The Jazz Gig

To celebrate this year’s EFG London Jazz Festival, award-winning photographer Jim Grover, hosts a solo photography exhibition which captures the intensity, emotion and movement of jazz musicians in full flow.

The set of 35 black and white images, which feature celebrated young jazz talents including Rob Luft, Misha Mullov-Abbado, their bands and other musicians, will be exhibited at Omnibus Theatre in London.

For this photographic project, Grover sought to create a narrative, a musical journey, which mirrors the rhythm and noise of a jazz gig. He was influenced, in part, by a short-lived Japanese photographic movement, Provoke, whose style included blurred images that captured fleeting moments.

The visual journey begins with just the instruments, photographed alone. Silence. Viewers are then quietly drawn in by a set of images of individuals or small groups creating jazz together. The tempo increases, and lifts into a blurred landscape of movement before drawing to a quiet close, when the instruments are silent again. The exhibition also includes a selection of jazz poetry to provide a richer overall experience for the viewer.

Jim Grover adds: “I wanted to bring to life the beautiful sounds, emotions, and intensity of a jazz gig through a series of still images. Not an easy thing to do! Only if you hear music when you see some of the images, will I have succeeded. In Duke Ellington’s words: ‘It don’t mean a thing if it ain’t got that swing’.”

The photographs were taken at Omnibus Theatre during four separate jazz concerts during this summer. To coincide with the exhibition, jazz concerts featuring Rob Luft and Misha Mullov-Abbado, will also be held at the venue, which is part of the EFG Jazz Festival’s official line-up.

The Jazz Gig is Jim Grover’s 4th solo exhibition. It follows ‘Of Things Not Seen’ (2016); ’48 Hours on Clapham High Street’ (2017); and ‘Café Delight is 21’ (2017) all of which received extensive media coverage including The BBC; The Guardian; and The British Journal of Photography.