NBC cameraman points lens at musicians

NBC cameraman points lens at musicians
November 23, 2010
BY DAVE HOEKSTRA
The Herald-News

For Stephen Azzato’s beautiful book Their Love of Music, the 117 color photographs were shot in a portable studio instead of concerts, fancy hotels and the back seats of limousines. So Dave Alvin, Luther Dickinson, Buddy Guy and other distinctive musicians appear in relaxed settings, giving the coffee-table book a sense of accessibility.

A book release party is set for 6-10 p.m. Monday at SPACE, 1275 Chicago in Evanston. SPACE co-owner and fine blues guitarist Dave Specter also is featured in the 252-page book ($65, Quiet Light Publishing; quietlightpublishing.com). Some of the subjects of the book, including Anna Fermin and Nora O’Connor, will be on hand.

Azzato comes at the music with a different perspective than better-known music photographers such as Annie Leibovitz, Chicago’s Paul Natkin and the late Jim Marshall.

A Libertyville resident, Azzato is an NBC cameraman for the “Today” show and “NBC Nightly News With Brian Williams.”

“I’m not an established photographer,” said Azzato, 52. “This project started three years ago as a passion to see where it would go. I knew people in the music industry doing interviews for NBC, but not [at] the level of these people. It wasn’t until I got people like Aaron Neville and Steve Miller involved in the book that other people jumped on board. But then I didn’t want the book to be filled with famous people. I wanted people who were out there every night, giving the audience everything, but not filling huge stadiums.”

Azzato carried his muslin backdrop to venues such as FitzGerald’s in Berwyn, the House of Blues (where blues pianist Pine­top Perkins, who appears on the book’s cover, was photographed), SPACE and others. He shot digitally with a Canon high-resolution camera. Each photo is accompanied by a few lines of text in the artist’s own words.

For one photo, Azzato grabbed singer-songwriter Alice Peacock before a show at the Old Town School of Folk Music. Sitting down for a portrait is the last thing most artists want to do before a gig.

“You’re in a head space to perform,” Peacock said. “He went snap, snap, snap and that was that. He didn’t want you to pose or get stressed out. He wanted to take people as real people, and looking through the book, that’s what I was struck by. They are candid portraits.”