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Monday, April 18, 2022

I’ll Give You a Camera

I’VE NEVER LIKED having my picture taken. Of course, it’s required when pursuing and promoting entertainment gigs, but I’ve learned to endure it much the same way as I endure dental work. When I was five years old, my family lived in the northern New Jersey town of Glen Rock in what seemed to be a large house on South Maple Avenue. It turned out that Duncan Butler, our next-door neighbor had a photography studio in town, where my younger brother and I had our portraits taken, attired in little-boy suits and 60s-thin bow ties. Even – or perhaps especially – at that age, I was embarrassed by my visage.

I believe that the middle photo on the right
is a Dunc Butler shot. There are more in
the LP set's booklet, which I no longer own.

All of this I mentioned in a piece I posted here a decade ago, and it appears to be the only mention you’ll internet-find when searching for the photographer. (You can also find a few credits here at discogs.com, but they don’t show up on general searches.) As a result of that blog post, I recently heard from a man who, while researching writer-composer Paul Bowles, came across a Discogs listing for a ten-inch Atlantic LP titled “Haiti Dances,” for which Bowles wrote liner notes. And Butler is credited for the cover photo. Imagine the poor researcher’s bafflement when all he could discover was that old blog post of mine! He sent me a message, and I told him the rest of the story, which I’ll now tell you.

In my teens, I liberated myself away from the pop-music hits and discovered the wonders of classical and jazz, among other poorly named styles, and began obsessively collecting records. Records, mind you, those 12 by 12-inch long-playing marvels that captured wonderful music in their grooves and offered an education on their rear covers.

RCA Records obligingly began a series of jazz reissues on two-LP sets, which they called their Bluebird series (honoring a 78s-era imprint) and which began working through the complete recordings by Tommy Dorsey, Glenn Miller, Benny Goodman, Fats Waller, and many others. It was a chance to dust off recordings not found in the “greatest hits” collections, and even to issue some for the first time (e.g. Artie Shaw’s “A Deserted Farm” and Charlie Barnet’s “The Wrong Idea”).

I studied those albums, learning the songs, absorbing the detailed liner notes. And so it was that I noticed a photo credit on “The Complete Benny Goodman, Vol. III.” Three vocals by Ella Fitzgerald were part of the set, and the inside of the fold-open cover displayed a photo of the Goodman and his band at the Steel Pier, surrounded by small cameo-style photos of Ella and other notable soloists. And the credit read “Photos courtesy Dunc Butler/Photo Files.” I searched the rest of the jazz recordings in my collection, and found his credit again on a photo of Billie Holiday, captured in performance at the Apollo.

Ella Fitzgerald at the Apollo Theater with
Chick Webb and His Orchestra
Photo by Dunc Butler

Could this have been my New Jersey neighbor? I was living and working in Connecticut at this point, but eventually – probably in 1978 or 79 – I was able to plan a trip to Manhattan to see saxophonist Scott Hamilton at Eddie Condon’s during the club’s final incarnation on East 54th Street. With plenty of time available before the start of the first set, I offered to show my then-girlfriend where my family used to live, and perhaps solve this mystery as well.

My prevailing memory of that neighbor was the sight of an older guy (at age five, just about everyone is older) working under the hood of his car, which I recalled as a Jaguar. When we found the street and my old house – how much smaller it now appeared – there was an old guy in the adjacent driveway, working on his car. (It was not a Jaguar this time.)

Yes, he confirmed, he was Duncan Butler. “I used to live next door,” I told him. “You took my picture when I was five.” And then to the point: Did he take those photos of Ella and Billie? “Yes, I did,” he said. He explained that he was trying to get gigs as a saxophone player, but decided to take up a friend’s offer of swapping that saxophone for the friend’s camera. “I hung around the Apollo Theater a lot, so I took a lot of pictures there.”

I thanked him for the info and we said our goodbyes and he went into his house. But as my girlfriend and I crossed the street to my car, he called from his doorway: “Come on back!” As we neared his house again, he said, “I told my wife about you and she said I was rude not to ask you in. So come on in!”

We met his wife, whom I believe was named Elizabeth, and I was surprised to recognize the living room after what must have been a few visits nearly twenty years before. He sat us down while his wife, I swear to you, went to fetch lemonade and cookies, and he said, “I want to play you something. Can you tell me who this is?”

He kept the record jacket hidden. The song was “Got a Date with an Angel,” which I hoped was a commentary on my social status just then. But I knew this recording: “It’s Duke Ellington, from his ‘Bal Masque’ LP.”

He was delighted. (And I mentally wiped my forehead and murmured “Whew!”) We spent the next hour or so listening to records – at that point he switched from LPs to 78s – and looking through his photo books of one jazz star after another. And then it was time to go, time to get to Eddie Condon’s.

I promised to return, but never did. Too busy, too distracted, and generally too broke. I had hoped to bring a tape recorder to capture his oral history, but I soon moved the Albany area and eventually decided it was too late.

But I’m happy, at least, to offer this essay to the internet, so that Duncan Butler and his fine work won’t be forgotten.

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