When I met John, the owner of South Park Bar and Grill, last week he said I should come by again to see this band. He mentioned a special guest who just won a prestigious jazz guitar award, and when I found out that Rob Thorsen was playing bass, I knew where I'd be on Sunday night.



Hard bop is my favorite style of jazz, and these guys do it really well.



Ian Tordella- Tenor sax


Rob Thorsen- Bass


Rob is also a photographer, and has some nice examples on his website. 

Dylan Savage- Drums


Jeff Miles- Guitar


Jeff lives in Brooklyn these days, and so does my little brother Robert, who moved there during the summer.

Robert, you should go see him play, preferably by taking me out for drinks when I'm in NY in a couple weeks. Heather says you look like him, but I don't think either one of us got much handsome genes from mom and dad.



The SPB&G is just down the street from the Whistle Stop, so if you're a regular at that place but haven't been here yet,  then you should really check it out.

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And now for some general photo-geekery:

This is a great place to shoot bands. The lights are very bright and multicolored due to the blue and red neon lights outside the window and the orange spotlights illuminating the front. Bright spotlights= nice B&W portraits with a black background, as above.

Since the neon lights only emit one frequency of light, a little post-processing filtration can change the look dramatically. Like these, taken just seconds apart and all processed slightly differently:


Slight underexposure for mood.



Desaturation across all colors, but completely in the blue channel.




Blue and purple ceiling, warm light on the face.



Brighter blue ceiling, neutral tone on the face. Just by changing the white balance. All this and killer monochromes. I can't do that at the Casbah...especially not with a slow tele-zoom lens!