RICK DEL SAVIO

 

John LeKay:  Can you tell me when you first start playing the guitar and taking photographs?

Rick Del Savio:  Well, I probably began doing both around the age of eleven or twelve. My Mom had an old Kodak box-shaped thing that took 620 film, if I recall correctly. Anyway, I would take my little G.I. Joe doll into the backyard of our home in The Bronx and create little sets of 'Joe' in action. Lots of b&w close-ups, that sort of thing.

These are my earliest recollections of futzing with a camera. The guitar came around the same time although I pursued that more vigorously. I've been performing and teaching here in New York since 1970. I began professionally in eighth grade gigging with local neighborhood guys who were just returning from the Vietnam war. At that time live music was everywhere. Not so much these days, sadly. The photography was always on a back-burner so to speak. Although I knew on some level that I'd get more involved with it as I got older. I got my first decent SLR about five years ago, took a b&w photo class and have been shooting quite a bit since then.

 

 

JL:  Looking at your photos while playing your album  "New York Minutes"  I sense a nostalgia that you do not find much these days. What brought about the making of this album? Can you start with the album cover.

RDS:  That's a shot I took of the Brooklyn Bridge from beneath the East River Drive at 7:00 a.m. one Sunday morning. For me nothing can evoke the pangs of nostalgia quite as much as photographing New York City in black and white. That shot could be 1950. Or 1910.

A future fun project of mine is to have special contact lenses made where one can *only* see things in black and white. Just pop those things in, listen to Gershwin, Cole Porter tunes on a head-set and hike around Manhattan. A trip into the past. The 14 songs from New York Minutes are all standards and standards were written typically between 1920-1945 give or take. Many coming from Broadway Shows of their era. Broadway, another New York icon. Photographer Alice Austen is from Staten Island and I find captivating her images of old New York. She would ferry into Manhattan, perhaps the greatest city in the world for "people watching" with her gear and shoot New York life, street scenes and so on. She's a personal heroine of mine. So, nostalgic? Sure. But for an era in New York City's past that I never got to see firsthand. As opposed to the NYC of my youth. Although, ask me that same question in another 25 years.

JL:  What is it about Jazz music.... that musicians, like yourself,  find so compelling? 

RDS: One interesting facet, among many, many involved in our medium is I believe Jazz music's 'elasticity', to borrow from writer Gerald Early. Our art form, which is unique in this way, is created spontaneously, in the moment, then Poof! Gone. Quite like magic. And, it exists in real time. A saxophone player steps up to the microphone and wails, improvises, over a songs harmonic structure. The other players react to what she or he just played. The sax player responds to those responses. Talk about a ying/yang dynamic. This is the essence of Jazz. The call and response. Recordings are cool. Though they are 'records' of a particular performance. Nothing though beats being in a Jazz club/concert and following the interplay among the musicians that is at the center of what Jazz music is all about. It reminds me of quote/unquote street artists in New York City. People that will spend a day painting on the very sidewalks of Manhattan knowing that their work will be gone, in the physical sense that same day. The Tibetan Monks do their sand paintings. (Mandala). These incredibly painstaking works of art knowing that their work will return to the chaos of various colored sand granules. I guess that that's what all us artists do, ultimately. Bring order to chaos. And Jazz swings. There's a unique energy present in it. *And* it  it feels good. Yes.
 

 

 

JL: What about some of the technical aspects of creating Jazz?

RDS: What usually happens in a Jazz setting is that the melody is stated by any of the instrumentalists or vocalist. A great many standards, whether composed by Ellington, Gershwin, Cole Porter et al are written over two 8 bar sections; an A section and a B section, divided into 32 bars this way; A A B A. The A section is stated twice then onto the B section and then recapping with the A section restated. Now the fun begins. The various instruments take turns improvising over the harmonic structure of the tune. What is the harmonic structure. The harmonic structure is/are the chord changes of that particular song. I liken it to a skyscrapers skeletal steel frame-work. It is that framework that is holding the piece together. There is a huge degree of latitude involved here. Which is one thing that gives Jazz music its elasticity. Certain notes can be added to those chords to employ various degrees of tension and resolution. Ebb and flow, ying/yang. So many ways to describe this inherent aspect of Jazz. On one level the soloist is supported by the other musicians. But then there is the interplay. The supporting players responding to what the soloist is doing, and vice versa thus creating a dialogue. And I think that that is what is at the very heart of Jazz. The same call and response represented in many cultures folk/ritual music. On that level there is not much difference between what occurs during a New Orleans Jazz jam session and the ritual music that appears through out the world. Primal stuff.

 

 

JL:  I also see an architectural geometry and very interesting patterns in quite a few of your photos.  Do you intentionally seek out these patterns and formations and can you also tell me more about your cityscapes?

RDS: I don't know that I consciously seek out patterns. They certainly exist in music. And in the improvisational aspect of Jazz. There we use patterns, sequencing, motifs, motivic development and so forth. So it may be a crossover effect, the music side influencing the photography side. The cityscapes are a mix of two viewpoints; low-angle shots where one feels dwarfed by these beyond larger than life edifices and higher-angle pieces where the point of view is looking down on these things, both physically and figuratively.
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

JL: The photos you took on the beach of the veterans are very powerful. Something about seeing them on a beautiful sandy beach has an awakening effect. When and how did you come across this set up and do you know who arranged all the Crosses?

RDS:  If I'm lucky, *some* of my photos will have strong emotional content. The fellow holding his face was taken from a bus on the Grand Concourse in The Bronx this past April. We were both stopped, waiting for the light to change. He looked like he'd had a rough day even though we can't see his facial expression. A look of "letting it all go" finds its way into my work occasionally, whether it's of faces on statues or faces on living people.

The crosses on the beach were in Santa Barbara California in July 2005. I happened to be in town that weekend. The Santa Barbara Vets for Peace, iirc, installs this powerful Iraq War Memorial on a beach in California for a weekend then pack up and install it in another town. Each cross bears the name of a KIA, killed in action, member of the U.S. Military. I'd like to get them to come to the East Coast.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

All photos ©Rick Del Savio

 

JL: When and where did you take the pictures of the cemetery statues?

RDS:  The statue photos are from various cemeteries around the New York area, shot over the course of 2 or 3 years.

JL:  What other projects are you working on with your photos and music?

RDS:  My current ongoing photography project is shooting all the bridges that cross into Manhattan. There are a few. The Brooklyn Bridge photo on my site and on my 'New York Minutes' CD is just the start.

That one was an interesting experience. As I said I took it from underneath the East River Drive at 7:00 a.m. from the Manhattan side. Which is Canal Street, China Town. Off camera, on both my left and right side are several elderly Chinese practicing Tai-Chi facing East into the sunrise. On the music front I've just formed a Jazz Guitar Duo, "Two Guitars" with my musical collaborator Jay Carlson. After focusing on my private student roster I feel that it's time to get back into live performance. Gigs. Work! We'll do private parties, corporate events, clubs etc. For whoever digs good Live Jazz. Peace out, Rick Del Savio NYC September 2005

 

more photos:

http://www.rickdelsavio.com/photo.html