“Hands of Jazz “ by Sophie Leroux

 

Sophie Leroux is a Parisian photographer. She started photography in the 80s, mostly in Parisian jazz clubs (le Petit Journal Montparnasse, le Sunset-Sunside, le jazz club « Lionel-Hampton »  du Méridien Étoile, le New Morning, la Villa…). She then quickly turns her lens toward all the big jazz Festivals around Paris (JVC Jazz Festival Paris, Blue Note, Banlieue Bleues, Sons d’Hiver, Esprit Jazz…), thus very quickly integrating the Parisian jazz world, and making all these stages and venues her daily environment.

Additionally to the other very big French festivals like Nice and Vienne, that she will go immortalize before long, her reporter/photograph nature will make her pass the borders to bring her to a couple big European festivals, among which the North Sea Jazz Festival in Holland or the Cork Festival in Ireland.

Constantly wishing to enlarge her horizons and the range of her work, Sophie Leroux starts also to go on tour with musicians with whom she had developed good affinities, after knowing them for some time. This new string to her bow gives her access to a new kind of photography, more intimist, and complementary of her work during concerts.

In this very masculine world, her feminine approach brings an innovative insight on the artists and the act of creation, thus widening the range of jazz photography and offering the public  new means to apprehend this art.

Her pictures can be seen in numerous French papers, not only in the specialized press. They are often used by all the major companies of the record industry (Warner, Sony, Universal, Dreyfus Music, Nocturne…), but were also used for a few DVDs. Some of them were even used to make stamps (Stephane Grapelli and Michel Petrucciani en 2001)!


Le bassiste de légende : Stanley Clarke

Like a true artist, Sophie Leroux is particularly fond of expositions, which constitute an alternative, and altogether very positive mean of interaction with the same public she sees in all the jazz clubs and festivals of her home town. She already displayed in many Parisian places like the Théâtre de Chaillot, la grande halle de la Villette or la Fnac, who all appealed to her sensitivity.

Today unanimously renowned in the profession as a journalist photographer of jazz and blues, The 2008 edition of the Paris Jazz Festival is happy to present you Sophie Leroux’s new exhibiton, entitled “Les Mains du Jazz” – the Hands of Jazz…