Paul Rogers

Weekly Reader

2008-10-02T19:05:53+00:00

Polo Grounds 1951

2008-09-19T19:55:15+00:00

American Express is producing a book with portraits and feature articles about some of their charter members. I was asked to do a portrait of Ralph Branca. He’s the Brooklyn Dodger pitcher who delivered the pitch to Bobby Thomson that became known as “The Shot Heard ‘Round The World” in a playoff for the pennant in 1951.

I drew the fatal moment Branca delivered the pitch. The game, played at The Polo Grounds has taken on legendary status in baseball history, and fans have been talking about it ever since. Should Branca have walked Thomson with first base open and pitched to the rookie Willie Mays? Did Giant coach Herman Franks steal pitching signs with a telescope from the centerfield clubhouse and relay them to Thomson? Russ Hodges famous play-by-play call was recorded off the television by a fan at home. What happened to the ball?

I also illustrated an imaginary baseball card of Branca from 1948, the year he was an All-Star. After Branca retired from baseball he worked in the insurance industry and was instrumental in the formation of the Baseball Assistance Team, a foundation that offers help to former major-league players who have fallen on hard times.

The Studio Museum in Harlem

2008-09-17T18:53:01+00:00

The Studio Museum in Harlem called the other day. They carry the book Jazz ABZ in their bookstore and wanted to do a feature in their quarterly magazine. There's an artist interview in each issue and it includes a coloring page for kids. I sent them this line drawing of Duke Ellington and a few cats from his band that made Harlem their home. I have this directory of musicians from 1955 that lists everyone’s home address and I included them in the drawing. The whole thing is a shameless imitation of the great David Stone Martin, and I’m sure the image will be improved by kids with crayons.

Forever Young

2008-07-28T15:42:05+00:00

I just received an advance copy of “Forever Young.” Last year, Ginee Seo and Ann Bobco at Simon and Schuster/Atheneum Books called to see if I’d be interested in working on a children’s book based on the lyrics to Bob Dylan’s song. They didn’t have to ask me twice. This is one of Dylan’s most loved songs and my job was to not screw it up, and to do something that Bob would like. I’ll post some more about the book when it’s released in September.

Publisher’s Weekly has called the illustration style “chilly.” Just what I was aiming for.

It makes a nice gift.

NYT Week in Review

2008-06-30T16:36:50+00:00

Last Wednesday Aviva Michaelov at The New York Times called with an assignment for the cover of Sunday's Week in Review. She wanted an image to accompany an article that looks at how long, hot summers have been a crucible for the evolution of America's idenitity from the very beginning of our history. The illustration covers a lot of front page real estate, 15.5 " x 8.6" She sent me a rough draft of the article with a note that the illustration should have a Hot Summer feeling not one of dread. A collage of images from the article made the most sense, and I added a Weber Grill and stole some Ben Shahn-style flames to wrap around the images. Aviva sent a layout that showed where the art would fit with the typography so I could design the shape to work well on the page.
The sketch was approved on Thursday morning and I worked late and sent the final art Friday morning. A call for a quick turn-around for the Times always gets my blood going, and it seems like magic to see the piece in Sunday's paper.

Playboy Jazz Festival

2008-05-19T17:54:47+00:00

This June is the 30th anniversary Playboy Jazz Festival at the Hollywood Bowl. Every year they produce a nice program that's full of illustrations; there are portraits of each performer and a few feature articles.
This year Fred Fehlau, the AD for the program asked me to do a piece to accompany an article about the history of the festival. So I filled the stage with a group of musicians who've played there. From left to right there's Count Basie, Sarah Vaughan, Wynton Marsalis, Stan Getz, Benny Goodman, Ron Carter, Dizzy Gillespie, BB King, Art Blakey and Miles Davis. Fred asked me to include Hefner, festival MC Bill Cosby, and producer George Wein in the crowd.

Fred also asked me to do a portrait of the trumpet player Roy Hargrove. While looking around online for photos I came across this wonderful picture of Roy taken by Eddy Westveer, a jazz photographer who lives and works in the Netherlands. I e-mailed him to get permission to use the photo as reference for my drawing and offered him a fee. The photo supplied such a nice vibe, the drawing was finished easily and very quickly.

I've done the cover for the program three times. Fred asks for comp ideas, and that really means do a finish and if Hefner likes it, it gets used. Hefner has picked mine three times, yet still no invitation to the mansion.

Las year I did this drawing of composer and trumpter Terence Blanchard. Terence is from New Orleans and has written film scores for a lot of Spike Lee's films. I was listening to his score for Lee's documentary "When The Levees Broke" while I worked on this drawing

I've done portraits of musicians every year since 1986. Here's Cosby, Tony Bennett, Joshua Redman, Elvin Jones, Ray Charles, and Miles Davis.

Here's a sample of some of the fantastic work by a few of the illustrators that I admire from past years. Mel Torme by Robert Risko, Hefner by Al Hirschfeld, Wynton Marsalis by Jeffrey Decoster, Kenny Garret by Calef Brown, Cassandra Wilson by Ann Field, Buddy Guy by the legendary Jeff Smith, Herbie Hancock, Wayne Shorter, Dave Holland & Brian Blade by Chris Pyle, Dr, John by Brad Weinman, and Femi Anikulapo-Kuti by Jason Holley.

Opening Day

2008-03-31T18:24:47+00:00

From deep in the archives...

During the years 1997-2001 my friend Dan Simon was in charge of much of the design for mechandise and promotions for the Los Angeles Dodgers. We worked on a number of projects together and I enjoyed every minute of every one. I grew up in Los Angeles, and have been a Dodger fan my whole life, even when they fielded horrible teams. Dan is a great art director who knows the value of good illustration and it was great to see these projects appear at Dodger Stadium.

One of the ideas Dan had was to print up old-fashioned scorecards like they used to sell in the past. Just a simple four-page scorecard with a cover design and an ad on the back.

I have a collection of the scorecards Otis Shepard did for the Chicago Cubs in the 40's and 50s, and Dan didn't have to ask me twice if I thought I could do some new designs in that style.
These two covers are shameless imitations of Shepard's wonderful work. (He also created hundreds of ads for Wrigley's Gum.) The second one is an even more shameless imitation of the legendary Joseph Binder, the poster artist that Shepard leaned heavily on for his own work.

This was a short-lived idea however. These scorecards didn't sell well, maybe because no one knows how to keep score themselves anymore.

One year the Dodgers decided to line the outfield wall with portraits of Dodger greats from the past. Dan thought it would be a good idea to treat each player's portrait as a vintage advertisement. There were about 12-15 billboards that remained up all season. I enjoyed watching every game that year.

For the 1998 season each Dodger player selected a great Dodger player from the past, and we made sleeve patches to be worn on their uniforms. There were about 30 different ones.

The Dodgers had this Marketing Trailer that they dragged around to schools and community events that was full of memoralbia and information on the history of the team. I designed this mural to decorate the sides of the trailer.

To commemorate the 50th anniversary of Jackie Robinson's breaking of the color barrier, the Dodgers produced this poster, It also pays tribute to the fact that a Dodger player had won the Rookie of the Year Award for the past five straight years.

Sadly, this level of design only lasted at Dodger Stadium for as long as Dan was there. He very selfishly decided to move to Louisville KY for the benefit of his family. He actually put the lives of his children before thoughts of my illustration career and my access to great tickets.

He now has his own design studio in Louisville. http://www.studiosimon.com/

Now this...

2008-03-24T22:26:13+00:00

Last week we got the "So?" and now we get this

In an exclusive interview with ABC News, Vice President Dick Cheney was asked what effect the grim milestone of at least 4,000 deaths in the five-year Iraq war might have on the nation.

Noting the burden placed on military families, the vice president said the biggest burden is carried by President George W. Bush, who made the decision to commit US troops to war, and reminded the public that U.S. troops in Iraq and Afghanistan volunteered for duty.

http://abcnews.go.com/WN/Politics/story?id=4513250&page=1

Bob Dylan has been ending concerts in the last couple of years with his 1963 song "Masters of War."

Paperback Covers for Random House

2008-03-18T04:15:15+00:00

Last year I get a call from Random House in London for two Ernest Hemingway paperback covers for the Vintage series. They have a basic cover format using Gill Sans and Bodoni and they want me to create simple images that look like they fit the period of each book. Death in the Afternoon and The Old Man and The Sea. What could go wrong?
I send two pencil sketches each, they pick the ones they like, I finish them up and send them off. Everybody's happy, I get paid and look forward to seeing the printed books.

A few months pass, and I think, "I wonder if those books are in the stores yet?" I'll check the UK Amazon site and take a look.
They're listed...but something looks odd.

It seems like the art director or someone at RH thought the covers needed that little something extra to make them look "Vintage."
I need a drink.

LA Bookstores

2008-03-05T17:28:42+00:00

The Los Angels Times is running an article this Sunday on the closing of Dutton's Books in Brentwood and they've interviewed a few writers about their favorite independent bookstores in town. Paul Gonzalez, the greatest art director on earth, calls and asks me to do some drawings of the stores to accompany the article. So, I make the rounds, do the drawings and send him these. He likes them so much he ups the budget!

The fee now just about covers what I spent on books in the stores this weekend.

New Orleans

2008-01-15T06:46:08+00:00

I did this drawing for The Progressive in the days following Katrina as the country watched an entire city be lost. New Orleans was under water and I was wishing it was Washington that was flooded.

Almost three years later, we’re looking at presidential candidates and New Orleans seems to be the city that care forgot again. Much of the city still looks like the flood that followed the collapse of the levees happened a few weeks ago. Entire neighborhoods are abandoned and the people who once lived there are scattered and still trying to put their lives back together. This is not the way America is supposed to treat its citizens. It remains the biggest failure of the Bush Administration, yet I don’t hear any of today’s candidates seriously discussing how they would bring about change in Louisiana.

I was down in New Orleans the summer after Katrina and I rented a car, drove around the Ninth Ward, took some pictures and did some drawings in my sketchbook. I sent them to Brian Rea at the New York Times and he ran them on the Op-Ed page on the one year anniversary.

The devastation was impossible to understand without being there. Blocks and blocks of empty houses, upside down cars and broken trees lie in a neighborhood that once was full of life. People had lived on the same blocks as their parents and grandparents for generations in the Lower Ninth Ward.
The morning I was there it was silent, I didn’t even hear any birds.

I had WWOZ on in the car. It was Sunday morning and the regular gospel show was playing on the radio as I drove around.

The street signs had a dark line about eight feet off the ground that marked the spot where the water sat for days. I read that the water was full of snakes that grouped together in knots and drifted about. Doors and other floating debris were covered with cockroaches. The water was mixed with garbage and sewage. I stood under the sign and thought about how long I would have lasted out here.

There was a do-it-yourself vibe to the little bit of cleanup and salvage going on when I was there. A few local groups were trying their best to lend each other a hand, Habitat for Humanity had a project going, building some new homes for musicians. But there was no evidence of any government projects anywhere. This was a total failure of leadership on all levels, and it continues today.

Dooky Chase's is a legendary restaurant and center for the African American community. Its history dates back to the era when blacks were not served in the restaurants in the South, and this was a spot where they could enjoy a meal. Celebrities,entertainers, and civil rights workers always found a warm place here. Mrs. Chase is 83 years old and one of the most beloved chefs in the city; each time I’ve been in her restaurant I feel a special blessing when she comes out from her kitchen to sit down and chat for a few minutes.

Across the street the housing projects remain boarded up and there is talk of
demolishing them for a mixed use development that will make somebody rich at the expense of the families that used to live there.

New Orleans will rebuild itself, because the spirit and the soul of its people won’t let it die.The week I was there I joined a second line parade for a drummer who had just died. The tradition of funerals with music is a strong one here. The idea is that you’re sad for your friend and the loss of his company, but you’re happy to still be on the right side of the dirt and you should enjoy every day. The whole neighborhood joins the parade and everyone seems to be saying, "we know it’s a sad world, but let’s make the best of it."

Little by little, the city is coming back. JazzFest is scheduled for a full seven days this spring, the French Quarter is pretty much up and running as it was. Brad Pitt’s project to rebuild homes in the Ninth Ward is off to a great start, musicians and artists are moving into Habitat’s Musician Village, Ellis Marsalis plays Snug Harbor most Fridays, and Harry Shearer continues his excellent coverage of events and disappointments in the Crescent City.
Whenever I visit, my first stop is Napoleon House for a cold Abita and a muffalata in the corner booth.

Los Angeles Earthquake

2007-12-07T23:03:57+00:00

Designmatters at Art Center is producing a book as part of an education initiative aimed at understanding and preparing for a major earthquake in the Los Angeles area. I taught a class last term that had students producing images to accompany the text throughout the book. Christoph Neimann came in for a workshop, he and Ann Field contributed illustrations to the book, and Stefan Sagmeister is responsible for the design of the entire book.

I was also asked to make some images as part of the introduction to the Narrative section that contains a collection of fiction, poetry, and evocative essays. This series deals with the temporary nature of the Los Angeles landscape, its history and mythology. I placed the drawings in old books as a reference to the literary nature of the section.

Name That Movie

2007-11-25T20:06:54+00:00

I started a series of drawings in my sketchbook, it's a kind of visual quiz of great movies. Each series is a sequence of six drawings of shots from classic films (in the order they appear on screen.) No portraits of movie stars, just iconic images from the film. When I finish 100 movies, I'll see about getting them published as a book.
A book like this could sell dozens.

Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra 2

2007-11-15T06:21:06+00:00

I met up with the band in Louisville, at the Seelbach Hotel, the setting for Tom and Daisy
Buchanan’s wedding reception in The Great Gatsby. The street’s named for hometown hero
Muhammad Ali. Our next stop was a 10-hour drive into the Deep South, Meridian MS. The band rides in a charter bus but Wynton likes to get an early start and arrive a few hours before everyone else. Early meant 4:00 am. Meet downstairs, load the SUV and hit the road. I slept in my clothes to make sure I wasn’t the last one downstairs.

Raymond “Bossman” Murphy is the road manager and handles most of the driving. He
has the ability to solve any problem the road may offer before it becomes a problem. The car is always stocked with whatever we need, and the travel from town to town is so smooth that I
forget how many miles we’re clocking during the week. Production manager Ernie Gregory also rides with us, Ernie’s been around jazz his whole life and he has the stories to prove it.

Every morning we stop for breakfast at a Cracker Barrel. Every single morning. There are Barrels spread 20 miles apart on every highway in the South, and inside each one’s exactly the same. About 9:30 am we pull in and everyone but me has the menu memorized and orders within two seconds of sitting down. Wynton says it’s like eating at home; everything’s familiar and reliable. Although there’s a Groundhog’s Day vibe to it, eating here every morning does get to feel kinda homey after a few days.

Just before the exit for Meridian we spot a sign for Toomsuba, and get off the highway to check out a town with that name. It turns out to be about five houses, two churches, and a run-down catfish farm. Ernie says that if we drove by here after a big rain the road would be
covered with dead catfish.
We’re not far from the spot where three civil rights workers were murdered in the summer of 1964. A lot has changed in America since then, but traveling through the South this week I feel a not-so-subtle level of racism still looming here. We spot a number of Confederate flags, there’s even one tucked away backstage in the historic Opera House when we arrive.

We go from the vintage glamour of the Seelbach Hotel to the Comfort Inn; right off the highway, surrounded by fast food and a Sam’s Club. The staff treats the orchestra like royalty, I think that everyone who works there is hanging around the lobby during the time we’re here.

The instruments and sound equipment travel in a rental truck, there’s a crew of about four guys who load, unload, and set up the stage at each town with a quiet efficiency.

The routine’s the same in every town; check into hotel, grab some lunch, soundcheck at 4, dinner at venue, concert, sleep, up in the morning, hit the road to next town, check into hotel, repeat. Sometimes there’s a few hours, or a day off to check out some sights, sample the local food and nightlife, but everyone’s back at the hotel pretty early. There have been some musicians in the band who could play, but had a hard time getting along with everyone and being on time, and they didn’t last long out here. This is a good gig for a jazz musician and everyone wants to make the most of it.

In Atlanta, Wynton introduces a guy to the band at the end of the soundcheck. His name is Bob Havens, he played in Al Hirt’s band, and for 22 years was a trombonist for the Lawerence Welk Orchestra. Bob asks to play one with the band during the soundcheck, but the guys are already leaving the stage so Wynton asks him to play something during the concert that night. I see Bob walking around blowing into his mouthpiece backstage before the concert, getting ready. He gets introduced and walks onstage to play with a small group set-up that does a number each night.They play Way Down Yonder in New Orleans and Bob plays like he’s played with these guys for years, then he takes a solo, beautiful tone, structured, soulful, he tells his story. The guys are all looking at him, and at each other, with smiles and nods of admiration. Bob walks off stage to a huge ovation with a spring in his step I didn’t see before. Later, I ask Wynton when he told Bob what song they were going to play. “When he walked onstage, I just told him before that it’d be something he knew.” Wynton said that he could tell just by looking at him at the soundcheck that he could play.

My last stop on the tour was Savannah. The band was continuing on for ten more days of concerts. As soon as I’m out of the protective range of Bossman Murphy, I encounter some trouble. Early in the morning, my taxi has a flat on the way to the airport. When the driver gets out to change the tire, I take this rare photo of the sun and the moon in the same picture.

Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra

2007-10-30T16:19:44+00:00