Seattle Photographer Daniel Sheehan

Ravi Coltrane Quartet Thursday, October 30, Triple Door

Just got back from shooting the wonderful Ravi Coltrane at the Triple Door, one of my favorite jazz venues. Ravi and the Quartet were in good form performing with an amazing intensity. You got to get out and see some of these wonderful performances that Earshot Jazz festival is bringing to Seattle. There are still some wonderful shows coming up especially this coming  weekend. I am looking forward to seeing the legendary Charlie Hayden on Saturday at Town Hall.

Like his legendary father, John Coltrane, tenor and soprano saxophonist, bandleader, and composer Ravi Coltrane is dedicated to walking his own musical path. Considered one of the driving forces in modern jazz today, Coltrane was initially influenced by soul and funk music, R&B, classical music, and film scores before beginning formal musical studies at the California Institute of the Arts in 1986.
After meeting drummer Elvin Jones in 1991, Coltrane relocated to New York, where he performed with a variety of players, including Rashied Ali, Kenny Barron, and Steve Coleman. He toured regularly with Coleman and appeared on several of Coleman’s albums before producing his first CD, Moving Pictures, in 1997. Since then, Coltrane has produced five more albums, including Legacy, a four-disc, thematic study of his father’s career; Translinear Light, a collaborative project with his mother, pianist Alice Coltrane; and In Flux, featuring pianist Luis Perdomo, bassist Drew Gress, and drummer E.J. Strickland – his primary ensemble since 2003. In addition to working and touring with his band, Coltrane launched his own recording company, RKM Music, in 2002. He has also performed with McCoy Tyner, Pharoah Sanders, Carlos Santana, Wayne Shorter, Herbie Hancock, Chick Corea, Michael Brecker, George Duke, Stanley Clarke, and Branford Marsalis, among others.

Click here for the complete schedule for the rest of the upcoming shows at the 2008 Earshot Jazz Festival

Photograph by Seattle photographer Daniel Sheehan, a photojournalist specializing in jazz photography, photojournalism and portrait photography for publications and corporations. He is also a Seattle wedding photographer with a subtle, unobtrusive, story-telling approach creating award winning wedding photojournalism ranking him among the best Seattle wedding photographers.

Blog Directory

Seattle Photographer attended the annual pumpkin carving competition again this past Sunday and shot the final results. There were as many winners as there were entries since there were so many categories. Here is a shot of all the winners and their award winning pumpkins / jack o lanterns.

Photography by seattle photographer Daniel Sheehan a photojournalist who specializes in portrait photography and photojournalism for publications and corporations. He is also a Seattle wedding photographer photographing weddings with a subtle, unobtrusive, story-telling approach creating artistic documentary photography ranking him as one of the best Seattle wedding photographers.

Cecil Taylor’s Socks as he performed at Town Hall Sunday Oct 26th

I photographed Cecil Taylor last night at Town Hall. He was appearing as part of the 2008 Earshot Jazz Festival. His music was sublime and transporting. it took me to a different universe. But what would bring me back to earth was looking at his socks as he played.

For more than half a century Taylor has pursued his own musical path with the utmost integrity and determination. Composing for and directing unique large ensembles, working in any number
of his well-established small groups, or performing in the solo piano setting which he has mastered, the consistent theme of Taylor’s storied life has been the extraordinary nature of his work.

Click here for the complete schedule for the rest of the upcoming shows at the 2008 Earshot Jazz Festival

Photograph by editorial photographer Daniel Sheehan a photojournalist who specializes in portrait photography and photojournalism for publications and corporations. He is also a Seattle wedding photographer photographing weddings with a subtle, unobtrusive, story-telling approach creating artistic documentary photography ranking him as one of the best Seattle wedding photographers.

Blog Catalog Blog Directory

Photo: Gray Friedman/ Los Angeles Times

Photojournalist William Claxton died on Sunday at age 80 due to complications from congestive heart failure. He was well known for his iconic pictures of Chet Baker and other musicians as well as celebrities like Steve McQueen and Frank Sinatra.
He is one of the photojournalist I have admired for many years. He inspired me to follow the same road of photography by including jazz musicians as a worthy subject. I love this quote Claxton told jazz writer Don Heckman some years ago.

“For the photographer, the camera is like a jazz musician’s ax. It’s the tool that you would like to be able to ignore, but you have to have it to convey your thoughts and whatever you want to express through it,”

Almost as much as the recordings themselves, the photographs reach into the essence of making music.

“That’s where jazz and photography have always come together for me,” Claxton told Heckman. “They’re alike in their improvisation and their spontaneousness. They happen at the same moment that you’re hearing something and you’re seeing something, and you record it and it’s frozen forever.”

He gained his foremost public recognition for his photographs of jazz performers including Charlie Parker, Dizzy Gillespie, Mel Torme, Duke Ellington, Thelonious Monk and Stan Getz. But it was his photographs of Baker that helped teach him the true meaning of the word photogenic.

“I was up all night developing when the face appeared in the developing tray,” Claxton told the Irish Times in 2005. “A tough demeanor and a good physique but an angelic face with pale white skin and, the craziest thing, one tooth missing — he’d been in a fight. I thought, my God, that’s Chet Baker.”

Claxton’s relationship with Baker began in 1951 and he continued to photograph Baker for the next 6 years in an attempt to capture the relationship between artist, instrument and music on film.

From: latimes.com

Have you seen this Life Magazine cover from October 2004? It was 4 years ago that they ran this. I think it is pretty strange that they must have know even then that these two belonged together.

Posted by  Seattle Editorial Photographer and photojournalist Daniel Sheehan,  an editorial photographer who specializes in portrait photography and photojournalism for publications and corporations. Daniel is also a Seattle wedding photographer. He does Seattle wedding photography in an artistic, editorial fashion with classic photojournalistic style of a wedding photojournalist. He photographs weddings with a subtle, unobtrusive, story-telling approach and creates artistic documentary photography which ranks among the best of all Seattle wedding photographers.

Photographing jazz musicians is one of my favorite editorial  subjects. I do a lot of it for Earshot Jazz, a non profit organization that promotes jazz in the Seattle area. Every year for about 3 weeks around the middle  of October through the 1st week in November they put on one of the best festivals in the country devoted to jazz. I have been photographing for them since 1997 and they use the photos for their monthly magazine “Earshot Jazz” and for the website and for posters promoting the festival. Here are a couple of photographs from the 2007 Earshot Jazz festival. I have another website  called EyeShotJazz devoted just to coverage of jazz photographs. Click  on  Jazz Photography to go to the EyeShotJazz website.

David Sánchez played with his quartet at the Triple Door last October 25th during the Earshot Jazz Festival 2007.

Here is an excerpt from Earshot Jazz Magazine. “David Sánchez commands a room, infusing his huge tenor-saxophone tone with the musical passion of his native Puerto Rico. Specializing in jazz interpretations of mountainous works by Latin American composers, this Latin Grammy winner and his quartet exude palpable charisma and create music to remember every time.

“Technically, tonally, and creatively, he seems to have it all,” gushes jazz critic Howard Reich. “His sound is never less than plush, his pitch is unerring, his rapid-fire playing is ravishing in its combination
of speed, accuracy, and utter evenness of tone.”
Such ecstatic accolades follow Sánchez wherever he plays. After abandoning early efforts on the conga in favor of the tenor saxophone at age 12, he never looked back. Thanks to the enthusiastic endorsement of saxophonist Paquito D’Rivera, Dizzy Gillespie
invited Sánchez to join the United Nation Orchestra in 1990 and “Live the Future” tour – with South African singer extraordinaire Miriam Makeba – the next year.
Since then, Sánchez has toured and recorded with dozens of other stellar notables and produced sessions for Columbia Records, with which he has enjoyed a lasting relationship as a recording artist. After earning several Latin Grammy nominations, Sánchez released Coral, which took home the “Best Instrumental Album” in 2005. His most ambitiously reverential work to date, Coral documents Sánchez and the City of Prague Philharmonic Orchestra playing interpretations of masterworks by such Latin American luminaries as Antonio Carlos Jobim, Heitor Villa-Lobos, and Alberto Ginastera.
In his more intimate quartet, Sánchez folds Afro-Cuban rhythms into a mien of late-stage bebop and searing, trigger-happy solos. Newly signed to the resurging Concord Records, he came to Seattle with a growing legend that stands boldly on the cusp a fresh new chapter.

Jackie Terrasson
French pianist Jacky Terrasson has charmed audiences on both sides of the Atlantic since winning the Thelonious Monk International Piano Competition in 1993. Capable of summoning both cascades of fl urrying notes and delicate lullabies, with equal resonance, this burgeoning performer and composer has made his recording home with Blue Note Records since 1994. Terrasson’s newest album, a musical self portrait called Mirror, furthers his growing legend with a series of standards and originals that displays his elastic range as a soloist. But it wasn’t easy. “Musically, I like the fact that the music is entirely in my hands,” he says. “There is a tremendous sense of freedom, but that is precisely where this discipline is also a challenge. The feel, the time, rhythm, harmonies are all coming from one person.” Mirror refl ects both Terrasson’s own emotional palette and a range of musical sources. Quoting the licks from the theme songs of television’s Mr. Rogers’ Neighborhood (“Everything Happens to Me”) and The Flintstones (“Juvenile”), the album also features works by Duke Ellington, Carole King, Ray Noble, and others. One of its most moving forays, though, comes in the yearning elegance of “America the Beautiful,” in which the Frenchman’s original vision treats the latent potency of that song’s melodies to newly enriched, robustly playful, and suspiciously reverent heights.

Photograph by Seattle Editorial Photographer and photojournalist Daniel Sheehan an editorial photographer who specializes in portrait photography and photojournalism for publications and corporations.

At night he shoots jazz musicians on assignment for Earshot Jazz. Please respect his work and ask for permission to use any pictures.

Daniel is also a Seattle wedding photographer. He does Seattle wedding photography in an artistic, editorial fashion with classic photojournalistic style. He photographs weddings with a subtle, unobtrusive, story-telling approach and creates artistic documentary wedding photojournalism.

A boy experiencing severe pain from TB meningitis is comforted by his mother at Svay Rieng Provincial Hospital, Svay Rieng, Cambodia. Family members provide much of the personal care at hospitals in the developing world. (© James Nachtwey/VII) 

Jim Nachtwey’s TED Prize wish was revealed today along with the powerful photographs and website that the TED organization has helped fund. Nachtwey has used the US$100,000 award from his 2007 TED Prize winnings to concentrate on shooting pictures of and increasing awareness about a form of tuberculosis described as “extremely drug-resistant” and has been given the name XDR-TB. Watch his 3′:43″ video on the site XDRTB.org.

More information from the site: “XDRTB.org is an extraordinary effort to tell the story of extremely drug-resistant tuberculosis (XDR-TB) and TB through powerful photographs taken by James Nachtwey. XDR-TB, or extremely drug-resistant tuberculosis, is a new and deadly mutation of tuberculosis. Similar in creation to multidrug-resistant tuberculosis (MDR-TB) but more extreme in its manifestation, it arises when common tuberculosis goes untreated or standard TB drugs are misused. James’ photographs represent these varying strains. Learn more about TB, MDR-TB and XDR-TB, and learn how you can take action to stop this deadly disease.”