Joe Crocetta Photography: River Knot Jazz

I LOVE live music, I love jazz, and I have been meaning to catch a local jazz group River Knot for quite some time. Saturday night was the time, Bulls and Bears in downtown Hagerstown was the place. That's Lea in the photo below, this woman CAN SING.

Working nights and weekends, trying to spend more time with my wife and kids, and encouraging my wife to get out on a weekend night for a girls night out does not leave me much time to actually GO OUT and catch some live music. So with the kids at the grandparents house for two hours, and my wife sick in bed with the stomach flu, it was perfect timing to get out and shoot some jazz.

(Click on any image to VIEW IT LARGER, you'll thank yourself.)

The lighting in the bar area was low, i.e. 1/60 sec at 2.0 at 2000 asa, and then they decided the room needed some more MOOD, so they turned it down to 1/60 at 1.4 at 4000 asa. Yah, that low, not to mention backlit, which can actually be a good thing if you get a good angle on the right subject. Light can work for you, or against you.

Lesson #1 -When life gives you lemons, make lemonaide, and when life gives you LOW LIGHT, make LOW LIGHT PICS. A couple years ago digital cameras where not able to record images this well in light this low. Shooting available light vs. flash is so much less invasive, and in a live performance situation this is a GOOD THING.

I was only 2 to 8 feet away from the band at all times, so I was always between the band and some cash paying, beer drinking, hard working customer. Popping off a flash in a dark room would have lasted less than 30 seconds, tops. I was there for most of the first set, about 35-40 minutes.

Sidebar here - The multi-talented, multi=instrumentalist below on keys is Aaron Worthy. I photographed Aaron 10-12 years ago when he was a high school musician soloing on sax during a school performance. I was very impressed with his talent and knew he would take his music beyond high school. Every time I would see Aaron out I promised him I would catch River Knot. That only took me a year plus to do. (See note above about not having much free time)

River Knot Jazz is such a breath of fresh air. They play Jazz, Blues, Funk, and R&B music in a world full of DJs, POP music, and Techno computer BS. So it's really nice to see musicians that still practice their craft, and play the standards, newer tunes, and get this Mr DJ, ORIGINAL MUSIC!!!!! Turntables and drum loops will never squelch the human voice, 3/4 time, the dotted eighth note, triplets, an upright bass, or a saxophone.

So do yourself a favor and catch River Knot Jazz soon. You'll be very glad you did. Talent runs through this group like money runs through government... Non Stop! Hagerstown is lucky to have River Knot.