“[Dana Stirling, interviewer]: First, tell us a little about your journey with art and photography – how did it all start for you?
[Rick Schatzberg]: As a teenager and young man my passion was for music and I assumed that would be my career as well. This started with rock and pop music, but when I was 18, I became thoroughly immersed in jazz and played French horn in Cecil Taylor’s jazz orchestra, as well as piano in some off-shoot groups. In those days I also dabbled in photography, but my commitment to music left little room for much else. By my mid-twenties I came to the sad realization that even if I spent all my waking hours playing and studying music, I still wouldn’t have the chops to be a professional. I walked away from my life as a musician, but I took some lessons from Cecil and his circle that proved valuable later in life: how new artistic expression evolves from traditional forms incrementally but sometimes in quantum leaps; about the synthesis of wildly different inputs to make something new and powerful; and about the dedication it takes to accomplish anything worthwhile.”
Read the full interview here