Jazz and cigarettes

I miss the smokers in the jazz clubs. Cough, I’m not kidding. What better way to soften the harsh reflections of all the shiny metal that comes with a jazz band? Cough! How else to reduce the glare off a sweaty brow against an unlit background? So many of the greats in Jazz have been photographed in an atmosphere created by smokers. Those classic B&W images of jazz musicians at the Village Vanguard, The Blue Note and countless other venues were shot through a haze of Marlboros, Galois, and Camel non-filtered cigarettes. Do you think that the shaft of light on Miles, as if beamed from God himself, would be there without smoke? It is tedious, if not impossible, to simulate that in the darkroom.

Ah, “what’s a darkroom?” you ask. That’s another badly ventilated place, cough, where magic used to happen after processing film, slipping a negative into an enlarger, and exposing sensitized paper that’s then sloshed around a tray of developer to get a miraculous blend of art and chemistry, a few samples of which have graced the walls of museums and art galleries for the past century. Like cigarettes in bars, there are hardly any darkrooms left. Cough! But I digress.

For almost as long as Diane Moser’s Composer’s Big Band has been performing in Montclair, NJ- ten years this past January- I’ve been photographing their gigs at local jazz venues. Mostly for fun, occasionally for a promo piece or CD cover for which I’m handsomely rewarded in beer and cigarettes….just kidding; only beer.

We’re coming up on the first anniversary of the smoking ban in the restaurants and bars of New Jersey. The smoking ban might be bad for photography, but it’s good for Jazz, not only for the musicians and the other folks working in the clubs, but for the new breed of patrons that wouldn’t have come to a smoke-filled room in the past. The ban won’t be reversed, the darkroom solution is tedious, and I haven’t found a software plug-in to do the trick. So, my options are to travel abroad somewhere where smokers still rule, or recreate the glory days of smoke filled clubs in a controlled environment using fog or smoke effect devices like those used in film and television.

I would hope the smoke and fog effect devices today are safer than those used during my photographer assisting days in the 80’s. An array of products were available that used dry ice, petroleum distillates, mineral oil, zinc chloride, ammonium chloride, and frankincense to billow smoke or fill an area with an even mist. Most were meant for outdoor use, but those were the days of “whatever it takes to get the shot,” and to be sure, corners were cut. Dry ice fog hangs too close to the ground for our smoky jazz club look, but it’s probably the safest, and relatively harmless, except for low lying subjects like cats, dogs, and other low lying critters. It is, after all, frozen carbon dioxide, not recommended for breathing. A product generically called a “smoke cookie” included zinc chloride which, when combined with water, generates hydrochloric acid. The same was true for products containing ammonium chloride. Frankincense had carbon monoxide and fire hazard issues. Its scent reminded me of the Stations of the Cross of my Catholic childhood. Though today I’m sure that the jitters and faint headedness I felt, as Father Tourigney swung the incense burner, was due to a blood sugar drop, and not an apprehension about the almighty, the association of its scent with church has stayed with me.

More recently, Glycol fogs have been in vogue. Such products as Roscoe’s Stage and Studio Fluid contain Propylene Glycol which, according to Roscoe’s material safety data sheet “is not an inhalation hazard, however, transient irritation may occur from exposure to high prolonged vapor or aerosol concentrations. Persons with asthma or reactive airway disorders (employees or spectators) should be warned that they may experience asthma-like effects from exposure to this or any aerosolized material.”
OK, so Glycols trump cigarette smoke or hydrochloric acid collecting on my throat and lungs.
Without someone else’s deep pocket, traveling abroad, or the big production, controlled setting, isn’t happening. So where does that leave me? Without smoke and with Photoshop. I used to shoot film, mostly Tri-x, P-3200 in the dimmer clubs. A hard pill to swallow for someone who still has a darkroom, but I’ve given in to digital. I shoot with a Nikon D200, a camera I chose specifically because of the chip’s sensitivity in low light. It has changed the way I shoot. I shoot more. With more choices, more spare parts, I’m finding it less necessary to capture the decisive moments in one shot. Though I still strive for that wow moment when content and form are in perfect balance, I can now capture the pieces, moments within a moment, and create a richer expression of that moment later in Photoshop. And that smoke and fog effect plug-in is just around the corner. I can feel it! I can breathe easier.