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:
“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.
