My friend, Martin Sather, asked me if I'd like to come to Paramus, NJ to photograph him and his friends, the jazz quartet, “Manual Transmission.”
The timing worked out pretty well. On this particular weekend I had been photographing a wedding in Lewes, Delaware. I stopped in Paramus on the way back to my home base in CT.
I had heard Martin prior to this in his recital at Western Connecticut State University, and there's no other way to put it: that guy can play a mean tenor sax.
I've had other opportunities to hear him play and watch him educate; he's a perfectionist that knows his craft. It's impressive and inspiring. The same holds true for the other members of Manual Transmission: Shane Peters (bass), Kyle Rowland (drums), and Alex Smith (keyboard).
They were deeply into the music, purists dedicated to their art-form. Now that I think about it, there should be more images in this set. But I was just standing there and just listening, enjoying the music more than taking photographs. And this was a real jazz set. It was not just a quick song then... "okay on to the next one". They laid down tracks that were 10-12 minutes long where everyone has an improvised solo. They would stop and discuss moments from the set they liked/disliked, what they could go back and improve upon in the next recording. It was great stuff.
[Oh yeah, also be sure to check out Martin's SoundCloud page. He rocks out and you might recognize his profile photo...]
Also, in the flow of sharing images of the four of them, I did not want to flood the beginning of the set with too many Martin images but I'll share them here. I was partial to how the light was hitting his booth. I was also liking the up-light from his music stand and the reflections off of the glass. A few more of Martin:
