Black + White = Blues: February 2008

Monday 25 February 2008

BLACK + WHITE = BLUES Introduction

The oldest book in my considerable collection is ‘A Pictorial History of Jazz’ by Orrin Keepnews and Bill Grauer Jr. which I bought from a local book shop when I was 15. I’d seen it in the window and every day as I passed the shop looked longingly at its cover. I saved my pocket money, bought it and read it over and over. It was lavishly illustrated with lots of grainy black and white photographs of jazz musicians. Aged 15 I knew what Charlie Parker, Miles, Monk, Ellington and Coltrane looked like, some time before I’d actually heard their music. I was in love with the image of jazz having only had a limited experience of the music itself. I learned about the chronology and history of jazz and its innovators. I bought the book in 1968, a time which now seems like a part of that jazz history – just before the coming of fusion. It was the music of Miles which finally got me hooked about 18 months after the scraping together of enough pocket money to claim my exciting purchase from the bookshop window display.

In the years since that time I must have attended hundreds of gigs.

In 1976 I was managing a record shop in the Birmingham Shopping Centre. I was listening to a great deal of music. Birmingham Jazz was just starting up. I remember the then chairman, George West, calling to see me and asking if I wouldn’t mind putting up a poster or perhaps having a few flyers on the counter of the shop. I was delighted to do my bit to promote jazz in Birmingham. I remember attending the first Birmingham Jazz Society gig, Barbara Thompson's Paraphernalia - at the Grand Hotel on Colmore Row (September 26th. 1976). I’m not sure if it was a sell out but remember it being well attended.
In the years since then I’ve enjoyed many great evenings of jazz thanks to Birmingham Jazz.

The Rush Hour Blues concert series has proved to be a fantastic success. The Friday evening gigs draw audiences in the hundreds. For some time now I’ve been recording the event with my camera and the present collection of photographs you see in this exhibition are a small selection of many hundreds of images I’ve made in recent years in an attempt to capture something of the event for posterity. The seeds sown by the purchase of ‘A Pictorial History of Jazz’ all those years ago are represented here – my own grainy tribute to the music I love.

I offer them with thanks to all of the musicians, Tony Dudley-Evans and his colleagues at Birmingham Jazz, Tom Cahill-Jones and Symphony Hall and to my Friends at Rush Hour Blues.

I hope you enjoy my album.

Garry Corbett

email feedback to : bluejazzbuddha@googlemail.com

Friday 22 February 2008

Black + White = Blues Liner Notes #1

3pm on a Friday afternoon. The Symphony Hall bar is a silent assembly of blue/chrome chairs waiting in anticipation. They are anticipating the anticipation of what American jazz critic Whitney Balliett called, "the Sound of Surprise".

By 4:30 the room is alive. A busy hubbub of voices speaking together. This is the sound which best evokes the pre-Rush Hour Blues ambiance. Its the sound of friends meeting, acquaintances chit-chatting, laughter, a groan which accompanies a bad pun.

By 5:30 as the music is about to begin the sound is a cacophony of voices. The blue/chrome chairs are at a premium. Tony Dudley-Evans steps up to the microphone to announce the band. We are off on another Friday Rush Hour Blues adventure.

As a jazz lover it amazes me how much musicians can give of themselves. To a non musician music is a kind of alchemy. A magical mix of physics, mathematics and biology which allows one human being to communicate their feelings to a multitude of others by breathing life into their instrument. By their breath, minds, hands they can conjure beauty out of silence. It has to be the purest, most direct form of communication.

As a photographer I find the musicians relationship to these elements endlessly fascinating. Watching a musician preparing for the gig, in the case of drummers and saxophonists building up their instrument for performance is an interesting observational exercise. The care taken to get things just right is a fascinatingly mundane ritual.

From a photographic point of view the Symphony Hall level 3 bar is a mixed blessing. In Summer the musicians perform before a huge back lit window and the camera wants to reduce them to silhouettes. In Winter that same backdrop is a huge black mirror which seems to want to absorb light rather than give it out. Winter is a test of steady handedness - Summer of exposure control. Its sometimes a frustrating process. That said its been a privilege to make the photographs you see here. How blessed we in Birmingham are to be living at a time when the city is so alive with jazz, when there are so many great musicians on the scene and more coming along.

This exhibition is my way of saying thanks to all of the contributing musicians for hours of wonderful, entertaining and sometimes challenging music. Thanks too must go to Tony Dudley-Evans and his Birmingham Jazz colleagues who do such a great job. Finally to Symphony Hall and Tom Cahill-Jones for providing the perfect venue for Rush Hour Blues.

I hope you enjoy the photographs.

Monday 18 February 2008

Black + White = Blues Liner Notes #2

Since 1985, the Chairman of Birmingham Jazz, the dynamic Tony Dudley-Evans, has arranged a free, weekly jazz recital for local fans to enjoy, and act as a platform for new groups starting out. It started at the Strathallan Hotel in Edgbaston on Sunday lunchtimes. A change of management policy at the Hotel unfortunately dictated a move elsewhere after about five years. After migrating through a succession of city centre pubs, such as the Fiddle & Bone in Sheepcote Street, the session was moved to early Friday evenings at Bonedangles pub on Ludgate Hill, to catch the city commuters on the way home and give them a pleasant wind-down at the end of a busy working week.

When these local arrangements came to an end, negotiations were made with the Symphony Hall to provide a more secure and permanent central venue, and the gig was re-named the Rush Hour Blues. The artists and repertoire have come from a whole range of ages, places and styles: in fact anything that can be known as Jazz. This has proved a very happy collaboration between Birmingham Jazz and the Symphony Hall, enabling the Hall to promote their future ticketed concerts at the same time as the free gig. Strong links have also been developed with members of the nearby Birmingham Conservatoire, and students on its Jazz course.

From about half past three on a Friday, the Symphony Hall Foyer is set up like a jazz club, with numerous round tables and comfy chairs, not to mention the nearby extensive bar facilities, providing the nearest thing to a Birmingham jazz club you can imagine. Groups of friends have started to occupy 'their' regular table every Friday and many friendships have sprung up among the kindred spirits of all ages attending.

Dr Peter Gore

(c) 2008