Last week, Herb, Mary, and I worked our way through archiving upwards of 250 photographs - bringing our grand total to 300 silver gelatin prints stored neatly in six archival boxes. They were 250 mid-size black and white photographs of musicians playing their instruments in various locations. Festivals, jazz clubs, long-established music venues, beneath highway underpasses, indoor, outdoor, you name it, they played there, and Herb photographed it.
What's been one of the real treats of this experience has been the act of listening. While various types of music emanate through the light-filled living room, we play a game of memory, flashing an image before Herb's eyes only to be regaled with tales of Black Panther buttons, attending festivals in an era where toplessness was the norm, jazz and blues greats crooning so hard and fiercely that the pulsating temples are felt throbbing through the photographs into the room. These stories though sometimes sad, are often served up with a side of humor. The are what make this project rich. Walking through a history, story after story, picture by picture - it's something remarkable. We've discussed potentially setting up a tape recorder, or a video camera (how meta!) to capture what we are doing, the real meat and potatoes of the experience. Might be worthwhile... But we shall see!
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