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

There was a time when some thought Jabbo Smith might be the next Louis Armstrong. He recorded twenty sides for Brunswick between January and August 1929 and these are some of the most remarkable recordings in jazz. Unfortunately, Jabbo was not particularly disciplined and for the next few decdes had one drink too many too many times. He surfaced for a moment in Newark, New Jersey in the late 1930s and was adopted by the Newark Hot Club. He made four modest recordings for Decca in 1938 and then vanished again, living primarily in Milwaukee with occasional visits to Chicago, where France Chace and Marty Grosz tried to help him.

I was unaware of Jabbo Smith and had never heard a recording until the 1960s. My friend, Dick Spottswood, had a copy of Jazz Battle, played it, and I was astounded. Why wasn’t this incredible music more widely known, I thought? Thanks to Dick and a disgruntled employee of MCA, this was about to change.

It was about 1965 when Dick suggested he’d like me to accompany him on a trip to Huntington , Long Island, to buy some Jabbo Smith records. Dick and I had been junking around Virginia and Maryland looking for old records and Long Island didn’t seem a very likely location to find old records by obscure jazz artists. But this wasn’t so. A man named Bob Althshuler lived in Huntington and had managed to acquire all the file copies of Jabbo’s Brunswick recordings. Bob also had about a million other records, more than anyone in the world, was an executive at CBS and bought and sold old records as a hobby.

I seem to recall Dick paid $30 for each record. He then issued two LPs that featured all these sides as well as a few others on which Jabbo appeared as a sideman. Even thought the records were strictly bootlegs, he wanted to honor Jabbo, and we managed to find him in Milwaukee where he was working in a menial capacity for a car rental company. Arrangements were made for him to travel to Washington, D.C. and I was designated as the person to meet him at the airport.

Roy Eldridge was appearing at Blues Alley on the day Jabbo was scheduled to arrive. I found out where Roy was staying, telephoned him cold and suggested I’d like him to go to the airport with me. “Why should I do that?” he asked. I said, “Because I’m picking up Jabbo Smith.” He was so excited he just about jumped through the telephone. If Roy was the link between Dizzy and Louis, Jabbo was the link between Louis and Roy. 

We met at the airport. Roy looked sharp and Jabbo was pretty raggedy; the collar had come off his coat. I took a picture, not a very good one I should add, but the smiles on the face of each man says it all. It was a lovely moment, and say what you will about people who put records out illegally, these two LPs produced nothing but good results. They were the beginning of a modest resurgence for Jabbo and he managed to spend the rest of his life playing his horn. I don’t think he ever had to park a car again.

In late 1979, Jabbo was part of the original cast of One Mo’ Time, a wonderful musical by Vernel Bagneris that opened at New York City’s Village Gate. He was featured performing his composition, Love, and every night it was the highlight of the show. Towards the end of the run, probably in about 1983, Jabbo suffered a stroke in the dressing room, his health declined and he was never quite the same. He could still play and sing, but some of the spirit was gone.

Lucky for Jabbo, one of his friends from the Newark Hot Club came to the rescue. When not tending to her chores running the Village Vanguard, Lorriane Gordon looked after Jabbo. In 1987 I tried to interview him for my project The Ghosts Of Harlem but I had to settle for a photograph; a second stroke had robbed him of speech. He struggled and his speech returned enough for modest performances. He even sang one song at one of our festivals in 1989. I should have tried the interview again but didn’t. 

The last time I saw Jabbo was at the Village Vanguard. Lorraine had arranged for him to sit in with Don Cherry’s band. It sounds like an unlikely pairing, but Jabbo was as out there in 1928 as Don was thirty years later when he scared everyone to death with Ornette Coleman. It worked just fine, at least for me. It’s ironic, but I first heard Don in person long before I heard Jabbo on record, and each of them always sounded wonderful, regardless of the context.

Jabbo Smith, Lorraine Gordon's Apartment, New York City, September 19, 1986