Photographer Ron Eckstein looks back on an extraordinary career that took him from a yellow cab to the legend and local hero-studded clubs of The Big Apple.  

Ronald Reagan was an actor who had become President of The United States. Michael Jackson was a phenomenon that walked around like a zombie. Sarah Vaughan was the greatest living female jazz singer and was performing at the Blue Note club in Manhattan. Eckstein: “I was crouched on the floor in front and got up to take a photograph. A guy behind me was annoyed and said something like ‘get down, you’re in my way, get down!’ Sarah Vaughan said to me, ‘don’t listen to him, come up to the dressing room between sets and take all the shots that you want.'”

He didn’t have to be told twice. The Vaughan episode was one of the first times that Eckstein took a jazz photograph in New York. The New Yorker was already in his mid-thirties, child of a father that was born in Bucharest, Rumania and a mother that came from Vienna, Austria. Years before shooting pictures of the legendary, amiable singer, the immigrant son had joined a work force as common as cookery or factory, yet defined, besides the skyline, the global image of The Big Apple. Eckstein: “I was about thirty years old and driving a taxi cab. I’d have my radio in the cab and listen to mostly jazz, those were the days of the legendary DJ’s Symphony Sid and Al “Jazzbeaux’ Collins. There was this new camera, the point and shoot auto-focus camera, so I was able to take quick photos from behind the wheel. That was a big help. I did this for a couple of years. It made driving a cab much more interesting.”

One night, the voice of a customer sounded vaguely familiar. Eckstein: “I was driving on the upper west side and I hear this gravelly voice ask me ‘Who’s that you’re listening to, Tito Puente?’ I said ‘yeah’ and glanced over my shoulder and sure enough it was Miles Davis. It turned out I drove him to pick up some ‘stuff’. He gave me a toot and I layed some primo Hawaiian on him. A great exchange! 

(Miles Davis; Sarah Vaughan; Tito Puente – ©Ron Eckstein)

“Then I went to Maui in  Hawaii and worked odd jobs. I kept shooting pictures there around the island. I also went to local clubs photographing locals and visitors like Carlos Santana and Peter Tosh. When I came back to New York, I started going out to the clubs. The Village Vanguard, Sweet Basil’s and many smaller clubs. I’d always loved music, particularly jazz and Latin music. Before I knew it, I was the house photographer of the Blue Note club and Birdland. Soon, I was freelancing for The New Times and The New York Newsday. That’s how I got my start. Over the years, I literally shot about ten thousand images. Jazz, but also some blues and rock & roll, like Little Richard. I felt that this is what I was meant to do, be a photographer. I loved photography and music, it was a nice marriage of cultures.”

Eckstein reminds us that jazz musicians, not excluding the stars, are hard-working men and women, no different in a way from the garbageman, the corner grocer, the beat cop, the hustler, the sales woman, except that they sell their wares in the entertainment industry, off-Broadway.  They are fanatics that have long since realized that their art form is born of misery, a form not without inner strife, nor without interracial revolutions while, not least, the all-that-matters-is-can-you-play-attitude, huddling together wherever some daredevil opened up shop.

There are only small hints of glamour in his pictures. His style is black and white realism. Eckstein’s photographs have a grainy texture, weird angles, off-beat imperfections, like Monk’s dissonant quips. But you’ll notice a vividly captured essence. Contorted faces. Outpourings of the soul. Contemplation. Concentration. But also backstage banter, laughter, relaxation. Jazz artists, in the act of creation or wandering about like people at the airport. Eckstein was up close, like UP CLOSE. The aura is street photography-ish, slightly Gary Winogrand-ish, Bruce Gilden-ish. Tinges of punk. If he would’ve been into that, Eckstein could’ve been the chronicler of CBGB’s or Max’s Kansas City.

(Art Blakey; Lionel Hampton; Max Roach; ©Ron Eckstein)

But he was not. Eckstein was into people that practiced and played for hours, weeks, months and years on end. A who’s who of classic and contemporary jazz: Illinois Jacquet, Buddy Rich, Ellis Larkins, Ray Brown, Sonny Rollins, Miles Davis, Kenny Burrell, Horace Parlan, Frank Foster, Archie Shepp, Dave Brubeck, Stanley Turrentine, Pharaoh Sanders, Sun Ra, Sheila Jordan, Clark Terry, Jaki Byard, Abbey Lincoln, Stan Getz, Frank Morgan, Nancy Wilson, Big Nick Nicholas, Maxine Sullivan, Kenny Garrett, Emily Remler, Geri Allen, Wynton Marsalis, Regina Carter, Mark Turner, David Sanchez, Roy Hargrove, Jesse Davis and many others.

Not to mention beloved heroes such as Dizzy Gillespie. Eckstein: “Eventually, I hung out backstage a lot. The musicians kind of accepted me after a while. I got on particularly well with Dizzy Gillespie. The first shot that I ever took of Dizzy Gillespie was a miracle. It was at The Village Gate. On Monday nights they used to have a thing called salsa vs jazz. They would invite soloists to play with a Latin band. Dizzy was the guest of Tito Puente that evening. Dizzy was standing around in the vestibule. We were hanging out and I took this picture from the hip. I didn’t know it at the time but when I developed the roll, it blew my mind! He could’ve been standing anywhere in the universe, but he happened to be standing in front of a poster with himself on it. The way he was framed in front of it was uncanny and just perfect, even to the patch of grey hair on his head to the halo of himself in the picture. After that I knew that there is a higher power than us on this earth and in this universe!” 

(Dizzy Gillespie at The Village Gate; with Eckstein and son Roger; playing cards – ©Ron Eckstein)

If Herman Leonard’s famous photograph of Dexter Gordon is all about the hipness of jazz, the joy of creation and vitality, Eckstein’s portrait of Long Tall Dex defines the fragility and dignity of a hard-living, weathered veteran. Eckstein: “Gordon wasn’t performing much anymore. He came to The Blue Note one day to see his old friend Billy Eckstine. I was hanging out with the two of them and just happened to get that shot. It is one of my really good shots.” 

The times they are a-changing. But jazz remains ingrained in New York City in places like Small’s, Smoke, Mezzrow. At 77, Eckstein is now living a quieter life. “I go out occasionally, though I don’t shoot so much anymore. My eyes are not so great. I would go club hopping. Sometimes I would visit four clubs a night. The musicians got to know me, they let me in. That’s how it goes in life, when you are younger you got to push yourself, get as well-known as you can in your trade. You just got to plug away. I wouldn’t say that I was wildly successful or anything. But I’m still alive and trying my best.” 

(Dexter Gordon; Red Rodney; John Pizzarelli – ©Ron Eckstein)