#roy nathanson

[nosamyrag]

[thatrickmcginnis]

ROY NATHANSON & CURTIS FOWLKES, THE JAZZ PASSENGERS Toronto 1990

Back when my ambition was to become William Claxton or Dennis Stock and photograph jazz musicians I was also painfully aware that I was at least three decades late for the music and musicians at their peak – for the most part. But there were a lot of younger musicians who were doing great work and I did my best to catch them when they were passing through town. Back in punk rock days I was a fan of John Lurie’s band The Lounge Lizards, who described their music as “fake jazz”, but a few years later they were something more like real jazz, with new members in the group like trombonist Curtis Fowlkes and sax player Roy Nathanson. Fowlkes and Nathanson left to form their own band, the Jazz Passengers, and in the summer of 1990 they came to town, playing a short-lived jazz club on the city’s “mink mile” called the Bermuda Onion.

Curtis Fowlkes was born in Brooklyn and met fellow Brooklyn native Roy Nathanson when they were playing in the pit orchestra of the Big Apple Circus in the early ‘80s. They joined the second proper lineup of the Lounge Lizards alongside Dougie Bowne, Erik Sanko and Marc Ribot and left to form the Jazz Passengers in 1987. They would be part of what’s loosely called the East Village jazz scene – a diverse group of musicians that included John Zorn, Wayne Horvitz, Bobby Previte and many others, centred around the Knitting Factory venue. Their music incorporated soundtrack and ethnic music, R&B, rock and other influences, and when they passed through Toronto in 1990 they were promoting their third record, Implement Yourself. A few years later they’d make the record many consider their classic, In Love, which featured vocalists like Jimmy Scott, Jeff Buckley, Mavis Staples and Debbie Harry, and Harry would become a de facto member of the band.

I talked my way into a shoot with Roy Nathanson and Curtis Fowlkes the way I got a lot of my jazz portraits around the same time – by being friendly with the promoters, showing up before soundcheck and presenting myself as a fan who also happened to be a professional photographer. The club where the Jazz Passengers was playing was in The Colonnade, a modernist landmark and high end shopping mall on the city’s luxury retail strip, and I found a spot for the shoot on the marble-lined landing of a set of stairs leading up to the club, where I set up my single light bounced into an umbrella and shot with my Rolleiflex.

Fowlkes and Nathanson were a visually dramatic pair – one tall, the other short, both of them looking like they might have stepped out of a ‘40s comedy. My only job was to underline this contrast and get them to relax just enough to give me a range of expressions over two rolls of film. I’ve always been pleased with these shots, but I don’t know that they ever got published anywhere until I posted them on my old blog. Roy Nathanson still leads a version of the Jazz Passengers but Curtis Fowlkes sadly died of heart failure in 2023.

[onua]

pre-med core

[tokenawkward]

Nick Hakim, Roy Nathanson - Moonman

[losangeleslovesyou]

NICK HAKIM + ROY NATHANSON : MOONMAN

[michaelparque]

PAPANOSH + ROY NATHANSON + NAPOLEON MADDOX “HOME” @ Le Petit Faucheux, Tours 06/10/2018

Soundcheck

Raphaël Quenehen (as, ts)

Quentin Ghomari (tp, slide tp)

Sébastien Palis (Hammond, p)

Thibault Cellier (b)

Jérémie Piazza (dms)

+ Roy Nathanson (ss, bs)

+ Napoléon Maddox (voc)

Copyright Michael Parque 2018 All rights reserved

Papanosh est un groupe du collectif Vibrants Défricheurs

[anthologiealeatoire]

[thatrickmcginnis]

I opted not to try and shoot the whole band - frankly, they didn't seem like they were too enthusiastic about the prospect - so I asked Fowlkes and Nathanson if they'd like to step outside the club, to a marble-lined stairwell that was deserted after the shops downstairs had closed. It looked good as a background texture, and had the added appeal of forcing my subjects - literally - into a corner, which is always a good portrait tactic, as Irving Penn will tell you.

More here.