Breathless: I Was a Prenatal Jazz Baby

Jazz was whispered loudly into my heart from the beginning of my time.

Gun shots rang near by. The police swarmed. We scattered. Count Basie and Joe Williams passionately performed for peace. The 1960’s Watts Concert continued.

I received neuronal signals. Just maybe, even before I knew what it meant, the beginning arrived. I was making history that I was meant to make.

When I was very young I remember passing by the homes of jazz phenoms Ella Fitzgerald and Errol Garner. I always imagined that I could magically hear their notes of music emanating from their yards. Today I realize that my camera has remembered what I thought and what I saw. I have remembered everything I have ever seen.

My formative years had many twists and turns. Music in my life changed many perceptions. My mind was constantly altered by new perceptions from the world I faced. Music defined how my hazel eyes absorbed the world.

I remember sitting with Santana’s “Abraxas” bouncing off my walls one early evening. My father came in. I was sure he was going to tell me to turn the sound down. Instead he sat down with me. He said that he could hear the connection to Jazz. A few minutes later Led Zeppelin united us with“Stairway to Heaven”. A few minutes later we were trading sounds. Many years later my dad called me and I heard my “Abraxas” on his stereo.

Music has had a history in my visual evolution. When I moved to New York, I needed a reason to be. I thought I was alone. My camera was my companion my introduction to the unknown. I had a camera, people wanted to know what it was for me. It was a tool that would not allow me to be alone nor lonely. I hit the streets. My camera was my diviner. My camera navigated how I saw the streets of my life.

My early New York days were embracingly alone on the streets from Harlem to the Village. The days reminded me of Ella and Errol. I heard music. My camera lead me to those sounds. I stepped into every club venue in Manhattan. I crisscrossed the avenues from Lenox and above to the east and west rivers and down to the seaport. I was Peter Sellers in “Being There”tending to his garden. But my mind was a swoosh in a Hyperloop. Nobody spoke to me. But I was alive with exchanges within.

Photography has a funny soul. I never knew what I was doing. I was a bit of a butterfly to light...the light told me how and where to focus. I focused on Dizzy, Miles, Phineas and more. There was not a club door I didn’t know. I didn’t know what it meant to have entre to the city. My camera inexplicably was my access.

Sometimes when I look back, I remember shooting in a venue with Mick Jagger and Keith Richards watching me photograph Big Joe Turner at Tramps. Sometimes I remember Lou Reed watching me photograph Junior Wells at the Mudd Club...or maybe Warren Beatty watching me shoot the Clash at Webster Hall.

I think maybe more uniquely, I remember walking home at 3:am to 5:am along Park Ave. South. A wall of prostitutes dressed in naked outfits telling me how handsome I was. My mind was most times mercifully diverted from their protestations by the revelry in my mind of a night lived. The predawn hours delivered me to Ali’s. Ali was one of Muhammad Ali’s sparring partners. He made sure that Gina, his pizza gal made sure I was handed the best of best pizza slices.

I took 2-3 slices to bed on most nights. I pressed the cheese against my lips feeling the fever from the evenings’ music. I was to be born again with energy for the next night.

I read “The Queen’s Gambit” in 1983. I realized a kinship between me and Tevis’ Beth Harmon. She was me. I was not alone in my thoughts. I too previsualized all my shots/ moves. I had constructed hundreds of images even before I moved the shutter. Ten million of history’s photographs whispered points to consider. I used all of them to save me and send me forward. I was never lost. Alone maybe like “The Man Who Fell to Earth”. Miraculously I began to make images that mattered to me. Thank you Walter Tevis.