Yesterday, the final day of the 2024 Charlie Parker Jazz Festival, was sunny and mournful all at once. This youngish bassist, Russell Hall, backed up a youngish vocalist, Ekep Welle, relatively new on the scene. During the set, they devoted a tune to one of the greatest jazz guitarist of my generation, another Russell (Malone), who died suddenly in Japan, on tour with the legendary bassist, Ron Carter, in his hotel room, after their first gig, from a heart attack at the age of 60. Gone way too soon. So after the set, I went backstage and greeted Russell whom I had only met and photographed once when he was a spectator to another jazz performance in Central Park, with his beloved pet parrot on his shoulder, who regularly shows up in public with him, unless, of course, he is performing. I placed him in the most dramatic and difficult light and to my great pleasure, it worked out to express his sorrowful feelings and mine, about the loss of that other Russell...
