Street Roots • April 29-May 5, 2016
News
Page 11
JAZZ, from page 10
hated to cut from the book?
interest outside of getting my academic
credit for the music class to heading up this
jazz monster.
J.F.: When the book was supposed to be
just a jazz book, that was really hard. There
were a lot of other beautiful images. He took
a lot of fashion photographs.... And I
thought I’d have only one chance to get his
work in a book. If I make it just a jazz book,
I’m going to have to eliminate all that. So in
the end, when powerHouse decided to make
this more of an expansive broader scope of
his work, I was then able to include a lot At
the last minute, I talked to the designer and
noted that it’s too masculine; everyone in
here is a man, and everything is dark and
heavy. So I wound up getting 35 additional
images. So literally a week before the book
was going to press, 35 images were added.
These- are more portraits in the park arid
comedian Flip Wilson.
B.R.P.: Was he part of the jazz scene or
more of a photographer?
J.F.: He was kind of both. I think he had a
very approachable calm demeanor. So he
hung out in the clubs before he rigorously
started taking pictures. So he would be in
Birdland (the famous New York City jazz
club), and between sets he would play the
bass, and he knew everyone personally. So
he was more of a hobbyist photographer and
jazz lover who happened to get into the field;
B.R.P.: How did you start learning about
him as a person?
J.F.: I had photos of him from throughout
his life, childhood to adolescence to death. I
realized that he had an extensive family. So I
got a copy of his death certificate, and I
knew I could get his Social Security number
from that. This wais before Google, really,
before the internet was full of information;
and I was calling people.
B.R.P.: The photos are from the early years.
J.F.: Bob moved to New York City on his
25th birthday. He started photography in
the late, late ‘50s, early ‘60s. Before he
moved to the city, he was spending a lot of
time taking trips to Manhattan to clubs. I
actually found a guy named Peter who went
cement a curb at a gas station, and with the
money he made, he would buy movies and
films. I don’t think he ever had the mind set
to plan for the future. He lived for the
moment, always, and then just ran out of
money and time.
B.R.P.: Is this ultimately a tragic tale?
Bob’s magnificent work is saved and shared
with the world, but he didn’t live to see it and
likely had no expectation that his work would
survive.
J.F.: The way I have come to learn of Bob
and his character -1 actually asked
someone that question, what he would think
right now. He
very rare - the fact that he was in New York
City at a time where the transitioning of jazz
and all the politics and the volatile times. I
don’t think that too many people captured
what he did.
B.R.P.: He was incredibly fortunate to have
you. I can’t image that too many people, even
lovers of jazz or lovers of photography, would
have seen this project through.
J.F.: I worked on this for 13 years. But it
was actually a lot of rejection. I’m really
grateful that powerHouse Books saw
something in it
So as far as Bob being fortunate to have
found me, I feel that
this project was a
huge learning
experience for me,
but I never would
have gotten to know
what I now know
about jazz and
about the legal
issues in trying to
get it published,
about design, about
publishing, about
what New York was
like at a time of
which I wasn’t even
aware. I think it’s
been mutually
beneficial.
to high school and college with Bob. He said
wasn’t self-assured
Bob was always trying to get him to go on
the New York City adventures. The bulk of
his photos are from the late 1950s to mid-
1960s, jazz and then it turned into more folk
(music).
enough to do this
for himself. He
wanted it. Lee
Underwood said
that Bob would
have gotten a kick
out of it, that it was
really funny that
someone would
take all this
material and spend
all their time.
Rather than a debt
of gratitude, it’s
more of: “Well,
damn! I can’t
believe this crazy
girl did this!” I
FROM REBIRTH OF COOL BY JESSICA FERBER,
B.R.P.: How big
think it’s tragic
PUBLISHED BY POWERHOUSE BOOKS
is
the
collection?
that his life wound
“Rebirth of the Cool” by Jessica Ferber.
Obviously the book
up in someone’s
Top: The Dave Brubeck Quartet.
is just a tiny
file, and that’s an
portion.
example of
thousands of
J.F.: The book is just the tip of the
people that happens to. He let life pass him
by, but everything he did was really valuable. iceberg. The collection is incredibly
disorganized. I think I’d need to call upon
He made the conscious choice to pursue a
career that wouldn’t necessarily provide him some historians and experts who know the
West Village (in that) period.
with a kind of stability.
The collection itself is probably 5,000 or
6,000 images, but every sheet is 24 or 36
B.R.P.: Does it give you pause that there
frames because that’s how many frames are
must be many Robert James Campbells out
on a roll (of film). So that’s how many there
there?
would be if some of the negatives weren’t
missing. He would number things like Cl,
J.F.: I’ve met people who call me and say,
C2, C3, C4 and go into the hundreds, but
“My name is whatever and I’ve
maybe 60 of those are gone. So what I have
photographed these people at Woodstock
is not in the five or six thousand. I have
and would you be interested in helping me
maybe half that.
get my photos out?” I do think there are
countless Bobs out there, but in Bob
B.R.P.: There must be some photos that you
Campbell’s case, the footage that he has is
B.R.P.: What happened to him before New
York City?
J.F.: What I do know is that he had a very
tumultuous upbringing. His mother was not
emotionally fit to be a caregiver. She actually
sent him away to her sister, Elizabeth, and
his uncle, and they raised him. His mom
would come in and out of his life, and there
were times when the three of them would
be raising Bob. I think Bob always had a
sense of abandonment He struggled with
that his entire life. He was never really
settled into a place. On the back cover of
the book is a quotation (from his journal): “I
would stay in my place, but I don’t think I’ve
found it yet”
He left New York City and went to L.A.,
and he was with (singer-songwriter) Tim
Buckley and the Underwoods (guitarist and
writer Lee Underwood). Those were his
buddies. He was a kind of a groupie and
started taking work on movie sets.
I don’t know what happened between
working in L. A. and moving back to New
England. His mother died. His entire family
died off. He moved into his mother’s house
in Portsmouth (N.H.), lost the house, lost
everything. And then he had a stroke when
he was in his mid-50s. That left him hearing
impaired. It changed him. People who knew
him at this time said he was always very
willing to work. He was always up for
getting a job. A guy from those years says
Bob was very talented and handy. He would
B.R.P.: I’m thinking now of that heart
rending photograph of Myrlie Evers, widow of
Medgar Evers, the civil rights activist who was
murdered in Mississippi in 1963.
J.F.: That photo was taken right after the
murder. I didn’t see a lot of civil rights
activists, but I did see a lot of protests, a lot
of picketing.
That is one image I loved so much. It’s
one of my favorite pictures in the book. I
had to find a way to get it in there.
B.R.P: One fascinating part of your text is
about that personality test that he took in
1976. What did that tell you?
J.F.: It was a watershed moment. It was
so weird. It’s a Scientology Scantron test,
and at first I didn’t know what it was. I had
no idea. Then a friend pointed out that it
was a Scientology test and that I could
probably find the questions online. So I
downloaded all the questions and matched
up Bob’s answers. Even though it’s kind of
superficial, the questions really placed him
in a way that I didn’t really think that they
would. For example there was this one
question that said, “I wouldn’t hunt...” with
choices, “A.) I don’t eat meat; B.) I wouldn’t
inflict harm on another living being; and C.)
I don’t like guns.” And he picked, “I
wouldn’t inflict harm on another living
being.” I could see that he was a really
gentle person. Other people have told me
what he was like, but on the test, that’s his
pure answer.
B.R.P.: It must have been a struggle for you
to start from zero information. Now that the
book is out, is it leading to more new
information?
J.F.: Yes! There have been a few people.
One of the most valuable connections that,
I’ve made was Peter B., who went to high
school with Bob and a year of college. He
painted Bob the way I always thought he
was. With this kind of situation, you just
want to know. You have someone’s personal
belongings, and you don’t know who they
are. I could make him anyone that I wanted
him to be.... “Oh, he’s a homeless man” or
“Oh, he’s a drug user” or “He’s done a lot of
horrible things” - any way that I wanted to.
But I judged him in a very positive light.
And then when I found out from people who
have read the book that, yeah, he was
exactly the way I thought he was, it was so
satisfying, a validation.