For the month of May we’re going to focus on Jim’s relationship, both in front of and behind the camera, with one of the San Francisco music scene’s most enduring stars: Carlos Santana.
Throughout the highs and lows, thicks and thins of life with Jim, there can be no dispute that Carlos always stood by him; a great and loyal friend. I can speak to this directly because I saw it up close and personal.
Today’s blog wraps up our coverage of Jim’s early work covering jazz, specifically as the official photographer of the Monterey Jazz Festival of 1963. The more I’ve looked at and studied this early work of Jim's, the more I see how he was intent on making connections and creating a sense of intimacy, a feeling of family. I always chalked his fascination with family up to Jim’s fraught childhood, his black sheep status and how upset he remained throughout his whole life over his lack of siblings.
By 1963 Jim was living in NYC and enjoying one of his most productive periods as a photojournalist, specializing in documenting all genres of entertainers and beyond. However, the Monterey Jazz Festival of that year managed to lure him back home to Northern California with the prospect of once-again serving as the festival’s official photographer. Jim had been the official photographer at the 1960 festival as well, which I focused on in the these past two blogs:
Complex: The Stories Behind Jim Marshall's Iconic Photos.
Nearly 40 years ago, Jim Marshall embarked on The Rolling Stones 1972 tour as their official life photographer. After starting his career in photography in 1958, Marshall gained unrivaled access to jazz and rock artists throughout the 1960s and 1970s. From Jimi Hendrix burning his guitar at the Monterey International Pop Music Festival in 1967 to Bob Dylan kicking a tire around Greenwich Village, Marshall's ability to be in the right place at the right time turned into a vast estate of iconic images.
“You’ve got to find a way of saying it without saying it.” – Duke Ellington Jim’s output from his initial foray to the Monterey Jazz Festival in 1960 was so prolific we needed to split it into two batches, leaving some of the heavier hitters and headliners for this week’s blog. And, at the time, who was heavier than Duke Ellington?
There is so much of Jim’s early work to love and find inspiring, but for me the real power and passion lies in the body of work he created in the early ’60s documenting the jazz greats, their supporting casts, adoring fans and even the tools of their trade.
“I’m always thinking about creating. My future starts when I wake up every morning ... Every day I find something creative to do with my life.” — Miles Davis
In honor of Black History month, we thought we’d focus February’s blogs on another of Jim’s musical heroes: jazz musician, trumpeter, bandleader, and composer extraordinaire Miles Davis, widely considered one of the most influential musicians of the 20th century.
They died within two days of each other -- Ioannis Alexandros Veliotes aka “Johnny Otis” and Jamesetta Hawkins aka “Etta James” – and it got me to thinking about how music connects even the most disparate of souls and smooths over some of the roughest of roads.
It’s no big secret that Jim liked his women, his wine and his whiskey. Anyone who spent any time with him knows the effort it took to keep him from practically pouring the booze down your throat, especially if he wanted something from you or if he sensed you wanted something from him. And, let’s face it, Jim saw the world in rather stark black-and-white terms, so who wanted what from whom and why was pretty much the the name of the game with him. If you didn't like it, well, he was more than happy to tell you where you could stick your opinion.
