SRJO (Seattle Repertory Jazz Orchestra)

A friend was the volunteer performance photographer for the Kirkland Performing Arts Center. He had a conflict and asked me if I was willing to cover a show for him. "It's a musical group, SRJO." ---- SRJO is the brainchild of a couple of young musicians. They looked around them at the rich jazz heritage then alive and well in Seattle and formed an 18 piece "big band" -- 5 trumpets, 5 trombones, 5 saxophones, piano, bass, drums -- with the notion of getting all that talent together for an occasional concert.

Yeah, I think I could do that. As a big band alum from college (including a summer in Europe on a USO tour) the idea of photographing some of the finest jazz musicians in the country in performance sounded like a splendid idea -- especially since I could photograph from the wings instead of from the audience.

Floyd Standifer (lead trumpet) I had the pleasure of taking an improvisation workshop from him (Both he and I were much younger then. It didn't help my improvising very much but it sure was fun.)

The only problem I had in doing these photographs was that I kept getting stunned by being up close to some of the best big band music I had heard since Duke Ellington's orchestra in college.

Bill Ramsay (baritone saxophone) -- the instrument I played.

Phil Sparks -- one of the jazz DJ's in the area said of him "He never has a bad night!"

Clarence Acox, in addition to his ability to switch between big band to small group (few drummers can do so) he was the director of Garfield High School's national prize willing student jazz orchestra.

A lot of these guys are gone now but SRJO is still an exciting band to hear. Many of the musicians now were their students. A visiting musician (trumpet) said, at intermission time, "I hope you foks appreciate what an outstanding band you have here."

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And now for something entirely different.

Minimalism, Portland Art Museum

My friend Rebecca is a lecturer on art history. Her lectures are meticulously researched and presented with an attitude that seems to show that there is nothing she would rather do than tell you about art that she finds important.

Her appetite for art -- all kinds, all periods, all mediums -- is unquenchable. I asked her if there was any type of art that she did not enjoy. "I have often been asked to do a lecture on minimalism. You may notice that I have never done so."

My guess is that this fellow shares her opinion.

Rooftop patio, Bellevue Art Museum

Early in its speckled lifetime the now-closed Bellevue Art Museum offered quite a few classes. This young woman and I were sort of the two outliers in a drawing class. She, also a photographer, had goals similar to mine -- use drawing to sharpen the eye.

Alas, the class emphasized the composition end of drawing -- single and two-point perspective, positive and negative space, and so on -- material that both of us already understood.

But the class was fun and both of us made a little progress in pushing the pencil in the right direction.

After the final class session I photographed her and she photographed me.