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Some Future Day evaluates technology at the intersection of culture & law.
Join Marc Beckman and his esteemed guests for insider knowledge surrounding how you can use new technologies to positively impact your life, career, and family. Marc Beckman is Senior Fellow of Emerging Technologies and an Adjunct Professor at NYU, CEO of DMA United, and a member of the New York State Bar Association’s Task Force on Cryptocurrency and Digital Assets.
Marc Beckman: Lee Jaffe, my friend and the master photographer who's done so much work, including his most recent book, Hit Me With Music, which just came out, um, and was published with, uh, published by Rizzoli. Lee, it's such a pleasure to have you on Some Future Day. How are you today?
Lee Jaffe : I'm pretty good. How are you?
Marc Beckman: Lee, I'm doing great. I'm doing great.
It's such a thrill to have you on my show today. you know, I'm a big fan, but I also love your stories, and I don't think you've had a real opportunity to flush these amazing stories out. Today we're going to focus on The new book and Jamaica with obviously Bob Marley as the central theme, but let's start with you.
Let's get into the Lee Jaffe world. I loved when you were talking about your background in education. I know you were a college dropout, but before you dropped out, you were at Penn State. And in the book, you described yourself as a double major in art and [00:01:00] LSD. So I thought that was pretty cool. I haven't met a lot of people that double majored in art and LSD.
Um, how did that go at, in, at Penn State? What was going on? Like, what years were, was it, what year were you in Penn State? And what was going on in the world that, um, you were experimenting with psychedelics?
Lee Jaffe : Let's see, I started, by the way, a college dropout, but I'm also a college graduate.
Marc Beckman: Ah, I didn't know that.
So you go to L, so you go to LSD, you go to Penn State.
Lee Jaffe : college really young. I like rushed through junior high and high school. And I was 16 when I started college
Marc Beckman: Oh,
wow.
Lee Jaffe : And it was right at the beginning of, um, psychedelics, of people knowing about psychedelics. when I arrived at Penn State, it was like 30, 000, 25, [00:02:00] 000 students, seven smoked pot. And when I dropped out, um, Well, I dropped out twice. I dropped out after my, um, uh, freshman year and went hitchhiking. And then I heard that there was going to be this really good, art professor coming to teach. So, I was going to go to India. A lot of, uh, uh, Hinjews were going to India at that time. Um, dropping out and going to India.
And I thought, well, okay, I'll go back to college and see what this professor is like. And his name was Italo Skanga and he really influenced me, um, in becoming an artist. And I started to, go to New, I'd go to [00:03:00] New York on the weekends and then I started to bring back. Uh, they called it marijuana in those days, and hash, and then when psychedelics started, I would start to bring back whatever the newest thing was, mescaline, and LSD, and kind of turning on the school. The second time I dropped out, before my senior year, um, probably half a dozen. 10, 000 people were smoking pot. So, I was part of the, uh, movement to legalize cannabis, before I ever moved to Jamaica.
Marc Beckman: we finally, you know, we got there now, right? Like cannabis is legalized in most places, most markets. But, when you went to Jamaica, Lee, it's pretty wild. You,
Lee Jaffe : [00:04:00] say, when I entered school, I was the youngest student on campus. And when I graduated in I was the oldest.
Marc Beckman: that's amazing. That's an amazing story. So you, so you went from, you started in 1964, but then finally in 2008, you finished your undergrad
years. I had a, I had, uh, I had a year to go, like credits or something. I thought I undergrad 3. 3 average, but when I looked at my transcript, I actually had a 2. 3.
think that undergrad education, like academia, formal academia training today is important?
Lee Jaffe : Well, it was crucial for me. think it all depends if, if you have good teachers. [00:05:00] You know, I had this incredible teacher, and I had a really good, my freshman English teacher, was a PhD student at the time, um, she was really encouraging. Because I was really, when I entered school, I was really serious about writing poetry.
And she was really encouraging it. Amazingly, we were working on, um, the Basquiat book, she had contacted me, um, just like on social media. I hadn't been in touch with her in 50 years, and I couldn't, I really wanted to her, but I couldn't remember her last name. And then she pinged me. And she was still teaching.
Marc Beckman: Wow.
Lee Jaffe : she wound up helping [00:06:00] me to edit the text both the Basquiat book and the new book. It was kind of amazing.
Marc Beckman: so in between that time period of starting at Penn State and then graduating at Penn State, you spent three years living at 56 Hope Road in Kingston, Jamaica,
right? other amazing experiences before that. So, when I dropped out of school the second time, I moved to Brazil. And I wound up staying in the house of an artist Hélio Oiticica. And his house at that time in Rio was the cultural of Brazil. And Elio, um, since his, untimely [00:07:00] death in 1980 at the age of 44, um, subsequently, um, I would say he can make a strong argument that he's the most influential artist of the last 60 years.
Lee Jaffe : Thank you. Because he's really the person who pretty much invented installation art and that's what art is now. So
Marc Beckman: I agree with you. I think, I think immersive artwork continues to grow and it's interesting from my perspective because now you're seeing immersive artwork both physically and digitally, um, which is pretty wild and it should be interesting to see how Immersive digital artwork continues to grow with the advent of new technologies like spatial computing.
I think the world is going to look very different in years to come because you and I might be walking [00:08:00] down the street in Soho, New York City, and all of a sudden we'll be surrounded by your photographs, you
Lee Jaffe : first became aware of Jean Michel's work, it was from his He and Al Diaz were writing these SAMO things with poetry on the walls of, uh, um, streets in, in Soho. But to get back to Hélio, um, my Brazilian experience is really what allowed me to
integrate into Brazil. the culture in Brazil. So when I moved to Brazil in 1969, there was a military government, [00:09:00] um, that had, uh, was pretty much instated, um, by the CIA, uh, in 1964, and it was tremendously repressive. the term disappeared, became a verb. Um, people on the left disappeared. college professors.
When I arrived, the great, musicians, Veloso and Gilberto Gil, had been in prison for six months. And when I arrived in Brazil they were in exile. They were told you're going to stay in prison or you're going to leave the country. they were living in England. And Elio's, Elio's house became, had [00:10:00] become the center, the cultural center.
And people every day would be arriving and Um, musicians, uh, would be jamming with Macaulay Jarre and, um, Nana Vasconcelos, great percussionist, um, it's my first introduction to the instrument, the berimbau, and then the great, great movie makers, uh, Nabili Delmeda. Gonzalo, um, mcg, Miguel Rio Bronco. I, I became, and I became involved in all this culture and all these friends and people around Hélio and a movement that was called [00:11:00] Tropical, which was named after installation that Elio did.
the Museum of Modern Art in Rio in 1967, which was this installation piece, and it involved a live parrot. It was a, um, an incredible breakthrough of the idea of art. And it also, living there and meeting all these artists and filmmakers, It made me very aware of the, neocolonialist, cultural
kind of elimination of what new art was about. Because in my education, my art, my art education, that, um, [00:12:00] For instance, minimal art, I was sure it was invented in the 60s in New York. And when I arrived in Brazil, Elio made me aware that there was this group of artists in Rio called the Grupo Frente, which Elio was a part of, that were making minimal art in 1954 and 1955.
Bye. So, you know, where was that? In, in, in my art history knowledge. So, and then I got used to living in,
amongst these people that were art, literature, um, opposing the. [00:13:00] Fascist military regime, and all my friends were in, in constant danger, and I was just picked up off the street one day and thrown in, in prison. Spent a couple of horrifying weeks, I didn't know, you don't know what's gonna happen.
You might disappear,
Marc Beckman: So Lee, you're, you're, you were imprisoned by the government in Brazil? And
Lee Jaffe : the street.
Marc Beckman: then how long were you in prison exactly? Like more than two weeks?
Lee Jaffe : No, about two weeks.
And then what was the, what were you arrested for? I didn't even realize this. you arrested?
why you were arrested, but I was arrested because of the people I was hanging out with, who were
Marc Beckman: The art?
Lee Jaffe : the government.
Marc Beckman: Mm hmm.
Lee Jaffe : And then we left. I left. I had to leave. Um, Elior Jasika, myself, Miguel Rio Branco, we [00:14:00] went to New York. And then my other friends, my movie maker friends, um, Nabili Dalmeida, his crew, small, uh, film crew, they, they went to England, Rogelio Scanzella, the great director, and his wife, great actress, Elena Inez, they went to Paris.
And were all ref refugees. I mean, I, I became a refugee in my home country, a refugee from Brazil
Marc Beckman: Right. story.
Lee Jaffe : But,
Marc Beckman: But,
Lee Jaffe : this experience of living under this kind of tension, um, being in Jamaica, I, I wasn't afraid. Because there was a lot of political violence going on at the time I moved to Jamaica.
Marc Beckman: [00:15:00] so let's, let's talk about that for a second. I think it's an interesting segue to Jamaica. So as I had mentioned, you lived there. I've been with Bob Marley personally for three years and something that's very interesting to me, um, about Bob Marley's music is that the lyrics really tap into that human strife.
Um, it is very political, it is very, um, tense at times. What was Jamaica like when you arrived in Jamaica? What was the government like? I think there were like some kind of connection with, uh, Cuba that was trying to be developed. Um, what was it like on the ground? What was the general atmosphere?
Lee Jaffe : Well, there was a socialist prime minister who embraced the Rasta culture. And who had a, um, his name was Michael Manley, and he had a vision of Jamaica. Being a self sustaining, [00:16:00] agrarian economy, very much with Rasta philosophy. And Wailers, when Michael Manley was running for Prime Minister in the early 70s, the Wailers had supported him at that time, the Wailers.
Bob Marley, Peter Tosh, uh, Bunny Livingston. So they were very much in support of this socialist government at the time. And, of course, the side was being supported by the CIA. there was a lot of fear, um, with Michael Manley. had become friends with Castro, [00:17:00] and Cuba was sending engineers to help build bridges and, um, infrastructure.
And only, the north coast of Jamaica and the south coast of Cuba, it's only 50 miles apart. So there was this fear in, in the U. S. that, um, that the government in Jamaica might start nationalizing, for instance, the, um, aluminum, um, mining.
Marc Beckman: Right, because I believe bauxite was, bauxite is an ingredient in aluminum and it's a massive natural resource in Jamaica, right, bauxite.
Lee Jaffe : Yeah. Right at that time in The CIA [00:18:00] was a coup Chile, and Salvador Allende was assassinated, the socialist prime minister. So there was this global tension.
South America, and of course in Jamaica, and Jamaica being so close, not only to Cuba, but to the U. S. So, there was this great, um, tension I arrived there, but I, I was used to it from in Brazil, from being in prison in Brazil, so, first living and working friends and colleagues, Brazilian friends and colleagues, who were living under that pressure, [00:19:00] um, from 1964 until the time I arrived in Brazil in 69.
So it prepared me, um, for my life, um, in Jamaica.
Marc Beckman: So, Lee, I want to ask you, like, what is it that the government, or maybe even plural, like generally speaking, why are governments allowing fearful of the creative class. Like you lived amongst creatives. It seems like best in class, real visionaries, groundbreaking people in Brazil. And then you move over to Jamaica. It's an incredible story actually how it wasn't like you just knocked on Bob Marley's door and ended up living with him. Obviously you lived with him for three years, but that was also a big creative group of people living together, working together as well. why do governments fear?
The Creative Class.
Lee Jaffe : Well, I don't know that all governments fear the creative class, but at [00:20:00] that time
in Jamaica and Brazil, the creative class were creating things opposing the government and the creative class,
especially, I mean, popular music. Um, you know, the Wailers were the voice of the people, so people related to it.
Marc Beckman: But, but you also mentioned, um, the fact that the government brought a Rastafarian pillar into, uh, the community, maybe take a second and explain what Rastafar, what, like, what it means to be Rastafarian.
Lee Jaffe : when I arrived, you know, they had a socialist prime minister was the opposing party that [00:21:00] the Rasta culture. dreadlocks, the term dreadlocks came from
the upper classes of Jamaica fearing the Rasta culture. So the Rastas, part of the culture was not, To comb your hair.
It was a sign that you were not part of neo colonialist, um, reigning system. The upper class people started to call it dread [00:22:00] because it was dreadful. dreadful to look at. The rosters were dreadful to look at. The rosters embraced the term dreadlocks and they started calling themselves the dreads.
Marc Beckman: So,
Lee Jaffe : kind of where that came from.
Marc Beckman: didn't Bob Marley and his family nickname you,
Lee Jaffe : No,
Marc Beckman: they didn't give you a nickname, Natty Dread?
Lee Jaffe : no, everybody was Natty Dread.
Marc Beckman: Right, you were the white, the white whaler with
dreads, yeah? I
Lee Jaffe : That's like, some of, Nobody in Jamaica was calling me the White Whaler.
Marc Beckman: read that. I read that. So let's go back a little bit because it's a remarkable, cool story too. I know before you met Bob Marley, um, you're back in New York City and you're with [00:23:00] the legendary Jim Capaldi from Traffic. Incredibly talented artist, musician, a real, you know, in many ways a futuristic type of artist.
Um, and I understand that. You had a, um, that's the first time you encountered Bob Marley before you moved, uh, to Jamaica. Uh, it's such an interesting story to me. can you walk through that for a second?
Lee Jaffe : You know, I had become friends with Jim um, meeting a Jamaican actress who was living in London. called Esther Anderson, and I'd become friends with Jim, and his group Traffic was some shows in New York. the time they were a huge, uh, hugely popular group selling out around the world.[00:24:00]
And after one of his shows in New York, I went to visit him. at his hotel, and this is a Jamaican guy there, and they had a cassette of his new album, was Bob Marley, the new album was the first album that his group The Wailers, um, recorded for Island Records. It was still on, it hadn't been released yet, and When they put it on the, on the boombox, I was just kind of blown away how amazing it was and it felt like this could be something that would have a tremendous cultural political [00:25:00] and social impact for a couple of reasons.
For instance, Caetano Veloso and Gilberto Gil, as great as they were and as important as they were in Brazil,
they were singing in a foreign language. that, I mean, they were singing in Portuguese and it's not a language that a lot of people are fluent in.
Marc Beckman: admittedly and embarrassingly, I love Caetano Veloso's music and I don't understand that. I didn't realize that it had this revolutionary undertone that you're describing.
Embarrassingly, I'm admitting that. yeah, Bob Dylan of Brazil
yeah, beautiful, beautiful, music.
Lee Jaffe : You know, you might say he, Caetano was like the Bob Dylan, and Gil was like the Marvin Gaye. I mean, kind
Marc Beckman: Incredible.
Lee Jaffe : I mean, [00:26:00] here were these Jamaican guys, they were singing in English, and I knew they had, like This, the perfect record company, which was owned by and started by a Jamaican, Chris Blackwell, and was on the one hand putting out, um, producing, distributing music that was greatly popular.
Um, traffic. Uh, Joe Cocker, um, Cat Stevens was selling millions of records and they were also putting out records, critically acclaimed artists that didn't, wouldn't necessarily, have a, uh, a lot [00:27:00] of commercial appeal like Nick Drake and Sandy Denny, John Martin. And they were supporting those artists, um, by being able to also, um, have success, commercial success with these other artists.
So, I mean, for me at that time, Island Records was a very unique record company in that regard. And I felt, well, because they were on this record label, that this music really, as innovative as it was, um, had a chance, to really reach a, a, a, a huge audience.
Marc Beckman: I, I understand that, um, the, uh, [00:28:00] relationship that began between Bob Marley and Blackwell was really interesting, at the time, Blackwell loaned them, the equivalent of, like, 4, 000 pounds UK at the time. And, people assumed that, um, Marley and the Wailers took advantage of him, but in fact it was the opposite.
They felt really, um, they need to do the right thing, and, and there was like no contract, there was no written contract. It was just, it was a handshake type of a deal, and, uh, Blackwell was like, trustful, and, and, uh, you know, obviously rightfully so. Uh, apparently Marley and the Wailers went into the studio and worked hard for like many, many days and created some of the best music ever.
Um, it's interesting how the world has changed because I don't think today, um, either the record producer or the record production company or the artist would ever do anything like that on a handshake. You know? Different world.
Lee Jaffe : Chris told me the story of how he came to sign The Wailers. They, um, he, [00:29:00] he had been involved in producing the movie The Harder They Come,
Marc Beckman: Yeah. Yeah, I
think that Millie Small Records sold, I read that it sold
Lee Jaffe : by a Jamaican, Perry Hensel, and starred Jimmy Cliff, who was, um, on Island Records, and Island helped to finance the movie. because they saw it as a star vehicle for Jimmy Cliff.
And Island Records had started before they had commercial success. It started with Chris licensing Jamaican singles for UK. And then he had a this huge pop hit with a 15 year old Jamaican um really small, and that sort of pushed them into this pop [00:30:00] world.
Marc Beckman: 6 million copies, huh?
It's crazy. number one worldwide hit, Yeah. and then Island was off and running. But at the time, Chris explained to me that when they, he wanted to find a bigger audience. for Jamaican music at the time when he signed Jimmy Cliff he felt that Island needed to focus on breaking artist and didn't have the resources to promote more than one artist.
Lee Jaffe : And get them into the kind of marketplace. [00:31:00] And the production of the movie, The Harder They Come, had dragged on a lot longer than they thought it was going to. And Jimmy Cliff's contract was coming up with Island. And Chris had assumed that he was going to re sign him. Because the movie was nearing completion.
And Cliff turned around and signed with A& M. And Chris explained to me that the week that that happened, he got a call from somebody saying that the Wailers were in And would he take a meeting with them? And he told me that if Jimmy Cliff hadn't left the label that week, he wouldn't have taken the meeting.
And he told me that when they walked into his [00:32:00] office, that the three of them, they were so charismatic, that he just said to them, what, what do you need to make an album? And they, they told him a sum of money and he just gave it to them. And his, he told me his staff thought, you know, oh, you're never going to see the money,
Marc Beckman: Right.
Lee Jaffe : roster guys, blah, blah, blah.
And that's how the first album, Catch a Fire, came about. And then I got to hear it before it was released and I just, I just knew it was going to be, that these guys, that this was an incredible work of art and had this tremendous sociopolitical importance [00:33:00] and they had the right record label and I just knew this was going to be the biggest thing.
Marc Beckman: So, Lee, I want, I want to ask you, like, you talk about, um, a certain level of integrity that the Wailers, um, had, and, um, if you look at the lyrics from, uh, No Woman, No Cry, good friends we have, good friends we have lost along the way, in this great future, you can't forget your past, So dry your tears, I say.
Um, I'm curious, like, does that, do those lyrics kind of embody who Bob Marley, the person, was? Um, I could read, I know you know them, I could read them again if you'd like. But, I'm curious, like, what, like, what was he like? I know in the book, in your book, you talk about Bob Marley at times, uh, being ironic. Um, the story you just told really shows a ton of integrity.
Uh, what was he like [00:34:00] individually?
Lee Jaffe : Well, he was funny. He was incredibly charismatic, entertaining to be around.
I mean, for me, I played harmonica. He played guitar. He wrote, he wrote his songs acoustic guitar. And he was writing the time. day, he was, was writing. Creating new songs or working on new songs. Because some of those songs, they might seem simple, but they're very crafted. And some of them he worked on days, [00:35:00] weeks, back and forth.
Marc Beckman: I know those things. when you talk about playing harmonica with him, it's incredible. When I first met you, you know, I was like so excited to hear that. You specifically played harmonica on, um, rebel music. But something else that you did with him, which I think is super amazing, is, um, is it fair to say, to a certain extent, you co wrote or inspired I Shot the Sheriff? Ah, come on. The story in the book says it. Come on.
Lee Jaffe : have one line in the song.
Marc Beckman: So how did that just talk just for the
viewers
Lee Jaffe : down
Marc Beckman: about how it unfolded?
Lee Jaffe : was making, as he was creating them.
Marc Beckman: Where were you
guys like tell that story.
Lee Jaffe : and, you know, he just came out with, I shot the sheriff and I said, well, you didn't get the deputy. There's no sheriffs in Jamaica. So that's why I came out with, but you didn't get the deputy because there's no sheriffs in Jamaica.
That's it. But it [00:36:00] was very catchy, and he started to write the song, and I thought, well, this is, this, this could be a song that's gonna be a big pop hit for you, and a Fire album didn't sell anything, so I knew he was gonna have to eventually have a song that maybe could break through on radio, which was pretty good.
Especially in the U. S. it was a
tremendously uphill battle to get on radio. I wrote down the lyrics because I didn't want him to forget them. Not that he So you're very humble. You're being very humble today. But the truth is that you really had a lot to do to create with to you had a lot to do with creating one of the most iconic songs across all music genres in history. [00:37:00] I shot the sheriff.
but I wrote the lyrics down. I was there, I don't think he, he probably wouldn't have forgotten them anyway. Yeah. I mean, I was there. You know, I, all the time that I spent with him and the time I spent with, uh, Peter making a Legalize It album, I felt like it, you know, it was a great privilege just to be around these guys.
And, you know, when I started to work with them, it was as, um. Someone that, first job with them, my job, job, to organize a North American tour. Chris offered me that job because at that time Island didn't have a staff in the U. S. [00:38:00] You know, they had a big organization in the U. K. But in the U.
S. they were licensing all the records, um, to Capitol Records. So they, they only had one guy working, uh, for Island Records in the U. S. So he asked me I'd be interested to help organize a North American tour. Um, I just wanted to help get the music out because I thought it was the most important thing I could be doing in the world at that time.
Marc Beckman: Yeah, I know the words in your book really show how much you cared, um, about Bob Marley, the Wailers, the family. It showed how much you cared about, um, helping get the music out and getting to that level of success. most
interesting stories,
Lee Jaffe : about me. It was basically, I mean, you know, Bob and [00:39:00] Rita, they were taking care of me. I mean, you
Marc Beckman: this,
Lee Jaffe : I didn't have any money, I didn't, I had, um, uh. A couple of changes of clothes. Eventually I was wearing all Bob's clothes. And,
Marc Beckman: in Jamaica,
Lee Jaffe : when I was living in Jamaica for three years.
Marc Beckman: that's amazing.
Lee Jaffe : You Mm and a couple of, a couple, I mean I was living at Hope Road with hmm. You know, there was the rehearsal studio there. was the Whaler Center. I'd also be staying, out, um, with Rita and the kids, sleeping on the floor on the porch, which, you know, waking up in the morning and Rita would make porridge for the kids and there'd be a bowl of porridge for me.
I mean, they [00:40:00] took care of me.
Marc Beckman: That's so nice,
Lee Jaffe : And I was doing something that, for me, I thought was the most important thing I could possibly doing, be doing with my life, with,
uh, as an artist,
a kind of collaborator. Um, I mean, part of the art is getting the art out there. And that's what needed to be done. Then, and I was able to help, I thought of it a privilege, um, and exciting. I mean, there was no time, there was no money. For me, I didn't have any kids at that time, I wasn't married, um, you know, but for Bob, Peter Bunny, [00:41:00] you know, especially Bob, I mean, you know, he had several little kids.
And Rita, care of the kids, physically building this little house for them when they out of, from Trenchtown. Running a record label, singing, with a singing group, um, and Bob had a little bit of money coming from publishing, um, cause he had two songs on a Johnny Nash album. sold a lot of copies, so he had a little bit of money coming in every months.
a lot of people depending on him, besides his family. You know, his group, which, [00:42:00] The Catcher Fire didn't sell, and then the second Island album didn't sell, Burnin It was a lot of pressure. then the pressure of being the voice of the people,
Marc Beckman: I, I I understand that he's
like,
Lee Jaffe : Yeah, I
Marc Beckman: understand that he was like, uh, a very, um, kind hearted person. You talk about his, his children. I, I understand that he was a kind hearted and very funny person as it related to his children too. Years ago I heard this story that, um, you might have heard about it if I heard about it, where he would like race his, race his children on the beach and he would never let them win.
He would beat them every time. He would run as hard as he could. It actually inspired me to beat my kids on the beach. Um, you know, I don't, I don't know if you ever heard that, Lee,
Lee Jaffe : Kevin MacDonald, uh, directed, uh, this great documentary, Marley. And I [00:43:00] think it's, uh, Bob's, uh, daughter, Sadella, talks about that.
Marc Beckman: Oh, is that right?
Lee Jaffe : Yeah, Going back, Lee. very competitive. He was a really good, uh, soccer, football player. It was an integral part of his life.
Marc Beckman: Yeah, I heard when he came and finally made, um, made it to touring big time in the United States, he wanted to actually build football fields in these major stadiums across the United States so he could play during the day and he could say that he played in every football stadium in Um, and then he performed.
But going back before he got, you mentioned like organizing the tour, I know something that you, like a major accomplishment for you, this is like, to me, like the opening scene of the Lee Jaffe, Bob Marley movie, where, you know, you're, you're in New York City, you want to get these guys back, you know, up in front, front and center, on tour in the United States, and, and you want to get them known, and you go, you decide you're going to go [00:44:00] to one of the hottest places In New York City in 1973, Max's Kansas City, and you're a young guy and you're like, I know you care about Bob Marley and the Wailers.
You've got to get this done. So what's going on in your mind? Like, how did you decide Max's Kansas City was the place to go to? And then what did you do leading up to that meeting with Max's Kansas City? Like, how did the meeting come about? How did you ultimately secure this moment in time for Bob Marley and the Wailers and yourself?
Lee Jaffe : Well, I was given the privilege of having this job to arrange the first North American dates for the Wailers. So, course, we needed New York, and nobody knew who we were. And Max's, about Max's because in the 60s when it started, it started as a Bar and a restaurant. [00:45:00] The owner, Mickey Ruskin, um, would trade food and, um, a tab for, art. Center for the art world in, in the mid and late 60s. All the most cutting edge artists. would, would be there.
Marc Beckman: How do you get in there?
Lee Jaffe : you just knock on the door. I mean, I knew who the, um, Who the guy was who did the bookings. His name was Sam Hood.
Marc Beckman: So you just walk up to Max's, Kansas City, down, you know, what was it on like in like Park in the 20s or so, and you're just going to go to the front door and knock and be like, I got this. New Rastafarian, you know, soon to be the most iconic legendary singer, musician on the planet. [00:46:00] And I'm going to try to convince you to book him.
Lee Jaffe : Yeah, I mean, you know, I just knock on the, I went in the afternoon you know, they're setting up for the evening, for dinner, and whatever group was going to be upstairs, and I just knock on the, on the door.
Marc Beckman: so what's going on in your head though? Like, this is an important thing for you, right? Like you need to get this gig for Bob.
Lee Jaffe : Well, I needed to get a gig in New York. Um, and that seemed like the best place to start because they, they booked Unknown Acts. So I knew I had a shot and was a place where journalists would go, you know, artists, journalists. Writers, musicians. [00:47:00] It was a very, well, it was like a hip place. And,
Marc Beckman: a tape? Did you bring it like some of his music with you?
Lee Jaffe : well, I had the album. The Catch a Fire album, which opened like a Zippo, cigarette lighter. And the, uh, it was called Catch a Fire. So But isn't in, I walked in with the album. And, um, I knocked on the, I knocked on the door. It was, you know, it was windows. It was big windows you could see in. And somebody let me in.
I said, I want to see Sam Hood.
And they said, well, he's upstairs. And I walked upstairs. He had a little tiny office with the turntable. um, I said, I want you to hear this. And he said, okay. [00:48:00] And I opened the thing up. I thought, wow, it's so cool. It opens like a zippo lighter. And I handed it to him. He put it on the turntable.
The first song, uh, was Concrete Jungle. No sun will shine in my day to day. The hot yellow moon won't come out to play in this here concrete jungle. Where the living is hardest, and he got through the first verse and picked up the, the needle and went to the second cut, which was Slave Driver, The Table's a Turn.
He listened to half of the first verse, picked up the needle, went to the next song, was 400 years. He listened to about 10 seconds of it. I thought, well, it didn't work, but I tried. And he looked at me and he said, I get this. [00:49:00] This is the drifters with raised consciousness. put you guys on. And the drifters, yeah, which was drifters were, um, that was something that the, that the Wailers listened to.
Marc Beckman: Oh, really?
Lee Jaffe : Yeah. And the drifters were, you know, definitely influential.
Marc Beckman: So, so you lock in Max's, but I gotta ask you a question before we talk about Max's specifically. So the album name Catch A Fire, isn't there, like, a double meaning to that is Catch a Fire? Like, I read that it's like, um, there's like a, a different meaning to it in Jamaica. there's a slang, uh, connected to that.
Is that, am I correct?
Lee Jaffe : a lot of Rasta cooking was on an open, uh, uh, on an open fire. You know, like, and there'd be some wood, and you light the wood, and [00:50:00] there's a pot, and so you, and you have to catch a fire Uh, I heard. Uh, burning a spliff, or, or burning a chalice.
have to catch a fire. it had all these connotations. And, um, we were trying to catch a fire with the, with the music,
Marc Beckman: you lit it up at Max's, so like, so the guy gives you the green light, and then, much to your surprise, he tells you that, um, Bob Marley and the Wailers are opening for,
Lee Jaffe : yeah, he didn't tell me, um, who we were going to open for, uh, until later. He told me the dates he could give me. Um, and then later, when I checked in with him, he told me we were [00:51:00] opening for this other act, which was a brand new act. And it was Bruce Springsteen, but there was a tremendous amount of hype for Bruce.
signed the biggest record contract for a new artist and it was Columbia Records. And the hype was that this was the new Bob Dylan, which, you know, was getting some pushback. I mean, how could there be a new Bob Dylan? But, um, you know, it was exciting because meant that, you know, for our purposes, we wanted attention, we wanted media attention.
Because, you know, radio wasn't going to play us. But we needed the media [00:52:00] attention, that was the purpose of getting out there. And This was really great because everyone had to see this new act, Bruce Springsteen. Everyone in the media and Columbia was pushing it and they were going to get everyone there who could possibly write about it or talk about it, about Bruce.
And I remember the first night, um, there was like, I mean the place only held like a hundred people, maybe not even. And I remember the first night There was like 10 people there for us and then the second night it was like half full for us and then by the third night it was packed. There was like a real buzz about the Wailers.
This new, not only was it a new group, but it was music that people [00:53:00] didn't know about. It was a new genre of music. And it was
Marc Beckman: We'll see you.
Lee Jaffe : social, political, and, um, and I think it was a really good look for, uh, for Bruce to, you know, have the Wailers, this new, you know, it was, um, I think it added something, you know, to the whole Bruce avalanche that we're beginning.
Thanks
Marc Beckman: Yeah, I heard, I heard actually that like years later when Bob played at the Garden with, um, I think, what was it, like Lionel Richie and the Commodores, it had a similar impact where like he was opening for the Commodores at the Garden and the big attraction was actually Bob and a lot of the people that came to see the concert
Lee Jaffe : on, hold on. That's true. But as far as the Bruce dates,
Marc Beckman: Yeah,
Lee Jaffe : you know, it wasn't like [00:54:00] we overshadowed Bruce.
Marc Beckman: okay.
Lee Jaffe : was fantastic. Bruce was living up to the hype. I think we added a kind of flavor and hipness, extra hipness, you know, to Bruce's coming, you know, coming out now.
Marc Beckman: Lee, what was the room like, like, on that third night where you said it was, like, finally crowded, a lot of people there? Like, paint the picture, because it's so different from what we experience these days in, like, a restaurant or even a nightclub. Like, who was there? What kind of celebrities? What kind of vibe?
Is there smoke in the room? Are people smoking weed all over the place? Like, what was the
room like? What was the ambience?
Lee Jaffe : people were smoking weed there, but, uh, yeah, I mean, it was smoky in those days. You could smoke in restaurants and, and bars and it was packed. it had the feeling that. This was like an important cultural event, you [00:55:00] know, this Jamaican group and the new Bob Dylan. It was exciting. It was, it was amazing, really.
accomplished everything that I hoped we could accomplish for, you know, the first North American dates, for this. Jamaican
culturally important, uh, group.
Marc Beckman: recited the words, the lyrics to Concrete Jungle, um, which is great. No sun will shine in my day today. The high yellow moon won't come out to play. In this here concrete jungle, where living is the hardest.
do you see any parallels between, like when we talk about those lyrics, concrete jungle, are there parallels between your growth, your [00:56:00] development and growth in the Bronx, Jewish household, communist principles, And Bob's growth and early childhood development in Jamaica.
Lee Jaffe : well, a couple of things. When I was like eight years old, my mother made me take music lessons. And on Saturday mornings, when I wanted to be playing ball with my friends. And I'd have to take the subway down to this music school, which was on Street in Central Park West.
called the Metropolitan Music School. And family were communists. At a time, you know, in the 50s, when there was, McCarthy, [00:57:00] Rosenberg trial, and my family knew these people and they were sympathetic. And this music school that I went to and my first music teacher was a guy named Fred Hellerman.
And Fred Hellerman was in a group in 1950 had a number one pop hit with a Lead Belly song called Goodnight Irene and the lead singer a guy named Pete Seeger and when McCarthy hearings started Weavers were blacklisted so no one would book them for [00:58:00] for for shows And Fred Hellerman, who was one of the four weavers, to pay the rent, he, he was uh, at this music school, the Metropolitan, um, School of Music.
And I didn't realize it at the time. you know, I was, I mean, I was taking lessons from this incredible, this incredible guy. Later on, he went on to produce iconic album, uh, with Arlo Guthrie, Woody Guthrie's son, called Alice's Restaurant.
Marc Beckman: Wow.
Lee Jaffe : Um, Incredible. was a, you know, it was a great advantage that my pushed [00:59:00] me into, reluctantly. At that time, I was living, we were living in this tiny three room tenement building, five stories, no elevator, and the building next to us was being torn down to build, um, the cross Bronx expressway
Marc Beckman: Wow.
Lee Jaffe : that to this day, um, continues to decimate, the Bronx. Because it went through all these homogenous, multi ethnic neighborhoods and destroyed them.
And right at that time they were building the Sedgwick projects, um, [01:00:00] around the corner from where we lived. And when I moved to Jamaica in 1973, several years later, Um, a Jamaican immigrant living in those Sedgwick projects, a guy named Kool Herc invented hip hop.
Marc Beckman: Yeah.
Lee Jaffe : So that was the kind of neighborhood I grew up in.
Marc Beckman: Did you know Kool Herc?
Lee Jaffe : no. But he got the idea for hip hop from rap Yeah. from, you know, from Jamaicans. Because the Jamaican music, when I arrived in Jamaica in 1973, the top 20 records, um, probably 16 of them, somebody talking over a rhythm track. So, it had kind of taken over Jamaican music. [01:01:00] And Kool Herc changed the rhythm, the Jamaican, the reggae rhythms, R& B influenced rhythms, and then started talking over them.
And that's how the Jamaican influence in, in the beginning of reggae music. of hop.
Marc Beckman: So, Lee, it's kind of interesting, like, you go from, like, the concrete jungle of the Bronx, they're, they're building, they're, they're, like, shredding, basically, the Bronx, the neighborhood, like, it's, like, it goes through the entire neighborhood, even till today. It's got to be so annoying, the noise, um, that must have been happening as they, they built this roadway.
Lee Jaffe : with these giant, uh, uh, steel balls smashing into the building. then, you know, the sound of, you know, the bulldozers and, um,
Marc Beckman: Terrible.
Lee Jaffe : uh, creating this enormous trench.
Marc Beckman: [01:02:00] For years, I
bet.
Lee Jaffe : of year old granite, um, you know, connecting the George Washington Bridge. And decimating all these neighborhoods in the Bronx.
So that, that was part of the soundtrack of me growing up. So,
Marc Beckman: a terrible soundtrack.
Lee Jaffe : to the concrete jungle, but what was fantastic when I first heard that song and, and those lyrics. because it smashed the idea of the, um, happy, native, to tourists on, uh, you know, on this idyllic island.
It just, it just totally deconstructed that idea. And then all of a sudden, this paradise island was a concrete [01:03:00] jungle. This is the concept of it. And then to be the first song. on, on, on the Wailers first international album. And to have that lyric, it was, um, it was really powerful. It was something that I related to, not just intellectually, but viscerally.
I just thought this was just the most incredible thing. And when I, you know, started to, just, Bob was like, he, he was so charismatic. And so fun to be around. Um, You just wanted to be around him. And
Marc Beckman: So,
Lee Jaffe : like, like he was doing something, you know, it was a, it was a time [01:04:00] in 1973. They're overthrowing the government in Chile.
There's a fascist government, a military government in Brazil. There's the Vietnam War is still raging, and here's this voice from the so called third world
was just cutting through all the theory and all the, uh, theory of race. And when you saw Bob, he was neither nor white, and he was both.
So, I thought, wow, this is, this is a really, really fantastic opportunity to make this happen. A really important [01:05:00] cultural shift in the world, and looking back 50 years, you know, it's hard to imagine the world without, without the Wailers music.
Marc Beckman: I know that you have a tremendous amount of love and passion for Bob Marley and his family, but it seems like you have, like, an equal amount of love and passion for Jamaica, for the island, for the land. Is There something about the land, about that island that attracted creatives in particular to come to the island?
Lee Jaffe : Jamaica's,
Marc Beckman: were inspired by the island.
Lee Jaffe : miles long and 50 wide, but at the same time, 7, foot mountains that run through it. Through the middle, so it becomes a huge place, that you can't explore all of Jamaica in a lifetime, if that's all you did. [01:06:00] Because through the mountains, there's all these tiny roads, and you can't drive very fast, and you'll never get there.
In a lifetime, be able to find all of Jamaica. So it's, it's tiny, but it's huge. And what's so special about it is the ethnic makeup it started with the indigenous people, the Arawaks, um, Tainos, Caribs. And first the Spanish came, and they, some mixed with the indigenous people, and they also very much obliterated that culture.
And then the English came, and then the English [01:07:00] brought the Africans, they saw, well, we can make sugar for tea. They wanted the sugar, but they didn't want to work to cut down the cane in the tropical heat. So, they brought, they kidnapped people from, from West Africa and brought them. And then, the English didn't want to oversee the people, the slaves.
So they brought Irish,
and they also brought young Irish girls,
kind of slaves, kind[01:08:00]
of sexual, kind of slavery.
Marc Beckman: Like a sex trafficking kind of thing?
Lee Jaffe : Yeah, it's the time of Cromwell when English took over Ireland and tried to obliterate the Irish culture. Outlawed the Gaelic language. So then you had You had Irish, had Africans, you had English, had some residue, some people left over mixed from Spanish and, and, and indigenous.
And then, when the English outlawed slavery in, I think it's 1839, they started to bring people from It was another kind of slavery, they called it [01:09:00] indentured servants. So what they would do is They would offer people from India and from China passage to Jamaica. put them to work, and they would have to work a certain amount of years, five years, ten years.
pay off the, um, trip, so it was kind of like, um,
Marc Beckman: Inventured servitude.
Lee Jaffe : yeah, so it was another kind of slavery, but it would end in like five years or ten years, whatever, and so those people, so now you had Indians, real Indians, I mean Indians from India, and now you had, uh, Chinese mixing, With the [01:10:00] English, the Irish, the Spanish, the Arawaks.
So, Jamaica is this ethnic mix. Hundreds of years of these people mixing. So it's this microcosm of the world in this tiny, huge island.
Marc Beckman: Amazing.
Lee Jaffe : it's still exciting to go to because so much of Jamaica, because of the mountains and because it's so, takes so much time to So much of Jamaica is still pristine and beautiful.
Marc Beckman: One of the coolest stories about you and Bob Marley is when you, uh, played at Central Park in front of 15, 000 people, um, during the summer of [01:11:00] 1975, I think you, you, um, returned home and, and, Play this incredible, uh, moment in, in time, but, um, as far as, like, the, the photographer piece of you goes, like, what inspired you to bring that camera, to bring that camera into such a big part of your personality, such a big part of your, uh, creative expression, your creative output?
Like, what was the impetus behind becoming a photographer?
Lee Jaffe : when I was in, when I was in college, I had a good, you know, I was studying art history and art and, um, had a good, really good, uh, I took a photography course. I took And had a good teacher and photography just became part of my art practice. Um, I mean I was making sculpture and then leaving [01:12:00] college it was, um, the time of conceptual art.
I was involved in that with the artists that were that were making conceptual art, like Vito Acconci and Dennis Oppenheim. Um, and the concept, the concept, one of the main concepts of conceptual art was to be anti object and not make objects. So the art became something that was recorded. with photographs or, or at that time was the beginning of making videos.
Um, so photography's always been, um, a thread that's, that's run through my art practice. [01:13:00] Even later when I started to make paintings, In the 80s, um, most of the work, most of the paintings were based on, uh, photographs. Either photographs that I found or photographs that I made. So, it runs, it runs through my work.
So,
Marc Beckman: know, it's interesting.
Lee Jaffe : it made sense to have a camera with me.
Marc Beckman: Yeah, yeah, but it's interesting like you talk about this trans, this transition from still photography into video and now I feel like for the past 5, 10 years we're transitioning again, like um, with the advent of new technology, phone, you know, cameras in iPhones and social media. Um, it seems like we're going through another transition.
I'm curious to your, from your perspective, do you think the advent of technology as it relates to [01:14:00] everyone having a camera on them at all times and being able to post on social media has created some kind of a negative impact on the art form of photography?
Lee Jaffe : it's a scary time. I remember when, it's not that long ago, 25 years, when, um, broadband Came in and there was so much, um, optimism that, uh, the internet was going to create this, um, these possibilities of distributing information and that was going to be some fantastic positive effect on the world.
And now we find [01:15:00] that Okay, yes, that's true, but we also find that it's distributing all these falsehoods and contributing to
this rise of fascism, which we see so prominently in the United States with this whole falsehoods. MAGA movement and these people supporting, um, this new, basically this guy who's,
you know, implementing this trying to implement this fascist regime this is gonna, this is happening right now in real time and there's going to be this election, [01:16:00] um, in just a few weeks and we don't know what's going to happen. Half the people believe All these lies that are distributed. So it's, um, it's scary.
And of course, uh, in my own art practice and using photography, um, I'm very aware of the, um, how ubiquitous the photograph has come. Largely in part, um, Due to the very high quality of, uh, the images, um, that can be captured on phones. So, in my photography, uh, practice, [01:17:00] I'm always extremely aware of that, and I kind of see it as a parallel moment.
When photography in the 19th century was beginning to, um, disrupt
the idea of painting because now you had the photograph, you got the reality. So what were artists going to paint? And I look to Manet, and I look to a painting like, um, The Woman Behind the Bar, and how he changed the [01:18:00] perspective. And And so doing, he moved painting to a space that voided the redundancy of making something that now might look like a photograph.
And in my photography practice, play on the ubiquitousness. of the very, um,
on the very high quality photographs that everyone makes with their [01:19:00] phones. So I have to move
aside from that, as Manet did, painting, I have to do it with my photographs.
Marc Beckman: That's interesting. And I think, um, with artificial intelligence, that concept that you're talking about, as far as, um, a particular image or a particular, um, visualization of a concept being ubiquitous is going to be Um, accelerated with AI, um, and I think that the, the creative class, people such as yourself are going to have to think about other ways to push back with these more traditional mediums, whether it's fine painting or even, you know, classical photography now.
How do you push back against the machine of AI generated or machine generated artwork?
Lee Jaffe : Yeah, well, for me, when I [01:20:00] discovered in the early 2000s digital photography, so that's kind of like a little bit before, um, or right when phones started to have cameras. Um, and I discovered with these, I could have a camera. Create a digital image return to that image, to that capture, to that photograph, and I could alter the perspective.
It's a classical perspective that goes back to the Renaissance, and the Renaissance, [01:21:00] um, and, Race theory and colonialism and religion are all tied together as an apology for the African slave trade and for subjugating people in Asia. Uh,
so I was able to return to that. Classical perspective that the camera was capturing, and found out that I could change it. Playing on the veracity of the photographic image. How we believe it. [01:22:00] When we see a photograph, we believe it. So that became exciting for me. And I started off, again, Chris Blackwell offered me, um, he introduced me to, uh, Tricky in 2006, and I was a big fan of Tricky's, um, Massive Attack and then from his solo albums.
And we went on, I went on this journey with Tricky through the UK.
Working with him, helping him to direct a movie, and also, um, taking still photographs. And that became[01:23:00]
this alteration of these very, um, journalistic type photos.
and turn them into something closer to painting. But in that project, careful not to beyond the point where you feel that the photographs and that the reality is being manipulated. So I was able, I realized I was able to
Direct a certain concentration, a certain perception[01:24:00]
to the, what I felt were the most significant and crucial content within these images.
Marc Beckman: That's, that's pretty interesting. So, Lee, you know, you've given us, you've given me a ton of your time and really opened up with these incredible stories. Um, before, I just want to ask you one more question and then we'll wrap it up. Every guest that joins me on this show, um, participates in this fun thing where I use, The, um, the, the name of the show, Some Future Day, to start a sentence and then I lead my guest to, and have my guest finish the sentence, so I'm wondering if you would be open enough to, um, playing this game with me.
Lee Jaffe : Yeah, but if I say dumb things, you have to cut it out.
Marc Beckman: [01:25:00] You're too intellectual for that. But it plays into this concept of the manipulation of imagery and messaging into society. Like you're inspiring me to start to think back into like, like, think about the strength of images throughout time, um, communist and, and, you know, uh, Russian communism, Soviet Union communism and Chinese communist images of the proletariat,
um, photography. about that.
Go ahead.
Lee Jaffe : So, like I mentioned, my family, they were communists, so
Marc Beckman: Yeah,
Lee Jaffe : my mother told me this much later, decades later, that one of my uncles was being investigated, McCarthy, and he was afraid he was, they were gonna, you know, find him, throw him in jail, whatever. He fled to Russia. And he lived for a year in Russia. And when he came back to the U S [01:26:00] wasn't a communist anymore. Cause you have to realize like a lot of these intellectuals in the fifties, a of them, um, you know, the blacklisting in Hollywood, all these writers and directors, a lot of them were Jewish. And the fifties, we saw Russia.
My family, they saw Russia as helping to defeat Nazism. So it was kind of like this heroic thing that they associated communism and Marx,
Marc Beckman: right.
Lee Jaffe : right? But in truth, there was Stalin, there was this incredible repression. Um, the Russian communism at that time was a kind of [01:27:00] fascism. So there was this disillusionment.
He was in Russia for a year, and he came back, and it was like, no,
Marc Beckman: He realized
that his, um, We didn't know. didn't know.
right, right. The unalienable rights ended up being important for that individual. Right for that family member. Um, but, but here's the point. So, like, you, you just went from, it's interesting because I was going to segue from like those proletariat, those iconic proletariat, um, uh, posters and, and messaging over to, you know, Adolf Hitler's use of imagery.
Very powerful as it related to film that was broadcasting even into western households during World War II. Um, not just the posters and the photos, but the video in particular. So my, um, the way I want to end this episode with you is, is this way. So we're seeing these, um, these movements, these mechanisms where the power of imagery is transforming culture and having a [01:28:00] radical impact on Humankind.
We've seen that with the proletariat communist posters in the Soviet Union, in China. We saw during, um, Hitler's, Hitler's, um, movement, um, uh, terrible images coming out, um, that were pushed all over the world the video images that Hitler used, the photography that he used to, you know, brainwash people to do these horrible things.
And I'm wondering, for you, in some future day, will seeing actually be believing? Lee
Lee Jaffe : That's tough. Well, I, I think seeing is believing. I don't think we've um, totally gone, like, past that. Uh, you know, looking at the [01:29:00] Rodney King incident being, um, you know, videotaped, uh, the George Floyd, people believe that. So we haven't completely gone seeing as believing.
We're in the age of manipulating and things that aren't can appear, can appear like they are. And that's a whole other, um, creates a whole other set of problems that we're living with.
Marc Beckman: it's really been such a pleasure speaking with you. Um, I enjoyed our, our range of [01:30:00] topics from intellect and philosophy to geography and fine art to legends like Bob Marley. Thank you so much for joining me on some future day today, Lee. Thank you.
Lee Jaffe : Thank you for having me. It's been a pleasure.