Watch a short documentary of The Richard Hambleton Retrospective featuring the photography of Hank O'Neal at Phillips de Pury , New York City from September 9 through the 13th, 2011 presented by Vladimir Restoin Roitfeld and Andy Valmorbida in collaboration with Phillips De Pury & Giorgio Armani.  Click here   Hank's photographs of Richard Hambleton as featured in the June issue of Bliss Magazine.  Download the PDF here: Bliss article   Hank's latest show: Portraits 1970-2010 at The Lancaster Museum of Fine Art. This one man photographic exhibition features noted portraits Hank has taken over the last four decades.  The show will run through February 27th.  For more information please visit the museums web site here: http://www.lmapa.org/exh.html Hank's Portrait of Robert Indiana during his reception at the Four Season's Restaurant in New York City, featured in Art in America: http://www.artinamericamagazine.com/news-opinion/news/2011-01-26/robert-indiana-hope-four-seasons/ Hank's Photographs of Richard Hambleton's Shadow Men on display @ The Dairy, London:  http://arrestedmotion.com/2010/12/viewpoints-openings-richard-hambleton-pop-up-show-the-dairy-london/img_3876_p-nguyen/   Hank's photography graced the facade of the AMFAR pavillion, Cap D'Atibes France, May 20, 2010 C-Span July 2010 —The American Association of University Professors, features The Ghosts Of Harlem American Edition as one of it's choices for The "Best of The Best" University Editions. "The Best of The Bests" Program program, offers librarians the opportunity to share advice and recommendations with their colleagues, and recognizes the valuable contribution that university press books can make to both public and secondary school libraries. (note:The Ghosts of Harlem feature begins at 11:40 and ends at 14:40) :Please Have a look at the video here: http://www.c-spanvideo.org/program/294474-1 Jazz Times Interview June 2010 — Hank O’Neal: Chasing Ghosts ArtNews Article, March 2010, Friendships In Focus - Berenice Abbott, PDF Hank O'Neal's Lower East Side Project Featured On Swiss T.V. Seventh Man Magazine - "Richard Hambleton — New York" in Milan Featured Artist on Valmorbida.com Artists We Love, Featured Photographs of Richard Hambleton Street Art Swide, Hank O'Neal's Portraits of Richard Hambleton, showing in Milan oneartworld.com - Featuring Hank O'Neal's Richard Hambleton Related Prints for Sale Abitare - Richard Hambleton in Milan featuring a portrait by Hank O'Neal

Sunday night, May 16, 2010. I was at St. Peter’s Lutheran Church to attend a memorial service for John Bunch, who’d died a few weeks earlier. Almost every jazz pianist in town of a certain age had turned out, as had a number of instrumentalists and vocalists. One of the people I spoke with was Joe Wilder; he had his camera ready, as well as his trumpet. He told me Hank Jones was very sick and had been moved to a hospice in the Bronx. I asked if he had a telephone number where I might call him. Joe said he’d telephone me the next day and give me the number.

The telephone rang all day but none of the calls were from Joe. Hank had died on Sunday, I don’t know what time, maybe about the time Joe and I were talking about him; all I know it was Sunday evening. His death was all over the Internet, tomorrow there will probably be print obituaries all over the country and all the pianists who filled St. Peter’s yesterday are justifiably sad because they no longer have the gold standard that was Hank Jones to aspire to.

I don’t remember when I first heard Hank on record or even saw him in person, but I do remember when I was supposed to first record him and that was on August 8, 1976 and I had a dozen musicians waiting for him to arrive and fill the piano chair for my second Buck Clayton Jam Session. About an hour after the date was to begin he called and said he’d been in a car crash on the George Washington Bridge. He was very apologetic and said he’d make it up somehow. Fortunately for me, Tommy Flanagan was in town and became my super sub.

This was about the time of the resurgence of Hank Jones. He’d never been away, was always busy in studios and as a sideman, but for some reason the decade leading up to the mid-1970s was a slow time for Hank making recordings as a leader. The Japanese changed that about 1975 and by 1977, when he showed up at Downtown Sound, as a leader and a sideman, he was on a roll that never stopped rolling until yesterday.

He recorded albums for others at Downtown Sound, but he also did one for me that was entitled simply The Trio, with Milt Hinton and Bobby Rosengarden. It was a trio and an awfully good one, but it was Hank’s album. A couple of critics said it was the best album of its sort from the 1970s. Maybe. It was pretty good from start to finish but my favorite tune was the last one that Hank entitled Hank You Thank. As the years bounced by I saw Hank frequently, but not in a studio and he was always too busy to take off a week and be part of a Floating Jazz Festival. It almost worked one year, but something messed up at the end and he didn’t make it. Maybe he had another appointment with a bridge.

Fast-forward a couple of decades to September 2006, the Monterey Jazz Festival and a pre-festival dinner for a select few at Clint Eastwood’s Mission Ranch in Carmel. I find myself seated next to Hank. We greet one another and I pass him the breadbasket and he smiles and says, “Hank you thank,” and we both laugh. He asks why I’m so far away from home and I tell him it because of a film project involving the 50th anniversary of the festival that involves Clint Eastwood and Bruce Ricker. It was at this dinner that Bruce came up with the idea of combining Hank with Oscar Peterson and Dave Brubeck on the final night. A great concept, particularly to be filmed, but one that ultimately failed because Oscar was in declining health, Dave was too tired and only Hank was in a position to play at 100%, which was pretty much the way he always played.

That last night he almost played at no percent. He’d come down with a terrible attack of hives or shingles or something unpleasant that sent him to the hospital for a minute or two, but he was back at the fairgrounds by mid afternoon and ready to film an interview with Clint, play some piano and accompany Roberta Gambarini. Everyone was in a very good mood and someone suggested that Clint should interview Roberta as well, which he did at an outdoor venue with a perfect black backdrop. I took a lot of photographs but my real interest was in getting a good portrait of Hank. I loaded my Rolleiflex with black and white film and as soon as Clint and Roberta were finished I moved Hank into position and got one serious picture I like very much.

There was still some color film in my 35mm camera and Hank began clowning with his friend, Larry Clothier. At one point he grabbed Larry’s hat and put it on, I kept the Nikon going and a couple of those came out as well. Later that night he did he trio performance in Dizzy’s Den, then we put him on a go cart and raced him to the Jimmy Lyon’s Stage, where he tried his best to save the day with Clint taking Dave’s place on one piano and Oscar struggling with one hand on the other. Pretty good for a guy who was 89, or about to be so, who had been in the hospital earlier in the day, who had just played a strenuous 90-minute show and had been interviewed and photographed all afternoon. Thank you Hank.

Hank Jones, 2006

Hank Jones, 2006