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In this book, there is little to read and much to observe.
Observe Mal Waldron smoking a cigarette seated at his piano, just a few months before departing, a heartfelt Chet at the microphone, with his large glasses frame, his hair slicked back, and his trumpet resting on his legs, an Oscar Valdambrini in profile while he observes his trumpet, a bundled-up Massimo Urbani playing, a Stanley Turrentine captured on stage sitting with his sax and smoking his cigarette impassively, Tony Scott and Pharoah Sanders posed while playfully joining their long white beards, a proud, sweat-skinned Max Roach, Joe Pass with Ella Fitzgerald still partners, a Steve Lacy seated and alienated with one hand on his head and the other on his soprano, an Elvin Jones in a poker mood with strong vitality, a genial and authoritative face like Dizzy's, a charming Astrud Gilberto, a bubbly Cab Calloway appearing to sing to the stars, in his engaging personality directly arriving from the dazzling '30s. These are just some of the snapshots that Carlo Verri has captured in his now over three-decade-long career as a photographer passionate about jazz, which has taken him around half of Europe.
He combined his two passions, photography and jazz. A bit like culinary critics with curious and wandering personalities, traveling in search of good cuisine. Verri started just over his teenage years, between the '60s and '70s, becoming interested and passionate about jazz. It remains a mystery to me how a boy of that age, in that period, and in Italy, could be interested in such music; but perhaps this impression is only mine, while in reality, it made sense that a boy would be interested in jazz, in those years. His baptism of fire, which would give life to the union between jazz and photography, happened only a few years later, on March 17, 1978, at the Bergamo Jazz Festival. A group of three boys, a Fiat 500, jazz, a 6x6 with a waist-level viewfinder, the police stops of the day following the Moro kidnapping. Different times (...) Verri had from the beginning a great opportunity, that is to see his passion become something more than just a passion; thus Arrigo Polillo, a veteran of Italian jazz, began publishing some of his photos in the magazine he directed, "Musica Jazz." Verri thus began to move further, starting to frequent that Europe which had already become a buen retiro for many American jazz musicians for a couple of decades. Holland, France, Switzerland, Germany. Thrilling journeys always under the banner of jazz and the quest for a gaze to capture, the nod to immortalize. Verri feels, and a lot.
His photos convey the vibrations of his passion, of the human Verri and not just the technical one; in this sense, there is a splendid foreword by Francesco Martinelli, Director of the "Arrigo Polillo Study Center" at the Siena Jazz Foundation and Professor of Jazz History at Bilgi University in Istanbul, which brilliantly expounds this. Some of the most heartfelt photos are accompanied by captions, which further enhance the passion that photography and jazz evoke in Verri, now also a vehicle for human emotions linked to the Art of vision and the Art of sound. At the end of the book, Verri gives us another splendid gift: a CD that will accompany the reading of the book and the viewing of the photos. Eleven tracks featuring the Adderley brothers, Duke, Gerry & Chet, Miles, the Modern Jazz Quartet, Lee Konitz, Stan Getz, Ray Charles, Dizzy, and finally Sarah Vaughan.
A precious book, to gift to friends passionate about jazz, making a fine impression, or to gift to oneself, which is even better... All photos, of course, in b/w, because otherwise, where would the charm be?
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