Ponto Family Pictures
September 23rd, 2016
Had the opportunity to photograph the Ponto family recently. I like this one a lot.
Gary Peacock
February 29th, 2016
A true legend of modern jazz, seldom seen outside of his work with Keith Jarrett, Gary Peacock returned to Seattle with his sparkling trio of Marc Copland, piano, and the great Joey Baron on drums on Feb 20th at the Seattle Art Museum
The senior statesman Peacock has traveled far and wide in the realms of jazz, playing key roles in some of the art form’s most meditative as well as the most daring explorations. Early on he played with West Coast stars like Art Pepper, then accompanied Miles Davis, but also found his way into the soaring, sometimes torrid experimentation of Albert Ayler. He also worked with great innovators like Jimmy Giuffre, Bill Evans, Roland Kirk, George Russell, Tony Williams, and Paul Bley.
Peacock has always been known as a player of rare ability in the most heady of jazz, but also the most heartfelt. He expanded his abilities not only technically but aesthetically, hearing his way on the bandstands and off into idiosyncratic resonances. In Japan, he studied eastern religions and medicine; in Seattle, in the early 1970s, he studied biology at the University of Washington. By then, he was ready to begin his long association with pianist Keith Jarrett and drummer Jack DeJohnette; it occurred on Peacock’s ECM debut Tales of Another, in 1977. Peacock then spent four years in Seattle teaching at Cornish College of the Arts until 1983 when ECM guru Manfred Eicher asked Jarrett, DeJohnette, and Peacock to come together formally as the Standards Trio, which for 25 years would transcendentally define the jazz trio.
Since 2000, in the Standards Trio’s last decade, Peacock began a string of other stellar associations – with Bley, drummer Paul Motian, pianist Marilyn Crispell, saxophonist Lee Konitz, guitarist Bill Frisell, and others – and then formed in 2015 the Gary Peacock Trio that performs this month in Seattle. It sees him join forces with two earlier colleagues: drummer Joey Baron, with whom he, Konitz, and Frisell recorded Enfants Terribles: Live at the Blue Note, in 2012; and pianist Marc Copland, whom he has often accompanied in recent times.
The trio’s Now This appeared last summer, timed to the bassist’s 80th birthday, with Peacock compositions old and new as well as pieces by Baron, Copland, and Peacock’s fellow bass giant and late Bill Evans accompanist, Scott LaFaro. All the pieces, Thomas Conrad wrote in making the album an Editor’s Pick in JazzTimes, are like Peacock’s solos: “spare, self-contained figures of mysterious expectancy. In his haunting high bass lines, melodies linger, resolve, and disappear.”
Wayne Horvitz at 2015 Earshot Jazz Festival
October 11th, 2015
Wayne Horvitz’s Some Places are Forever Afternoon (11 Places for Richard Hugo) is the first of three events marking Horvitz’s 60th birthday and his considerable contributions to Seattle jazz culture.
In Seattle for more than 20 years, the keyboardist/composer has led and inspired a host of groundbreaking musical projects, and mentored a generation of innovators.
Horvitz is on piano with members of his Gravitas Quartet and Sweeter Than The Day groups: Ron Miles(trumpet), Peggy Lee (cello), Sara Schoenbeck (bassoon), Timothy Young (guitar), Keith Lowe (bass), Eric Eagle (drums), with Francis McCue reading the poems.
2015 EARSHOT JAZZ FESTIVAL OPENS with Thomas Marriott with McTuff
October 11th, 2015
The Earshot Jazz Festival 2015 kicked things off on Friday with Thomas Marriott with McTuff at Tula’s. I am looking forward to the next six weeks of Festival coverage.
Tough, sinewy funk-rock-soul-jazz: Hammond organist Joe Doria, guitarist Dan Heck, and drummer Byron Vannoy joined trumpeter Thomas Marriott for two nights of downhome Seattle jazz.
Phil Turns 100 | A Panoramic Group Portrait Happy Birthday Celebration
September 16th, 2015
I was asked to photograph the birthday party for Phil who was turning 100 years old on the deck of Anthony’s in Lynwood. It was a beautiful warm sunny August Sunday and everyone especially Phil looked grand.
Luke Bryan Wins Again
April 20th, 2015
Congratulations to Luke Bryan who was voted entertainer of the year at The Academy of Country Music Awards last night, his second entertainer of the year award. The singer says he’s not jaded about winning. “I don’t think it’s a time for me to be smooth. I don’t think it’s a time for me to be suave. I think it’s a time for me to jump up and down and celebrate. These are the days,” Bryan said backstage. “When I’m an old guy rocking in a rock chair, I’m going to go, ‘You had a doggone good time.’ And that’s my approach.”
Bryan first won the honor in 2013. He won the entertainer of the year award at the Country Music Association Awards in November. Bryan was a double winner Sunday night: He also picked up the ACM for vocal event of the year for “This How We Roll” with Florida Georgia Line. The country star performed and hosted the show, for a third year, with Blake Shelton.
In 2011, I took some pictures of Luke Bryan for a photo essay for Yahoo. He was passing through Seattle on tour after a gig at the Gorge and stopped off to go fly fishing on Puget Sound at Seahurst Park in Burien. Here a couple of the pictures from that day.
Olympic Mountains Sunset from The Seattle Space Needle
April 17th, 2015
Last month I was at the Seattle Space Needle covering a corporate event but had to stop and make the mountains just before sunset. Seattle Center is in the foreground.
Polar Bear Plunge
January 2nd, 2015
At this time of year when the weather is around freezing, some people feel the desire to plunge into freezing waters. Jana is one of those folks who get this notion so I drove her down to Golden Gardens and documented her plunge into the frigid water of Puget Sound. Afterwards she said that “the best part is that the stupid water doesn’t even feel that cold compared to the air. and how you feel afterwards”.
On the Road, Moab, UTAH
December 30th, 2014
On the road last winter near Moab Utah, I made a lot of panoramas and I am hopin to go back in 2015 for ome more. It is some really beautiful country down there and pretty empty this time of year. Have a happy New Year in 2015!