Jazz in North East Lancashire
Photographs by Derek Woodall
Photographs by Derek Woodall, 1975 - 96
This collection of photographs and memories is the result of pressure from friends
and acquaintances who felt that it was time for these pictures to be seen by a larger public.
The first time I took photographs at Great Harwood I used flash but the amount
of smoke in the atmosphere reflected the light and the resulting pictures were flat and
uninteresting.
I experimented by rating Kodak 400 ASA film at 3,200 ASA and developed the film for
up to sixteen minutes in Microphen developer. The results were grainy but they captured
the spirit of the performances - lit sometimes only by three or four 40 watt lamps.
Being a member of the paying public, I was not allowed the privilege of set-up or posed shots;
all the photographs in this collection were taken during performance. As one can imagine,
photographing jazz musicians in full flight in lighting like this was no easy matter but if you
could follow the music and concentrate on the solos you could sense when the player
would be still enough to let you get a reasonable shot.
I hope that this small collection will bring back memories of some wonderful nights and
I would like to dedicate it to the little group of individuals including Colin Perkins,
Keith Salisbury, Eric (Doctor Jazz) Hindle and Roger who brought such a range
of jazz greats from all over the world to a little place like Hyndburn.
Derek Woodall, February 2003.
I have tried to include a web page reference for every artist photographed by my dad. I had a good search round
google, finding some great sites, such as jazzprofessional
and jazzcanadiana sites. I hope that some of the sites are
useful and informative.
I would, though, like
to point out the obvious - web sites change all of the time, addresses come and go and although I have given the
links in good faith I have no control over their content.
My own site is at neilwoodall.com
Neil Woodall, 2003.