This month, I spoke with photographer Ron Eckstein (pictured above with Celia Cruz in the background) about his unique career as a photographer of jazz, Latin jazz, blues and rock & roll in Hawaii and New York. Eckstein started taking shots of New York city life when he drove a cab in the 1980’s. Soon, he became the house photographer of clubs in the New York area, taking photographs commissioned by, among others, The New York Times.
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!
“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.
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!”
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.”
Ron Eckstein is a photographer who lives in Queens, New York City. Over the years, there have been several exhibitions of his work in the New York area.
Check out Ron Eckstein’s ‘pictures of his pictures’ on his Instagram page ‘ronaldeckstein’.
The Dam Jawn manages to come up with something refreshing time and again, here in cooperation with ace American trumpeter Jeremy Pelt.
Personnel
Jeremy Pelt (trumpet), (Martin Diaz, alto saxophone), Frank Groenendijk (tenor saxophone), Joan Fort (guitar), Philip Lewin (bass), Nitin Paree (drums)
Recorded
on February 26, 2025 at Wisseloord Studios, Hilversum
Released
as Dox 703 in 2025
Track listing
Sooryast / Triphasic / Sinkin’ / Floatin’ / Influx / Checkin’ / Hotel / I Got A Boogaloo / Don’t You Know I Care / Tongue Twister
Trisaphic? Thrashfisch? Ah, what the hell. A killer record by The Dam Jawn, that’s for sure. An acute expansion of the tradition. After Master St. (2023) and Forward (2024), guitarist Joan Fort, alto saxophonist Martin Diaz, tenor saxophonist Frank Groenendijk, bassist Philip Lewin, drummer Nitin Paree, Amsterdam cats who’d bonded in Philadelphia for a while with the top-rate altoist Dick Oatts, meet with another American class act, Jeremy Pelt on trumpet.
Starting a band is no cinch, the challenge is to keep it in business and as you can see and hear, The Dam Jawn has met demands. Pelt, with his remarkable strong tone and fluent improvisations, is like a fish in the water of the neo-modernist bunch. Paree’s Sooryast, built on a hypnotic polyrhythm that one can easily imagine would’ve been nicked/re-shaped by J. Dilla or MF Doom, provided they’d still be alive, a tune that travels a misty path somewhere between Bitches Brew and Woody Shaw’s Blackstone Legacy, and Diaz’s title track, a stately melody with tinges of both military ceremony and elegy, provide Pelt with ample room to demonstrate his versatility, formerly his vibrant meanderings under a dark purple sky, latterly his canny less-is-more lyricism.
Chockfull of strong tunes, equally divided between band members, evidently Triphasic is a step forward for The Dam Jawn, alternating for instance between Fort’s Latin-ish Hotel 17, marked by beautifully off-beat but perfect movements that steal your heart away, and Paree’s Floatin’, which does justice to the title, a song that rocks like a little sailboat. They’re keeping it real with the neo-bop of Diaz’s Tongue Twister and Ellington’s ballad Don’t You Know I Care.
Here, Fort reminds of the René Thomas sound – could be worse. Other times, the guitarist uses pedal effects, at one time perhaps a bit overdone, but in general, his edgy sound contributes cannily to the album’s progressive attitude. The Dam Jawn’s got it made and its adaptation to American greats seems limitless.
Jimmy Forrest (tenor saxophone), (Calvin Newborn, guitar), Hugh Lawson (piano) Tommy Potter (bass), Clarence Johnston (drums)
Recorded
on September 1, 1961 at Van Gelder Studio, Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey
Released
as Prestige 7235 in 1961
Track listing
Side A: Tuxedo Junction / Organ Grinder’s Swing / Moonglow / Side B: Tin Tin Deo / Rocks In My Bed / The Moon Was Yellow
The longer ago an event took place or a place has been in the public, or in jazz’s case, in the aficionado’s eye, the more myth is attached to it. Bird and Dizzy’s appearance at Billy Berg’s in Los Angeles. Longer ago, rowdy Storyville in New Orleans, where brothel musicians touched upon a new musical thing some people soon called ‘jass’.
If only you could take a time machine and experience how it was, is an all-too familiar sentiment.
Fate Marable on the riverboat. Major-league folklore. Marable led dance bands on steamboats that plied the Mississipi River early in the 20th Century and the paddlewheel line that navigated around New Orleans decades after. Mentor to Louis Armstrong, Duke Ellington, Jimmy Lunceford, Chick Webb, Count Basie.
So, if you read about some jazz cat or other and see he’s played with Fate Marable, you say ‘wow, heavy’.
Jimmy Forrest played in Marable’s band on the riverboat. So say ‘wow heavy’, y’all. That’s going back a long way! The tenor saxophonist was born in St. Louis, Missouri in 1920. A teenager in the middle of the development from ‘jass’ to swing. Onwards from 1940, Forrest played in the bands of Jay McShann, Andy Kirk, Duke Ellington and Count Basie.
Of course, he’s Mr. Night Train. That tune, derived from Johnny Hodges’ That’s The Blues, Old Man and Duke Ellington’s Happy-Go-Lucky-Local, was a nr. 1 hit on the r&b charts in 1952.
Forrest led various small combos. Blues-drenched, entertaining music that cooks. Something to sit down to and relax with, well, nothing wrong with that, though likely you’ll find yourself tappin’ your feet, strolling around, snapping your fingers.
One of his best records, Sit Down And Relax With Jimmy Forrest, no mistaking, ís a relaxed album. A good almost nonchalant groove and a sense of relief pervades his set of old warhorses as much as sustained energy and lively blowing. He’s got his mind set on a good story, working his way to slightly uprooting climaxes, Ben Webster-style.
Forrest brings us back to the ‘ol days’, the source. Erskine Hawkins’ Tuxeco Junction (Louis Jordan), Hudson/Mills/Parish’s Organ Grinder’s Swing (Jimmy Lunceford Orchestra), Hudson/Mills/DeLange’s Moonglow (Joe Venuti, Duke Ellington, Cab Calloway, Benny Goodman, Artie Shaw), Duke Ellington’s Rocks In My Bed (Ivie Anderson, Ella Fitzgerald), Ahlert/Leslie’s The Moon Was Yellow (Dorsey Brothers, Frank Sinatra).
A band of cats that rarely caught the public eye. Pianist Hugh Lawson, associated with Yusef Lateef. Guitarist Calvin Newborn, brother of Phineas Newborn, taking a bunch of bossy, fat-toned solos. Bassist Tommy Potter, alumnus of Charlie Parker’s bands. Drummer Clarence Johnston, collaborator of James Moody, Sonny Stitt, Freddie Roach. A good band, earthy, driving, relaxed…
Good match for the ‘star of the show’, Jimmy Forrest, perhaps daydreaming about uncle Fate, blowing smoky and saucy, wrapping it up at Van Gelder office in New Jersey, time for a drink, a talk, a bite, anything to settle down after an afternoon of good-time, spontaneous swing.
Cory Weeds & Jerry Weldon (tenor saxophone), Miles Black (piano), John Lee (bass), Jesse Cahill (drums)
Recorded
on October 28, 2024 at Warehouse Studios, Vancouver
Released
as Cellar in 2025
Track listing
Hey Lock! / Princess / Toy / Olé / Just As Though You Were Here / Oh Lady Be Good / I Had The Craziest Dream / One Flight Down / 323 Shuter
Cory Weeds’s Cellar label features some of the best tenor saxophonists in the business, Eric Alexander and Grant Stewart among those, young guns like Jacob Chung and not least veteran class act Jerry Weldon, New Yorker that played with Lionel Hampton, Brother Jack McDuff, Cedar Walton, George Benson. Big man with a big sound, and a head full of hot ideas, teaming up with Weeds himself on Weeds Meets Weldon in a band that worked together for a handful of gigs, featuring pianist Miles Black, bassist John Lee and drummer Jesse Cahill.
You get two flavors for the price of one, Weldon’s bossy and energetic style and Weeds’s lean, more Mobley-ish way of playing, firmly based in the hard bop vein, stretching its limit with the challenging ‘sleepers’ by Clifford Jordan, Princess and Toy. Just As Though You Were Here is rich with nuance and melodic invention, for minute after minute, a prime example of Weldon the balladeer. Miles Black speaks his witty and buoyant piece in Freddie Redd’s Latin-tinged Olé.
They all find joy in the archetypical changes of Weeds’s fast-paced 323 Shuter, a kinetic ending of a sympathetic effort to carry on the rich tradition of the tenor duet.
Vets and young guns bond over the liaison between swing and bop.
Personnel
Al Grey (trombone), Billy Mitchell (tenor saxophone), Lee Morgan (trumpet), Billy Root (baritone saxophone), Wynton Kelly (piano), Paul West (bass), Charlie Persip (drums)
Recorded
on February 18, 1957 at Master Recorders in in Los Angeles
Released
as Specialty 5001 in 1957
Track listing
Side A: Dishwater / Someone I Know / D.D.T / Whisper Not / Side B: About Time / Day By Day / The Rite Of Swing / Over The Rainbow
Crash boom bang. Here they go, hands in the dishwater, rush hour in the kitchen, splashing soapy water everywhere, scrubbing fat from a skillet, clanging forks in a bucket, merrily, but business-like, talking shop paced with a rhythm simultaneous to the beat of their work. That’s trombonist Al Grey, tenor saxophonist Billy Mitchell, trumpeter Lee Morgan, baritone saxophonist Billy Root, pianist Wynton Kelly, bassist Paul West and drummer Charlie Persip, thriving on a great riff called Dishwater, ten-minute swinger and the opener to a curious and exciting album on Specialty, otherwise known as a label specializing in rhythm ‘n’ blues, rock ‘n’ roll, notably Little Richard and Lloyd Price, not to mention a roster of gospel artists.
At the time, these guys were part of Dizzy Gillespie’s bop orchestra, hence Dizzy Atmosphere, a Gillespie warhorse that actually is not featured here. Interestingly, Dishwater and other tunes remind of Count Basie while walking the path that men and women carved from swing and bop. Note that Al Grey and Billy Mitchell joined Basie soon after this recording, and, lest we forget, would co-lead a prolific recording and live band in the early 1960’s.
Note also that five out of eight tunes were written and arranged by Roger Spotts, elusive composer and arranger who worked with Gillespie, Basie, Ray Charles and Lionel Hampton.
Lee Morgan was barely 18 years old at the time, eager young lion, and he acquits himself very well, blowing hot stuff on Dishwater and leading the melody of Benny Golson’s classic Whisper Not with full-bodied, sweet-toned trumpet, soloing crisply with the Harmon mute. If I may be allowed to go into detail, Benny Golson wrote Whisper Not while he was in Dizzy’s band and this February take is an early version. It was recorded initially by Lee Morgan in December 1956, featured on Lee Morgan Sextet, then on January 7, 1957 for Thad Jones’s Mad Thad album and, later on, on Golson’s own The New York Scene in October of the same year. Of course, it would become a staple of Art Blakey’s Jazz Messengers when Golson’d joined forces with Lee Morgan in 1958.
All soloists are solid and lively on this album’s set of blues and ballads, not least Al Grey, veteran of the bands of Benny Carter, Jimmy Lunceford, Lionel Hampton and a specialist of the old-fashioned plunger style. He’s got that fat and filthy sound and gives Dizzy Atmosphere its attractive old-timey feeling, while, make no mistake, running through fast-paced changes seemingly effortlessly and on fire.
Dizzy Atmosphere is usually shelved under Lee Morgan, most famous and collectible cat in this roster, but Al Grey and Billy Mitchell are pictured on the sleeve, so it’s only reasonable to call this Al Grey/Billy Mitchell’s Dizzy Atmosphere. At any rate, it’s an excellent, carefully produced blowing session.
Basie Men and B3 and Brother Ray, a match for the ages.
Personnel
Ray Charles (organ, piano, vocals) and a.o. Philip Guilbeau, Clark Terry, Thad Jones, Joe Newman, Snooky Young (trumpet), Frank Foster, Budd Johnson (tenor saxophone), Marshal Royal (alto saxophone), Charlie Fowlkes (baritone saxophone), Al Grey, Jimmy Cleveland (trombone), Freddie Green (guitar), Eddie Jones, Joe Benjamin (bass), Sonny Payne, Roy Haynes (drums)
Recorded
on December 26 & 27, 1960 at Van Gelder Studio, Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey
Released
as Impulse A-2 in 1961
Track listing
Side A: From The Heart / I’ve Got News For You / Moanin’ / Let’s Go / One Mint Julep / Side B: I’m Gonna Move To The Outskirts Of Town / Stompin’ Room Only / Mister C / Strikin’ Up The Band / Birth Of The Blues
Why don’t you forget about all those differences between genres as jazz, blues, soul, gospel and rock & roll and see the big picture. The so-called differences are not so much of a musical nature, yes of course every genre has its distinctive features, but, dig, it all goes back to the same sources, for instance jazz has a foundation in the musical freedom of the spirituals and the gospel beat, for instance soul is a secular version of gospel, for instance rock & roll is the child of the black performers in the chitlin’ circuit and black electric blues, no, the so-called differences are more of a social nature, for instance Mahalia Jackson abhorred filthy lyrics but wouldn’t have been who she was without Bessie Smith, for instance many religious people denounced Sam Cooke’s crossover to secular music, for instance, to get closer to our time, Beyonce going country addresses contemporary social issues, gimmicky as it may appear.
For instance, no, especially Ray Charles (ah, country, he already diddit way back when) is all of these genres encapsulated in one man.
Aye, certainly a jazzy cat, Ray Charles, no mistaking. He started out as a blues player and singer who emulated the jazz inflections of the Nat King Cole trio. Later on, when he’d made the big time, he, like Duke Ellington or Fletcher Henderson, heard every note the band played, switched every note to his liking if necessary, because in his particular case he’d come up the hard way, learning music by ear and braille. Brother Ray definitely had a jazz sensibility.
His pioneering ‘small big’ ensemble of the soul hits rocked Newport in 1958, like a smaller version of the Jean Goldkette or Count Basie bands or The Savoy Sultans. Heads turned, oh so this is deep down home swing, we better get back to the roots. This band featured Hank Crawford and David “Fathead” Newman and later on, Ray Charles created a big band full of first-rate jazz guys and excellent discoveries by Charles himself.
His second album of his groundbreaking stint on Atlantic was a jazz record, The Great Ray Charles. He partnered up with pal Milt Jackson on a couple of records on that label. (switching to alto saxophone in the process) He made Ray Charles And Betty Carter along the way, and later on in the 1970s, on his own Tangerine label, a couple of jazz records.
He made records like Genius + Soul = Jazz (there you have it), a killer big band jazz album if ever I heard one, and, hey, also a blues, vocal and organ album.
Not that that 1961 album is to everyone’s liking. Plenty people, over time, expressed a disinterest in the organ playing of Ray Charles, different strokes for different folks.
It’s absolutely a different organ ballgame on Ray Charles’s only album on Impulse, number 2 in the catalogue of a new label, The House That Trane (eventually) Built, follow-up to J.J. Johnson & Kai Winding’s The Great Kai & J.J., precursor to Kai Winding’s The Incredible Kai Winding Trombones, with all due respect, good records but historically irrelevant in the company of Brother Ray.
Much has been said about the music but do you realize that it took place at Van Gelder Studio in Englewood Cliffs? All those guys under the roof of Rudy’s legendary place, digging what they have been doing, Clark Terry cracking a joke to Thad Jones, Sonny Payne complaining about traffic conditions on the turnpike to Freddie Green. Everybody putting their coat on and murmuring, ‘man that Ray sure knows what he’s doing…’
You’ve noticed: almost all of those are Basie men. Although class acts like Roy Haynes and Urbie Green also put in their five cents. Arrangements are by Charles’s childhood friend Quincy Jones and Ralph Burns. The outsider is trumpeter Philip Guilbeau, alumnus from the Ray Charles band, but he blends in well, fearlessly, effortlessly, puts in fine solos, jubilant, ripe as sparkling berries, especially in the opener, Charles’s smokin’ From The Heart.
It’s Basie-ish, naturally, with Sonny Payne spurring everybody on, and the relentless chuck-chuck of Freddie Green’s unmissable guitar, on tunes as Strike Up The Band, and Stompin’ Room Only. As blues goes, I’ve Got News For You is a gas, marked by sardonic lyrics and luscious call-and-response between Charles’s Hammond organ and the orchestra, and sassy singing by Brother Ray, perhaps not the primal scream of his iconic Sinner’s Prayer, but getting the message across and not without a sorrowful climatic whoop.
Ray Charles is not Jimmy Smith on the organ, neither in sound nor execution, in fact his sound is totally opposite and though it’s understandable that some people have been put off, there’s no question that it, without a doubt, is 100% Ray Charles, which is what counts. (He actually preceded Jimmy Smith in recording a big band album by three years) His tone is dry like desert dust, sharp like a knife. He’s playing the organ like his piano, like his sax, like he sings. Timed angularly and brusquely, chock-full of nuanced blues figures, a piercing sound that moves like an arrow through the gusty wind.
And you can hear his mischievous left-hand comps colliding with his runs, which in turn sneak in and out of the orchestral sound carpet like mice in and out of the various holes in the kitchen wall. Just ponder for a moment at how he kickstarts his story of Bobby Timmons’s classic hard bop cut Moanin’, ouch. His own Mister C., reminding of his Atlantic r&b stuff, is also no joke.
Ray Charles objected to the term ‘genius’, is cited as reserving that term for someone like Art Tatum. At any rate, there’s no question about it, there was nobody like Brother Ray and he was all soul and all jazz.
