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Dear Readers:
…..Full disclosure: Bob Hecht is a dear friend of mine – a “brother,” really. We met late in life (through this website, in fact), and our friendship is an example of the many gifts that life continues to bestow on us if we keep our minds active and our hearts open. We hang, participate in an intimate jazz listening group made up of dear friends, talk frequently on the phone, laugh over a good quip, and agonize over the future of our republic.
…..In addition to being the smartest, most committed guy I’ve ever met when it comes to appreciating and listening to jazz music, Bob is a world-class photographer. Over the years his work has and continues to be published in major literary magazines and photographic journals (The Sun and LensWork are examples). His daily routine, as I know it, includes walks in his NE Portland neighborhood – or walks within his own home – creating remarkable photographs from his everyday world.
…..In his newly published book of his photography: Stolen Moments: A Photographer’s Personal Journey, Bob writes that during his early work with photography, he assumed “that what was most important in making an artistically successful photograph was the subject itself. Thus, I concentrated on the grand landscape – the grander the better; the more fantastical the forms, the better; the more dramatic the lighting, the better.”
…..However, as the “profound personal, internal, and philosophical changes that occurred” within him during the last ten years (Bob is 83), he found that his entire working process – his “fundamental paradigm” – was forever altered. He began to realize that his own “internal state of visual (and spiritual) receptivity was the most important aspect” of what he was seeing, and his state of awareness was heightened, allowing him to see that “beauty is everywhere.”
…..“My better pictures seem to come unbidden,” he writes, “as if guided by some power greater than myself, arriving from outside myself.” He finds a parallel there with that of improvising jazz musicians like Tom Harrell, who said that “sometimes when I am playing the trumpet I get this magical feeling that the notes are coming from somewhere else.” For Bob, a photograph may come to him as if were preordained – “all I had to do was see it!”
…..And what readers lucky enough to own a copy of this book will see are always unique and often powerful – a reflection of trees in a basketball court puddle; chipped paint on the hull of a boat; a shadow of a fork and knife on a kitchen counter; rocks on the bank of a river cutting through a Pacific Northwest forest. His photos are breathtaking works of art. Abstract and graceful. Warm and atmospheric. Colorful and inspiring.
…..But, interestingly, the brilliance of the book isn’t just what readers will see, it is how Bob’s photographs make us feel. Calm. Contemplative. Enriched.
…..Ultimately, the book is an opportunity to see – through his art – how we too can take in our world in a more measured, meditative state, and along the way gift ourselves the pleasure of adventuring within our own everyday (and beautiful) “stolen moments.”
….I invite you to click here for complete information about Bob’s book.
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Joe Maita
Editor/Publisher
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Some images from the book:
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Kangaroo Plants Emerging from Glass, San Francisco
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Condensation on Car Window with Oak Tree Reflection, San Rafael
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Corrugated Tree Shadow, Portland
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Tree Reflection in Polished Granite Building, Portland
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Bob Hecht frequently contributes his essays, photographs, interviews, playlists and personal stories to Jerry Jazz Musician. He has a long history of producing and hosting jazz radio programs; his former podcast series, The Joys of Jazz, was the 2019 Silver Medal winner in the New York Festivals Radio Awards. In addition, he is a widely published fine art photographer, whose work has appeared multiple times in The Sun, LensWork, Black & White Magazine, Zyzzyva and other periodicals, as well as in the book, Dream of Venice in Black & White, published by Bella Figuera Publications. He lives with his wife in Portland, Oregon. His photo website is roberthecht.com.
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Bob has curated an amazing array of listening experiences within playlists he assembles exclusively for Jerry Jazz Musician, and within them shares his profound lifelong journey with jazz music.
Click on the links below to be taken to recent playlists:
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In addition to putting together great playlists, Bob has conducted several fine interviews for Jerry Jazz Musician.
Click here to read Two of a Mind: Conversations on Creative Collaboration, featuring Bill Charlap and Sandy Stewart; Click here to read his interview with Pepper Adams biographer Gary Carner. Click here to read “Life in E Flat” – a conversation about Phil Woods – with pianist Bill Charlap and jazz journalist Ted Panken, and click here to read his interview with Alyn Shipton, author of The Gerry Mulligan 1950’s Quartets.
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Click here to read The Sunday Poem
Click here to read “A Collection of Jazz Poetry – Spring/Summer, 2024 Edition”
Click here to read “Not From Around Here,” Jeff Dingler’s winning story in the 66th Jerry Jazz Musician Short Fiction Contest
Click here for information about how to submit your poetry, short fiction, playlists, art, or essays
Click here to subscribe to the (free) Jerry Jazz Musician quarterly newsletter
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Click here to help support the ongoing publication of Jerry Jazz Musician, and to keep it ad and commercial-free (thank you!)
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Jerry Jazz Musician…human produced (and AI-free) since 1999
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