Seeing Jazz

Abstract

The jazz photographs of Sergio Muscat aim to capture the entire physicality of a musician’s performance in one telling story. For Sergio, seeing the music (performance) is as important as hearing it. But unlike Wassily Kandinsky’s abstracted paintings of musical improvisation or Piet Mondrian’s rhythmic depictions of the sound of jazz, Sergio is not after representing the music genre through his preferred artistic medium. He is more interested in the artist’s performance as an activity that develops over time. Capturing the real soul of the jazz musician requires Sergio to become synchronous with the performer’s own movements. Snapping the picture is therefore a refined exercise in clockwork body movement and camera control.