Robert James Campbell died homeless, leaving behind a treasure-trove of photographs from a transitional era of jazz in New York. Jessica Ferber’s new book reveals the story he captured.
Portland is almost synonymous with coffee shops. So it shouldn’t have been of special significance to meet Portland author Jessica Ferber at Ford Food & Drink. However, this is a special spot for Ferber because that’s where she did much of the writing for her new book, “Rebirth of the Cool: Discovering the Art of Robert James Campbell.”
Robert James Campbell was a photographer who captured the New York City jazz scene in the late 1950s and early 1960s. After a series of misfortunes, including physical and mental health problems, Campbell ended up homeless, a virtual unknown. He died in 2002 in a Vermont homeless shelter, leaving behind a massive and chaotic cache of photographic negatives and prints. These materials ended up in the custody of Ferber, who spent years making prints – and sense – of the collection. The result of her labor is now available, published by powerHouse Books.
The title, “Rebirth of the Cool,” pays tribute to the seminal 1957 Miles Davis phonograph recording, “Birth of the Cool.” Those album tracks marked a major transition point in jazz music from the bebop style to what is known today as cool jazz. Robert “Bob” Campbell saw it all and now, from the other side of the grave, is showing us what he witnessed.
In a conversation with Street Roots, Jessica Ferber recounts how this snapshot of cool jazz was saved from ending up in a landfill.
Brian R. Page: Did you have any idea what you were getting into when this started?
Jessica Ferber: Not the faintest. No, I really didn’t. I didn’t have any solid information about who Bob was. The lead that I got was from my roommate at the time. We were living in this apartment in Burlington (Vt.). I was on my lunch break. I was working at a photo processing place, and I came home to get something to eat. She was on a run. She came in, ran up the stairs, poured herself a glass of water, ran back down the stairs, and had the door open again, and she said, “Hey, Jess, you should call Professor Higgins. He’s got this dead homeless guy and something about jazz photos. Call him.” That’s all I heard up front. And so I called my professor, and then he directed me to the Committee on Temporary Shelter. What they do is offer temporary housing for people who are either marginally employed or homeless to help them get on their feet. And so I went there and met with them and had a quick interview; and that same day I drove to the property manager of the apartment that Bob was living in. And I picked up about six to eight huge cardboard boxes full of photos. That was how it started, and I had no idea what was in the boxes. They were moldy and smelly.
I took them all home and put them in my bedroom and then woke up the next morning. I felt a little uncomfortable. The funny thing is: I was going to call and decline the project because I felt like this wasn’t right, and their office was closed for lunch, and then I wound up having that weekend to kind of sit there with it and started looking through it. And I was immediately in the thick of it.
B.R.P.: What did you find?
J.F.: A whole lot of nothing at first. A lot of negatives were matted together. I thought whatever is in here is going to be trash. But then in another box I found some contact prints and paper materials. And I found the contact prints of the Modern Jazz Quartet, and that was the first thing I found that made me think there was more worthwhile material.
B.R.P.: Until that point, you didn’t know that this was jazz related and significant?
J.F.: No. I knew that it was jazz related, but I didn’t know the era. It took me years to identify people (in the photographs). I went through a long research process and had people who were historians confirm who I thought might have been somebody. Our generations are 40 years apart, and I was never around for that kind of jazz. I had taken a jazz history class after I had graduated, coincidentally, so I had some knowledge. I’m not a jazz aficionado, but I really loved the story of jazz more than the music itself. So I started recognizing people from my textbook. I also got the Ken Burns box set (on the history of jazz), and it was like, “I know I’ve seen that guy; I’ve seen that face.” I was coming from zero. I had no interest outside of getting my academic credit for the music class to heading up this jazz monster.
B.R.P.: Was he part of the jazz scene or more of a photographer?
J.F.: He was kind of both. I think he had a very approachable calm demeanor. So he hung out in the clubs before he rigorously started taking pictures. So he would be in Birdland (the famous New York City jazz club), and between sets he would play the bass, and he knew everyone personally. So he was more of a hobbyist photographer and jazz lover who happened to get into the field.
B.R.P.: How did you start learning about him as a person?
J.F.: I had photos of him from throughout his life, childhood to adolescence to death. I realized that he had an extensive family. So I got a copy of his death certificate, and I knew I could get his Social Security number from that. This was before Google, really, before the internet was full of information; and I was calling people.
B.R.P.: The photos are from the early years.
J.F.: Bob moved to New York City on his 25th birthday. He started photography in the late, late ‘50s, early ‘60s. Before he moved to the city, he was spending a lot of time taking trips to Manhattan to clubs. I actually found a guy named Peter who went to high school and college with Bob. He said Bob was always trying to get him to go on the New York City adventures. The bulk of his photos are from the late 1950s to mid-1960s, jazz and then it turned into more folk (music).
B.R.P.: What happened to him before New York City?
J.F.: What I do know is that he had a very tumultuous upbringing. His mother was not emotionally fit to be a caregiver. She actually sent him away to her sister, Elizabeth, and his uncle, and they raised him. His mom would come in and out of his life, and there were times when the three of them would be raising Bob. I think Bob always had a sense of abandonment. He struggled with that his entire life. He was never really settled into a place. On the back cover of the book is a quotation (from his journal): “I would stay in my place, but I don’t think I’ve found it yet.”
He left New York City and went to L.A., and he was with (singer-songwriter) Tim Buckley and the Underwoods (guitarist and writer Lee Underwood). Those were his buddies. He was a kind of a groupie and started taking work on movie sets.
I don’t know what happened between working in L. A. and moving back to New England. His mother died. His entire family died off. He moved into his mother’s house in Portsmouth (N.H.), lost the house, lost everything. And then he had a stroke when he was in his mid-50s. That left him hearing impaired. It changed him. People who knew him at this time said he was always very willing to work. He was always up for getting a job. A guy from those years says Bob was very talented and handy. He would cement a curb at a gas station, and with the money he made, he would buy movies and films. I don’t think he ever had the mind set to plan for the future. He lived for the moment, always, and then just ran out of money and time.
B.R.P.: Is this ultimately a tragic tale? Bob’s magnificent work is saved and shared with the world, but he didn’t live to see it and likely had no expectation that his work would survive.
J.F.: The way I have come to learn of Bob and his character – I actually asked someone that question, what he would think right now. He wasn’t self-assured enough to do this for himself. He wanted it. Lee Underwood said that Bob would have gotten a kick out of it, that it was really funny that someone would take all this material and spend all their time. Rather than a debt of gratitude, it’s more of: “Well, damn! I can’t believe this crazy girl did this!” I think it’s tragic that his life wound up in someone’s file, and that’s an example of thousands of people that happens to. He let life pass him by, but everything he did was really valuable. He made the conscious choice to pursue a career that wouldn’t necessarily provide him with a kind of stability.
B.R.P.: Does it give you pause that there must be many Robert James Campbells out there?
J.F.: I’ve met people who call me and say, “My name is whatever and I’ve photographed these people at Woodstock and would you be interested in helping me get my photos out?” I do think there are countless Bobs out there, but in Bob Campbell’s case, the footage that he has is very rare – the fact that he was in New York City at a time where the transitioning of jazz and all the politics and the volatile times. I don’t think that too many people captured what he did.
B.R.P.: He was incredibly fortunate to have you. I can’t image that too many people, even lovers of jazz or lovers of photography, would have seen this project through.
J.F.: I worked on this for 13 years. But it was actually a lot of rejection. I’m really grateful that powerHouse Books saw something in it.
So as far as Bob being fortunate to have found me, I feel that this project was a huge learning experience for me, but I never would have gotten to know what I now know about jazz and about the legal issues in trying to get it published, about design, about publishing, about what New York was like at a time of which I wasn’t even aware. I think it’s been mutually beneficial.
B.R.P.: How big is the collection? Obviously the book is just a tiny portion.
J.F.: The book is just the tip of the iceberg. The collection is incredibly disorganized. I think I’d need to call upon some historians and experts who know the West Village (in that) period.
The collection itself is probably 5,000 or 6,000 images, but every sheet is 24 or 36 frames because that’s how many frames are on a roll (of film). So that’s how many there would be if some of the negatives weren’t missing. He would number things like C1, C2, C3, C4 and go into the hundreds, but maybe 60 of those are gone. So what I have is not in the five or six thousand. I have maybe half that.
B.R.P.: There must be some photos that you hated to cut from the book?
J.F.: When the book was supposed to be just a jazz book, that was really hard. There were a lot of other beautiful images. He took a lot of fashion photographs. … And I thought I’d have only one chance to get his work in a book. If I make it just a jazz book, I’m going to have to eliminate all that. So in the end, when powerHouse decided to make this more of an expansive broader scope of his work, I was then able to include a lot. At the last minute, I talked to the designer and noted that it’s too masculine; everyone in here is a man, and everything is dark and heavy. So I wound up getting 35 additional images. So literally a week before the book was going to press, 35 images were added. These are more portraits in the park and comedian Flip Wilson.
B.R.P.: I’m thinking now of that heart-rending photograph of Myrlie Evers, widow of Medgar Evers, the civil rights activist who was murdered in Mississippi in 1963.
J.F.: That photo was taken right after the murder. I didn’t see a lot of civil rights activists, but I did see a lot of protests, a lot of picketing.
That is one image I loved so much. It’s one of my favorite pictures in the book. I had to find a way to get it in there.
B.R.P: One fascinating part of your text is about that personality test that he took in 1976. What did that tell you?
J.F.: It was a watershed moment. It was so weird. It’s a Scientology Scantron test, and at first I didn’t know what it was. I had no idea. Then a friend pointed out that it was a Scientology test and that I could probably find the questions online. So I downloaded all the questions and matched up Bob’s answers. Even though it’s kind of superficial, the questions really placed him in a way that I didn’t really think that they would. For example there was this one question that said, “I wouldn’t hunt …” with choices, “A.) I don’t eat meat; B.) I wouldn’t inflict harm on another living being; and C.) I don’t like guns.” And he picked, “I wouldn’t inflict harm on another living being.” I could see that he was a really gentle person. Other people have told me what he was like, but on the test, that’s his pure answer.
B.R.P.: It must have been a struggle for you to start from zero information. Now that the book is out, is it leading to more new information?
J.F.: Yes! There have been a few people. One of the most valuable connections that I’ve made was Peter B., who went to high school with Bob and a year of college. He painted Bob the way I always thought he was. With this kind of situation, you just want to know. You have someone’s personal belongings, and you don’t know who they are. I could make him anyone that I wanted him to be. … “Oh, he’s a homeless man” or “Oh, he’s a drug user” or “He’s done a lot of horrible things” – any way that I wanted to. But I judged him in a very positive light. And then when I found out from people who have read the book that, yeah, he was exactly the way I thought he was, it was so satisfying, a validation.
