacement costs several hundred dollars beyond my budget, so I'm asking anyone who's enjoyed what I've been doing here - and wants to see more - if they can chip in and help. There's a PayPal button up near the top, and anything would be appreciated. Also, if you feel moved, please click on my Amazon.com links - a small percentage of anything you buy helps fund this blog. Thank you so much in advance.

    

Self-portrait

Self-portrait, Gray Ave., spring 1986

I DON'T LIKE MY FACE. That's probably why I have so few pictures of myself. I'm 51 today, and feelings about my face aside, I should be used to it by now, which seems as good an excuse as any to excavate the scarce handful of self-portraits in my archives.

The photo above was taken in the backyard of the house where I grew up. I know it's spring because the trees behind me - the apple and pear trees planted by my grandfather - are in bloom. I had only owned my Spotmatic for a few months at this point and, at a loss for subjects, I turned it on myself, with the aid of a long cable release and the tripod my sister and her husband had bought me the previous Christmas.

I am 21; I have recently dropped out of college and had spent much of the previous summer doing drugs and taking long nighttime walks. I am living in the basement of my childhood home; my mother had recently been moved into a nursing home, the house will be sold within a month or two, and I will spend the following summer homeless, living on friends' couches. I have never been asked for ID at a bar. I have never had a girlfriend.

At home on Maitland St., 1988. Photo by Chris Buck

Technically this isn't a self-portrait, but it was taken on my camera with my film. Shortly after buying a Mamiya C330, my first medium format camera, I invited my friend Chris Buck over to take a look at the thing. My homeless summer had ended when I'd found a cheap apartment - two small rooms with a bath and a kitchen built into a closet - on Maitland Street, on the edge of the gay ghetto. It was small but it was home, not only to me but dozens of cockroaches.

It seemed obvious that we load up a roll and try my new camera out. After taking a few shots of Chris, I handed the Mamiya to him and told him to have a go. He must have set up on my tripod because the light was dim in my little place, even in the daytime. Behind me is the fridge and my desk, which doubled as my darkroom. I am 24 and, gratefully, no longer a virgin.

Self-portrait, Queen St. W., 1990

I only ever trained a camera on myself when I had a good reason. Two years later I have moved into a big loft apartment in Parkdale with my girlfriend and her sister. I am desperate to get into press screenings at the film festival, and my friend Stephen has figured out how to make nearly perfect forgeries of the standard media pass. All he needs is a properly-sized photo.

I take out my tripod and cable release again and finish off a roll of film in my Nikon shooting myself in front of my white seamless roll facing the north light window in my bedroom-cum-studio. I am trying to look serious, to stare down anyone who might have doubts about my bogus credentials. I know now that this was not a good look but I had a girlfriend and, obviously, have stopped caring. She would break up with me a year later.

Self-portrait, Queen St. W., 1998

My girlfriend's sister lived with me for an awkward year after our breakup and a friend took her room for a year after that, but when I was finally roommate free I turned their room in the Parkdale loft into my first real studio. I would be alone - and miserable - for six years, seesawing between loneliness and horniness and the peculiar joy of being single, self-employed and seeming master of my own destiny. It was a time that I enjoyed immensely, but I could not wait to see it end.

I am in my mid-thirties and need a photo for a new passport, because I have met someone who has asked me to spend a couple of weeks with her in Barcelona that summer, where she's teaching a course at the university. I am too cheap to pay for one so I take out my Bronica SQa and my tripod, set up my strobe kit with a single light bounced into an umbrella, and shoot a roll. I get my passport and fly out to meet her. Three years later we get married.

AN APPEAL: This blog is approaching its first anniversary, and hard use has taken its toll on my old HP scanner, which now only produces clear scans on a narrow strip on the right margin of its glass. I'm on the market for a new scanner, but the only comparable replacement costs several hundred dollars beyond my budget, so I'm asking anyone who's enjoyed what I've been doing here - and wants to see more - if they can chip in and help. There's a PayPal button up near the top, and anything would be appreciated. Also, if you feel moved, please click on my Amazon.com links - a small percentage of anything you buy helps fund this blog. Thank you so much in advance.

 

Clifford

Clifford Jordan, Toronto, Nov. 1988

I USED TO COMPLAIN THAT I WAS BORN TOO LATE to witness - and photograph - jazz at its last really vital moments. It was a complaint I'd make while listening to late swing or early bebop, the classic Miles quintets or that period in the early- to mid-'70s when almost everybody from all of those eras were alive, touring and recording. It's only with some distance that I realize that I was actually there to capture the last moment of the music's great if unsung players. Which is where Clifford Jordan comes in.

Jordan came through Toronto to play with a few nights at East 85th, a downtown east jazz club that was open for about five years. I knew him from records he'd done for Blue Note and Prestige over twenty years earlier, and talked someone in charge into letting me ask him to sit for a quick portrait session; I shot the show one night and came back the next with my C330 and a light, and photographed him in either a corner of the club or a dressing room or office.

It was, as I've said before, a time when one of my handful of ambitions - a small but fervently pursued handful - was to be Bill Claxton or Francis Wolff.

Clifford Jordan, East 85th, Toronto, Nov. 1988

Jordan was a tenor player from Chicago, and back when there were popularly imagined to be two ways to play the tenor sax - Coleman Hawkins or Lester Young - he chose the Lester route. Or at least that was how he was described to me. I was a huge Lester fan, so Jordan was someone I wanted to hear.

My live photos are dim; it would be a few years before I was consistently competent with concert shooting, but I have always been pleased with the portraits I shot. I have two rolls, with enough good frames to suggest that I managed to establish a decent rapport with Jordan, catching at least two shots where his expression hints at some mix of confidence and even intimacy.

Clifford Jordan, Toronto, Nov. 1988

While scanning the negatives I shot with my Mamiya TLR, I've been impressed with the sharpness and flattering quality the mild telephoto lens produced. It was a difficult camera to compose with - you were usually missing about half the frame when you hit the shutter after adjusting the shot with the parallax correction bar - but the information on these old negatives is startling to me today. I know why I sold it and traded up to the Rolleiflex and the Bronica SQa, but it was a lot better than a starter medium format camera based on what I'm looking at today.

Jordan never really had the reputation he deserved. An intelligent player and bandleader, he never embraced the excesses of the avant garde, even though he often played with musicians who made their reputations there. A couple of years after I photographed him he organized a big band that played regular Monday night gigs in New York, giving Jordan a showcase for his playing, which was one of the best justifications for the hard bop school after its moment was considered past. Quite without knowing it, I caught him at the start of this last creative period. My timing wasn't all that bad, in retrospect. Once again, these photos have never been published anywhere until now.

Clifford Jordan died in New York on March 27, 1993.

   

Mal & Marion

Marion Brown & Mal Waldron, Toronto, Oct. 1988

MAL WALDRON WAS A PERSONAL FAVORITE OF A LOCAL JAZZ PROMOTER, Serve Sloimovits, who brought him to town twice in 1988, the first time to record a record for his label. Serge was the best jazz booker in the city at the time - his portion of the DuMaurier Jazz Festival was always the most interesting. I got to know him, and asked if I could take some portraits of Waldron when he came to town in spring of that year.

I was still a neophyte jazz fan, but the one thing I did know about Waldron was that he was Billie Holiday's accompanist during the last years of her life. He even made an appearance in the last stanza of Frank O'Hara's poem "The Day Lady Day Died:"

and I am sweating a lot by now and thinking of
leaning on the john door in the 5 SPOT
while she whispered a song along the keyboard
to Mal Waldron and everyone and I stopped breathing

By the 1980s, having passed from the more conventional mode of his work with Holiday through an avant-garde period, he'd synthesized his style to an occasionally austere, even dignified sound. I didn't completely understand it at the time; I was a fan of Don Pullen's pyrotechnic style, and Waldron's meditative and even repetitive lines sounded a bit ponderous to me.

Mal Waldron, Toronto, March 1988

I photographed him in the unfinished rooms at the top of the Bamboo, with my film pushed to a high, grainy ISO. He was friendly but reserved; I'm sure he was wondering why I was so eager to get his portrait. I might be projecting, but I see a bit of that wary curiosity in the frame above.

The years 1987 and 1988 were, as I've said before, ones with a steep learning curve; I shot a lot and struggled to learn. Live photography was a particular technical challenge, especially in the low light where jazz seemed to be played. I shot a roll of Waldron at the BamBoo that night, and this is the only shot that captures anything of the man. He was a heavy smoker, with the inevitable consequences.

Mal Waldron, BamBoo Club, Toronto, March 1988

One of my portraits ended up on Evidence, the record Serge put out, and a few months later Waldron returned again, this time for a duet gig with alto player Marion Brown. Either the light was better or I'd improved just enough to get one more serviceable frame from the gig than seven months before.

Mal Waldron, BamBoo Club, Toronto, Oct. 1988

Marion Brown, BamBoo Club, Toronto, Oct. 1988

Brown's career was as varied as Waldron's; he'd made his debut in the New York avant garde of the '60s, playing on records by John Coltrane and Archie Shepp before moving to Europe. He would write music for movies and plays and perform on a Harold Budd record before teaming up with Waldron for two duet records and frequent concerts in the '80s.

Brown had a plaintive, almost queasy tone that contrasted beautifully with Waldron's stately chording. Hearing the two of them together helped me understand Waldron's solo work a bit better, but it would be years before I was able to appreciate it's meditative surface and pick up on the playful side concealed beneath. The child's melody "Inch Worm" was a tune that Waldron would do alone and with Brown at the time; I've come to love all the versions he recorded.

Mal Waldron & Marion Brown, Toronto, Oct. 1988

I asked Serge if I could attempt another portrait session with Waldron and Brown, and ended up in the room upstairs in the BamBoo again, this time with my new Mamiya C330 and a light; I'd bumped my head against the limitations of available light and wanted more control in my portraits. Waldron seemed surprised to see me again, but cheerfully sat for me with Brown on an old couch that had taken residence in the room since our last shoot.

One thing I remember vividly from the shoot is clambering up on a rickety tubular metal chair while I worked, trying to get a different perspective on the two men. While perched there uneasily, the chair folded out from underneath me, sending me to the ground and slamming into the back of my head as I fell. Waldron and Brown eyed me with just enough concern to be perceptible as I rubbed my skull and struggled up from the floor, but that sort of respectful distance was the dominant tone of the shoot as I recall it today.

Marion Brown, Toronto, Oct. 1988

I took most of a roll of Waldron with my Pentax, which unfortunately came out thin and dark after developing. I took a few frames of Brown alone at the end of the roll in the C330, which were far more successful. They're simple, artless portraits, but they capture both men with a mix of caution and dignity.

I think I was on to something with these portraits - a simple, basic style of shooting that I only rarely attempted again; truthfully, I've only begun trying to shoot this way again recently. None of my second portrait session with Waldron and Brown ever saw print; this is the first time they've been published anywhere.

Mal Waldron died in Brussels on December 2, 2002.

Marion Brown died in Florida on October 18, 2010.