Jazz Photography

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.

October 4, 2008 | Categories: editorial photography, photojournalism | Tags: editorial photographers, jazz photographers, jazz photography, seattle editorial photographers, seattle editorial photography | Leave A Comment »