Happy International Jazz Day!!🎼🎹🎷🎺
All That Jazz by Wishum Gregory
A historical montage by Wishum Gregory that features a collection of Jazz Giants. Included in the art print are images of such great singers and musicians such as Miles Davis, John Coltrane, Charles Mingus, Billie Holiday, Dizzie Gillespie, Duke Ellington, Coleman Hawkins, Charlie Parker, Sarah Vaughn, Dexter Gordon, Thelonious Monk, Mary Lou Williams and others.
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His poetic eyes captured the jazz giants for decades and his collaboration with ECM set the standard for musicians portraits aesthetic.
I met him at several jazz concerts and he was always so kind to chat and share some short story.
Thanks for your awesome pictures, Maestro, and my deepest, sincere condolences to Silvia Lelli.
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Here ECM official announcement:
Roberto Masotti (1947-2022).
Italian photographer Roberto Masotti, an old friend and close associate of ours, has died, following a period of illness. Roberto‘s photos are to be seen on around 200 ECM covers and booklets, beginning with Keith Jarrett’s Bremen/Lausanne box set in 1973. Through the 1970s he regularly commuted between his home in Milan and the recording studios of Oslo and Ludwigsburg, photographing many sessions. From 1979 to 1996, Roberto was, together with his wife Silvia Lelli, official photographer at La Scala Milano, documenting classical music, opera and ballet.
In parallel, he also worked as a promoter for ECM, in conjunction with Italian distributors Giucar and Ducale, and was a regular presence at the label’s events around Europe. With Manfred Eicher and Dieter Rehm, he curated the first major exhibition of ECM cover art, headlined Se brami vedere, ascolta [You Wish To See, Listen, after St. Bernard de Clairvaux] at Ferrara‘s Palazzo Massari in 1990. Beneath the trees in the grounds of the Palazzo, he photographed a statue of a youth, which later became the cover image of Officium by Jan Garbarek and the Hilliard Ensemble. Roberto’s tastes as a listener often gravitated toward the experimental, and his portfolio included every major figure of the respective avant-gardes of improvisation and contemporary composition. A striking portrait of John Cage in his New York loft adorned Hebert Henck’s recording of Cage’s Early Piano Music. A massive blow-up of Roberto’s shot of the Art Ensemble of Chicago in action at the Bergamo Festival greeted visitors to the ECM exhibition, A Cultural Archaeology at Munich’s Haus der Kunst.
Roberto Masotti published several books of his photos. These included Keith Jarrett: A Portrait, chronicling performances and sessions from 1969 to 2009: with images of Jarrett’s American Quartet (with Dewey Redman, Charlie Haden and Paul Motian), the Belonging group (with Jan Garbarek, Palle Danielsson and Jon Christensen), the Standards trio (with Gary Peacock and Jack DeJohnette), and solo concerts.
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Yesterday afternoon, after several concerts and recitals of Romantic and classical music in the last months, which I recorded for local conservatory of music, I had the rare opportunity to record a concert where musicians of Ancient Music Dept. performed seldom executed music of fantastic, sometimes obscure composers from XVI and XVII Century.
The young musicians - who I followed for some years, now - show a level of skill and musicianship always improving… truly impressive and a privilege being there and enjoying their playing and capturing their art - the fruit of endless hours studying and mastering the scores - with my Neumann microphone.
Thanks to Lisa, Giulio, Rolando, Matteo, Filippo, Giovanni and Marta and to their teacher and Head of Ancient Music Department, Maestro Missaggia.
These young musicians represent the best of the crop, they are “La Meglio Gioventù “ and their music will save humankind, against wars and evils.
I cannot stop being in tears while listening to Rameau’s Allemande, yesterday during the concert and right now, while writing my humble and grateful post.
Music will save us all (if only we’ll take our time to enjoy it)
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Thanking the late, beloved Baron Tim de Paravicini who gave it to me in 2017, this disk of a jazz trio is masterfully recorded in Japan, in glorious AAD: the master recorder was a special STUDER A80 1” 2 tracks 30 IPS 🥇 and the best of the best mikes and mixer.
Try to find a copy of this disk and you’ll thank me.
You’re welcome 😏🎶💎🥇
From a Telefunken brochure
After recently finding a compact, classy trolley - originally for a Studer A810 - where I successfully placed my trusty Studer B67VU, I wished to also optimize Telefunken M15A, in its far too bulky trolley.
I used for years a larger than life trolley whose empty lateral space was made for outboards (zero locator, monitor, etc.) which I don’t own/use.
This morning, after a 400 km round trip, I swapped my trolley for an original smaller one in very, very nice aesthetic conditions.
Rare as an hen’s teeth, these superbly built, tank-like trolleys can be found for nothing in shitty conditions before they get trashed or for €€€€ when reaching buccaneering merchants hands 😱
My tiny Studietto, always lacking vital space, gratefully appreciated… as myself.
