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

I didn’t take many photographs of Gene Krupa, but it’s only appropriate that one of the few I did has him surrounded by young people. I only knew him a short time, during the last few years of his life, but he was one of the nicest people I’ve ever encountered He could also kick an audience into frenzy as easily as anyone I’ve ever seen. I saw him do it twice towards the end of his life, both times at concerts I produced at The New School. The first was in 1972, the first concert I’d ever arranged on my own. It was a reunion of Gene and Eddie Condon, his old friend from the early days of jazz in Chicago. Wild Bill Davison, Kenny Davern, Dick Wellstood and an audience that spilled out onto 12th Street were also in attendance. It was the first time Eddie and Gene had appeared in concert together in many years and no one was disappointed except those who couldn’t get in, but they got to hear it a year later on a record I released. Gene wasn’t playing very much in those days. He didn’t have to work and hadn’t recorded since 1964, probably because no one had asked him. His bank account was full and he didn’t have anything to prove. He’d been a star bordering on matinee idol status for close to five decades and even though the Hollywood version of his life wasn’t much of a movie, his stature was such that the movie was made. After the concert I passed out checks to everyone. The New School had given me $400 for the concert and everyone got $80. I was so green I didn’t even think of getting a fee for myself, but no one in the band did it for the $80; they did it because Eddie had asked them and they wanted to relive, or in the case of Dick and Kenny, be part of the past. I gave Gene his check as he was packing up his drums and asked him if he’d like to perform for the student again. He said he’d be pleased to, that he enjoyed playing for students and young people. Of course there was a healthy number of grown-ups in the audience, but that didn’t matter. Gene had a good time and was eager to do it again. I told him it would be in the spring of 1973 and I wanted him to bring his quartet. I also said I’d give him plenty of notice. I didn’t know at the time that he was very ill. Sometime in early 1973 we confirmed a concert for April 17th. I think I now had a budget of $500, not that it made any difference; Gene probably underwrote the night himself. I don’t remember when I started calling him to give him specifics about the concert, maybe three or four weeks out, but I was unable to reach him. A week before the concert I was calling every day with no success. I was terrified, but on the day of the concert, I went to auditorium to set things up just as though there was no problem. About six o’clock I saw Gene standing in the back of the auditorium. Someone was bringing in his drums. He didn’t look so good. I rushed to the back of the hall and found out that not only was his leukemia on a rampage, but his house had burned to the ground a few weeks earlier. All he had left was whatever was in the garage, a car and much of his music. I took him backstage. His small valise was filled with pain pills and a bottle of scotch. He told me he’d had a transfusion and was strong enough to play the concert and he didn’t want to let down the kids at the university or any of the older fans who might show up. He didn’t disappoint anyone, except the bottles of pills and scotch which were lighter than when they came in. He packed up pretty slowly that night and told me he was looking forward to the record of the 1972 concert with Eddie. In June he was in the hospital when the five star review of Jazz At the New School was published in Downbeat Magazine. Gene was singled out for special praise. I read it to him and he was very pleased. He said he’d like to make one more record, a trio with Teddy Wilson and Lionel Hampton. No Benny Goodman. Would I like to be involved?  I couldn’t say yes fast enough. But there were problems. Teddy was good, but Hampton had to have cataract surgery, which would require that he not play for a while. Gene was also in trouble; sometimes he was strong after a transfusion, sometime not, and as time passed the transfusions became less and less effective. I saw Gene in August; I’d asked him to be a eulogist at Eddie Condon’s funeral. He wasn’t moving very quickly but he looked pretty good. He didn’t play with the band I’d assembled. It would have been historic for him to perform one song with Earl Hines, but he wasn’t up for it. His remarks were brief and moving. He concluded with the words, “I’ll see you soon, Slick.” This wasn’t a good sign. We talked for the next six weeks or so and even though I was pretty sure he wasn’t doing well he insisted he was going to get better and make the recording. He died on October 16th, but the last time I looked there were a few thousand Gene Krupa recordings available and while another one might have been interesting, it wasn’t necessary because he still didn’t have anything to prove.

Gene Krupa in Meridan Connecticut, January 1969