David Redfern is best known for his photography of musical performances and musicians. Here is the biography you can find on his site.
60’s JAZZ
David Redfern’s career began in the twilight jazz clubs of 1960’s London. He risked his one and only camera amongst the jiving teenage crowds. The British Trad boom was under way. His first published photos featured Kenny Ball, Chris Barber, George Melly, and the old Marquee Club.
TV
David began photographing TV Shows like ‘Ready Steady Go’ and ‘Thank Your Lucky Stars’ which were shot during the day. Here he made many of his now classic shots of the Beatles, the Rolling Stones and Dusty Springfield.
CLUB NIGHTS
Nights were spent at the 100 Club, Ronnie Scott’s or the Marquee, where he captured on film all the jazz greats from Miles Davis to Ella Fitzgerald.
US DAYS
These pictures were to contribute to what is now the most comprehensive jazz collection in Europe. To break into the commercial world by chasing the big American names, David became a regular visitor to the Jazz festivals in Newport, Antibes and Montreux, and the big rock festivals, photographing such greats as Hendrix and Dylan.
FIRST BOOK
By the 1970’s David had firmly established his name as one of the top music photographers in the business. In 1980 Pete Townsend’s Eel Pie Company published David Redfern’s Jazz Album. Lavishly illustrated with many of David’s finest jazz photographs, it was highly acclaimed by critics and public alike. In the same year, at Frank Sinatras request, David stepped into Terry O’Neill’s shoes as official tour photographer.
EXHIBITIONS
In the late ’80s several exhibitions featured the first 25 years:
- He showed his work along with Lord Lichfield and Lord Snowdon at the Kodak and Royal Photographic Society’s ‘Living Body’ exhibition. Based on the Channel 4 TV series, it was one of the biggest exhibitions ever held by Kodak.
- In 1990 he was invited to put on an exhibition in Cuba to coincide with the Jazz Festival there.
NOTTING HILL
At the beginning of 1989 David moved his music picture library REDFERNS to new premises in West London, a location now much favoured by the British music industry. The library expanded rapidly. Covering over 26,000 different artists and styles from every musical genre, and representing some 500 photographers and collections, it became the most comprehensive music picture library in the world, with over 205,000 items online.
Redfern is without a doubt a great photographer, artistically he is not the greatest of all his contemporaries, but his photographs are a historical document and must be admired by all who love music. Deavid Redfern books can be found at www.ftn-books.com
