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The Who. They were great, I loved these guys. For me they were like cute little ruffians. They made me think of Dickens, of Oliver Twist, Fagins gang. - Art Kane Pete Townshend always remembered working with Art - in the seventies he admonished another photographer who didn't give them enough instruction: "When Art Kane took our picture, he told us, go there, do this, do that, be asleep, put your head on his shoulder...we like that kind of direction"
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The most famous Jazz photograph ever? This was Art Kane's first assignment as a professional photographer. The signature photograph from the golden age of Jazz - not a bad place to kick off. How could he have gathered 57 of the world's greatest jazz musicians at 10.00am on 126th Street in Harlem one August morning - a time when they would usually all be fast asleep? It was very nearly 58 musicians, but pianist Willie Smith had wandered out of frame by the time the shot was taken. Kane controlled them (as best he could) by shouting directions through a rolled-up New York Times. They are all in there: Monk, Mulligan, Basie, Gillespie, Mingus and more. It was a momentous day for Art Kane, who would later look back: I came up with this really outrageous idea, and watching it unfold the way I'd thought of it; seeing all those musicians moving up there onto those steps on 126th St. was magnificent. I knew from that moment on that this was what I wanted to do with my life. I wanted to be a photographer. If imitation is the sincerest form of flattery then Art Kane has been extensively and sincerely flattered: this photograph has been re-created in tribute at least a dozen times by hip hop artists, younger jazz musicians, classical players & doo wop artists, and entire music communities. It was the subject of an Academy Award nominated documentary, 'A Great Day in Harlem' by Jean Bach, which is well worth seeking out. No other picture has become so deeply embedded in the hearts and minds of music lovers worldwide.
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SAGA DE XAM is a French comic masterpiece written by Jean Rollin & Illustrated by Nicolas Devil, and published by Eric Losfeld. It is one of the rarest examples of psychedelic comic art from 1967. We came across it for the first time about five years ago in a bookshop in France - they only took cash, we only had credit cards, so all we could do was look in awe and hope that at some point we would be able to find one. Well, now we have, a beautiful 1967 hardback first edition on heavy weight paper in its original dustcover.
As you would expect with a book over forty years old, there are signs of wear on the dustcover, and the writing on the spine of the dustcover has faded, but inside it is eyeball-poppingly magnificent. The quality and variety of the graphics will blow you away. And while it may be stating the bleeding obvious, it is in French. Nicolas Devil - nice surname by the way - was one of Frances first erotic comic book artists. His illustrations were originally drawn on large format paper and then reduced and accompanied by captions and dialogue written in microscopic characters. Eric Losfeld was a French publisher who had a reputation for publishing controversial material with his publishing imprint Editions Le Terrain Vague. He published the well known Barbarella science fiction comic book created by Jean-Claude Forest.
