Wow! I'm so excited, my Hollywood Blvd. photos have a new life! Thank you, Michael Schulman and @newyorkermag
/culture/photo-booth/the-seedy-glamour-of-nineteen-seventies-hollywood/amp
Sights and sounds from Leimert Park 🎶: Visits to the Sunday Market are always soundtracked by music that's being played all up and down Degnan Boulevard. It's hard to imagine the street with the sound of lively music behind conversations with friends. Here are a few samples I've recorded from my last 2.5 years of visits:
1. A crowd gathers around a three-piece drum line on Juneteenth, 2024.
2. Dethie S. Diouf, a native Senegalese drum master and kingpin in the Los Angeles drum circle community, leads and plays along with a member of his group, which meets to play weekly at the market.
3. Three women partake in a rapid-paced round of double dutch.
4. The drum circle often attracts dancers into the center to show off their rhythm and improvisation skills.
5. Two drummers lead the pack at the annual Ancestors' Day Parade.
My upcoming publication, Africatown, which includes 90+ photographs from joyous scenes like these from the Sunday Market, is coming this June! Keep your eyes peeled for more details...
#Africatown #LeimertPark #SundayMarket #photobook
Happy Throwback Thursday!
The Lakers really could have used the Basketball Playing Chicken this weekend to pick up the crumbs...
#ThrowbackThursday #archivephotography
"Victor Taylor," aka the FUNKONAUT!, pictured in Leimert Park for my upcoming photobook, Africatown. You can now get a sneak peek at Africatown, coming this June, on the Pildas / Green Foundation website on the "Upcoming Titles" page, or see the link in my bio. More to come soon...
#LeimertPark #Africatown #photobook
Happy Birthday to Mary Lou Williams, the piano extraordinaire.
I saw Mary Lou Williams perform in Pittsburgh in 1964, where I was living and working at the time. I had recently graduated from design school in Cincinnati and headed east to design collateral for Westinghouse, US Steel, and Alcoa. I was just 24.
Williams founded the Pittsburgh Jazz Festival in 1964. This photo was taken in that inaugural year. Other musicians at the festival included Dakota Staton, Art Blakey, Thelonious Monk Quartet, Joe Williams, Sarah Vaughan, the Dave Brubeck Quartet, the Harold Betters Quartet, the Jimmy Smith Trio, and Walt Harper Quartet.
Early in her career, Mary Lou was not only a pianist of note but a fine composer and arranger. In the 40s and 50s, she recorded, collaborated, and wrote for Ellington, Gillespie, Monk, Blakey, and others. In the late 60s, she joined the Catholic Church and started composing hymns and masses. The first mass that she wrote and performed was named Black Christ of the Andes (1963). One of her more acclaimed masses, Mary Lou's Mass, was performed on television's Dick Cavett Show. Williams was very prolific. She formed her own record label and publishing company, she recorded more than 100 records and was a Guggenheim recipient twice, in 1972 and again in 1977.
There's a long list of awards for this jazz giant. Williams died in 1981.
#MaryLouWilliams #jazzbirthdays #jazzphotography
Happy Throwback Thursday!
Ham it up! I took this photo fifty years ago on a walk around the Orthodox Jewish neighborhood in the Pico–Robertson area here in LA. I was struck by these rears hanging in the window, and the packaged hams against the wall behind them. Get your ham sandwich here!
#ThrowbackThursday #archivephotography #streetphotography
Happy Cinco de Mayo! 🇲🇽🍍
To celebrate, here's a photo I took during a visit to Mexico City in 1981, of this group of workers loading a pineapple truck. (Mexico is one of the world's leading exporters of pineapple.)
I've visited Mexico a number of times with my camera over the years, the first time in 1969, a little over 100 years after their victory in the Battle of Puebla over French forces, the event that Cinco de Mayo commemorates.
#Mexico #CincodeMayo #archivalphotography #travelphotography
INTRODUCING "AFRICATOWN": Africatown is the nickname given to Leimert Park, one of Los Angeles' most culturally rich neighborhoods, by its locals. I first started photographing there on a chance visit after a jazz benefit concert in the area; But that soon turned into two years of weekly visits to the Sunday Market that's held along the main stretch on Degnan Blvd. Each week, vendors gather to share traditional clothing, art, food, and music from across the African diaspora. Over my time spent photographing there, I've developed tight-knit friendships with many of the market regulars, and I'm so glad to have begun sharing their portraits here on my page.
Stay tuned for more pictures to come and a big announcement...
#LeimertPark #Africatown #SundayMarket
Happy Throwback Thursday!
Today: royal purple for the Duke! Yesterday was the 127th birthday of the great Duke Ellington, jazz royalty.
I saw Duke play at the 3rd Annual Ohio Valley Jazz Festival in 1964. He was 64, I was 24. It was an incredible jazz festival: on the program over three nights were Count Basie, Louis Armstrong, Dizzy Gillespie, John Coltrane, Dave Brubeck, Aretha Franklin, Thelonious Monk, and more, more, more. It was held at Crosley Field, home of the Cincinnati Reds.
Ellington's most popular recording was "Take the A Train," which he performed along with "Mood Indigo," "I Got It Bad," "It Don't Mean a Thing," and many more. Ellington was the greatest jazz composer in history.
Happy birthday, Duke!
#jazzbirthdays #ThrowbackThursday #jazzphotography
