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Jazz Portraits: 1970-2003 by Hank O'Neal

By Daniel Kassell
October 27, 2003
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Billed as
"A photographic retrospective of the jazz heroes who created the golden age of jazz"
this exhibit was presented in the Weill Art Gallery in conjunction with Dick Hyman's 19th Season of JAZZ IN JULY at the 92nd Street Y from 21st to the 31st, 2003.

Stanley Blum actually curated this selection specifically for the 92nd Street Y audience choosing many photos from "Ghosts of Harlem" - a Hank O'Neal book published in France in 1985. The photos that particularly caught my eye were: Cab Calloway leaning over toward an audience with a microphone in hand; Maxine Sullivan at home - 1986; Illinois Jacquet at home - 1996. In the mounted posterboard descriptive Hank O'Neal explained, "Kodak Tri-X, or more recently, TMY, was used exclusively."

Most striking were two colorful poster sequences of 25 Chiaroscuro CD covers framed side by side and hung prominently on the center wall.

Depicting Hank O'Neal's painstaking artistry over 30 years the astonishing collection "Pianist Hands in Action" consists of 79 B&W photos displayed in eight rows of 4 x 6" glossy prints each identified on a numbered list of the 79 musicians hands mounted nearby on the end wall of the Weill Gallery. For more go to www.chiaroscurojazz.com/gallery.htm

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