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

On January 12, 1987 I met with Eddie Durham at the home of a certain Mrs. Parks, the former lady friend of Snub Mosely, a terrific trombonist, then recently deceased. Eddie lived in Brooklyn, but wanted to meet in Harlem, which was only appropriate since the purpose of the meeting was to talk about his days in that part of New York City for my book, The Ghosts Of Harlem.

I’d known Eddie for nearly twenty years and was convinced he’d never received the recognition he deserved. I’d first met him in February 1969; he was part of a Kansas City band I’d helped organize for a concert. He was the guitarist that night and Snub was the trombonist, but they did manage to do one trombone duet together that evening. I was charged with driving Eddie to the job and arranged for him to meet me at my apartment. He arrived about the same time as my father, who was a bit surprised since he’d never encountered a black musician at my home, but he got over it pretty quick and they were soon busy enjoying a bourbon bottle together. Eddie was about four times faster than my father, which may have something to do with his lack of recognition, but this is only a guess.

A few years later, after I built my first recording studio, Eddie was on hand any number of times for recording sessions, but most notably when he was featured in John Jeremy’s film, Born To Swing. He was given an opportunity to play both guitar and trombone in the film, and for the uninitiated, Eddie was probably the first jazz guitarist to use an amplifier on a regular basis. He pre-dated Charlie Christian, not by much, but he was more or less first. This tends to be forgotten because when Eddie joined Count Basie, his leader was quite content to have Freddie Green hold down the guitar chair, and Eddie was in charge of his trombone and writing originals and arrangements of standards.

Jump forward to 1987. I had already taken the photographs for the book and now we were talking about Harlem in the 1930’s. We were well into what was becoming an increasingly interesting interview when the doorbell rang. It was an old friend name Kelly (I pretty sure it was the drummer, Kelly Martin), who invited himself in to catch up on this and that. It shut down the interview while the two old friends caught up on the news of the day. Eddie told Kelly that he was going out with the Harlem Blues and Jazz Band; they’d been offered a Caribbean cruise. I wasn’t happy about this; I’d warned the leader of the Harlem band about the cruise and urged him to be careful. I’d had experience with such things and if the performance schedule wasn’t carefully structured and agreed to in advance, some cruise lines took advantage of musicians, treated them badly and worked them to death. Eddie was sure it would be OK.

We talked for a few more minutes and then Eddie and Kelly decided they needed to be somewhere else. I gathered up my camera cases, tripod and recorder and the three of us walked east on 158^th Street. Eddie knew I’d driven up from Greenwich Village. He asked, “Aren’t you worried about leaving your car on the street.” I shook my head and as we reached my perfectly fine New York City likely to be left alone streetcar, Eddie looked at me and said, “I guess you don’t have to worry.”

I loaded my gear into the car and as Eddie and Kelly headed off to wherever, I headed south. A few weeks later, Eddie shipped out on the shaky cruise ship with the Harlem Blues and Jazz Band. As I’d warned, the people on the ship worked the band to death and there was no one on board to stop the abuse. I never got a chance to finish the interview. I don’t know if Eddie collapsed on board, but he died in early March, a couple of weeks after he returned. A stupid cruise director had literally worked him to death. He was not young, he’d had 78 hard years, but he probably had a couple of good notes left.

Eddie Durham, Harlem, New York City, January 12, 1987