April 2024<\/p>\n
Efrain Ribeiro started out his career in the arts in Baltimore, attending Johns Hopkins in the early 1970s to study creative writing and filmmaking, where his mentors were Richard Macksey, Alicia Borinsky, Sam Weber, and John Barth. He began investigating techniques for capturing oral history via video\/film documentary at Hopkins working with Richard Macksey. After JHU, he attended Syracuse University\u2019s Newhouse School of Public Communications.<\/p>\n
As a youth, Ribeiro had a strong interest in jazz and improvised music from the late \u201960s. As a teenager, he began attending concerts and photographing jazz musicians at the Left Bank Jazz Society (Sun Ra, Charles Mingus) and DC Space (Julius Hemphill, Chicago Art Ensemble) in the \u201970s. He grew up investigating the music of his place and time with jazz critic Bill Shoemaker.<\/p>\n
Despite these formative and creative experiences, Ribeiro\u2019s career took a practical U-turn and he ended up working in market research for global conglomerates like TNS, Ipsos, and Kantar for more than 45 years. The work was intense running global technology operations and though he continued to take photos he was unable to dedicate the necessary time to perfecting his craft.<\/p>\n
In 2016, Ribeiro retired from market research and rededicated himself full-time to documenting local jazz musicians and venues, providing the photographs to musicians for their personal and professional use. \u201cAfter a long and fulfilling career once in retirement, lots of people dedicate their time to some sort ofmeaningful \u2018charity\u2019 to give back to their communities,\u201d he explains. \u201cI knewthat going back and immersing myself in photography was what I would do\u2014being able to marry this with the jazz community in Baltimore has been a
work in progress over the last five years.\u201d<\/p>\n
Ribeiro has shot thousands of rolls of film since 1973, so he divides his time between digitizing his archive of images with learning new techniques. In his ongoing pursuit of jazz documentation, Ribeiro says he is driven by several motives. He describes improvised African-American jazz music as \u201cone of the true original North American art forms.\u201d He wants the highly innovative practice to have more detailed documentation of performances in actual venues. Ribeiro is also driven by the omissions that currently exist within the recorded
history of jazz. He is also interested in documenting the musicians who provide the day to day music to keep this vital music evolving via jams and small club concerts in the Baltimore-Washington area which has been his current focus of his photography.<\/p>\n
Documenting the musicians in the actual settings where the music is made and practiced offers a layer of context and visibility for the individuals and communities who make this art form possible. Since 2020, Ribeiro has focused on capturing the impact of COVID-19 on jazz performances and communities that are struggling to survive and thrive.<\/p>\n
You can find more of his jazz photography at: flickr.com\/photos\/breton9<\/a><\/p>\n
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