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Dean Frey

@dean.bsky.social

2K followers 460 following 19K posts

aka Deny Fear 📷 Esther Bubley Man on Platform, c. 1951 Profile: Nicola D'Ascenzo's "His Master's Voice" stained-glass window "And when you look along the way we've come, there are spirals of vultures wheeling." - Bruce Chatwin

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Dean Frey @dean.bsky.social · Nov 20

Another cup of coffee? No thanks, I've had plenty... Ha ha ha ha ha! I'm just kidding. Keep 'em coming. ☕️☕️☕️

Lew Baxter in Her Own Money, 1922

This is a print from the great French photographer Roger Corbeau's silent Hollywood film collection.

Baxter, offered a cup of coffee, waves the woman with the pot away.

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Reposted by Dean Frey

Jessica Ritchey @jmritchey.bsky.social · 7h

I don't follow sports but even I understand my friends who do are apparently watching the Berlin Alexanderplatz of baseball games.

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Dean Frey @dean.bsky.social · 9h

Richard Richards
James Mason at a pub in Dublin
GQ, December 1966

Description: James Mason holding a beer with a bartender in the background at a pub in Dublin, Ireland.

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Dean Frey @dean.bsky.social · 20h

James Stevenson
New Yorker, November 11, 1967

Cartoon:
Husband & wife talking over breakfast.

Caption: "That play last night..."
"It was good." "Good." "Pinter wrote it." "Good, wasn't it?" "I thought it was good." "It was." "Yes. Harold Pinter."

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Dean Frey @dean.bsky.social · 20h

Otto Stupakoff's shot of Harold Pinter and Vivien Merchant for Harper's Bazaar, 1967

The two stand together in an empty space, looking cool.

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Dean Frey @dean.bsky.social · 20h

Tom Stoppard tells this cute story about his first meeting with Harold Pinter, in this Paris Review Art of the Theater interview.

theparisreview.org/interviews/2...

The first time I met Harold Pinter was when I was a journalist in Bristol and he came down to see a student production of The Birthday Party. I realized he was sitting in the seat in front of me. I was tremendously intimidated and spent a good long time working out how to engage him in conversation. Finally, I tapped him on the shoulder and said, "Are you Harold Pinter or do you just look like him?" "What?" So that was the end of that.

Dean Frey @dean.bsky.social · 21h

Harold Pinter & Tom Stoppard in a fine Arnold Newman photo from 1978

The two playwrights on an empty stage, with the seats & boxes of the theatre behind them.

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Dean Frey @dean.bsky.social · 21h

Harold Pinter by Neil Libbert

"He mapped out his own country with its own distinctive topography - a place haunted by the shifting ambivalence of memory, flecked by uncertainty, reeking of sex & echoing with strange, mordant laughter."
- Michael Billington

Pinter on a smoky, empty stage, light by spotlights.

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Dean Frey @dean.bsky.social · 21h

Remembering Harold Pinter on his birthday 🎂
📷 Bill Brandt, 1981

"The speech we hear is an indication of that which we don't hear. One way of looking at speech is to say that it is a constant stratagem to cover nakedness."

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Dean Frey @dean.bsky.social · 21h

Two Nobel Prize Laureates for Literature were born on October 10: Claude Simon (1913) & Harold Pinter (1930)

Simon by Jean Guichard, 1985
Pinter by Cecil Beaton, 1962

Simon in a sweater, sitting on some ruins

Black & white photo of Pinter holding his glasses.

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Reposted by Dean Frey

CRUISE SHIP DRUMMER!™ @cruiseshipdrummer.bsky.social · 21h

"When are we going to rehearse? He said, "What do you want to do, learn how to cheat? He said, "You already know how to play right. Now play wrong and make it right. And he just walked away.

- Ben Riley, asking Monk about his first gig with the band at the Royal Festival Hall, London

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Reposted by Dean Frey

Michael Hunter @mikelark.bsky.social · 21h

Reporter: “Do you like Country & Western music?”
Monk: “I like any kind of music, as long as it's played with soul.”
Reporter: “But do you like Country music?”

Monk, to friend: “He wasn't listening to what I was saying… ”

Happy Birthday to the eternal Monk.

Dean Frey @dean.bsky.social · 21h

I love Jimmy Rowles's song "The Ballad of Thelonious Monk", sung by Carmen McCrae live in 1967.

As McRae says in her introduction, "Anyone who can think up a country and western song about Thelonious cannot be wrapped too tight!"

That's Joe Pass on guitar.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Lb1...

The Ballad of Thelonious Monk (Live)

YouTube video by Carmen McRae - Topic

www.youtube.com

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Dean Frey @dean.bsky.social · 21h

A studio portrait of Giuseppe Verdi, c. 1858, possibly by Nadar or Andre Disderi. Both photographed Verdi while he was in Paris.

Dean Frey @dean.bsky.social · 21h

Remembering Giuseppe Verdi on his birthday
🎨 Walter Toscano-Peru, 2017

"Most creators with Verdi’s stature have altered the language, the substance, & the direction of their art.... Yet his work is self-contained, & his path leads down a cul-de-sac."
- Robert Craft

youtube.com/watch?v=cHw4...

Caricature of Verdi, emphasizing his huge white moustache.

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Dean Frey @dean.bsky.social · 21h

The Ballad of Thelonious Monk (Live)

YouTube video by Carmen McRae - Topic

www.youtube.com

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Dean Frey @dean.bsky.social · 21h

One of the great jazz photographs, by Bob Parent:

Charles Mingus, Roy Haynes, Thelonious Monk & Charlie Parker
The Open Door, New York, September 13, 1953

"Working with Monk is like falling down a dark elevator shaft."
- John Coltrane

A photo of the small stage, with the four musicians performing.

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Dean Frey @dean.bsky.social · 21h

"I gave Scoville Browne the Canon, which had color slide film in it."
- Milt Hinton

A shot taken with Hinton's camera, presumably by Browne.

Marian McPartland, Mary Lou Williams & Thelonious Monk, "A Great Day in Harlem", August 12, 1958

The three stand smiling together as the large group portrait gets set up. Monk wears dark sunglasses.

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Dean Frey @dean.bsky.social · 21h

Thelonious Monk by Moneta Sleet Jr., 1961

"I think that Monk was probably one of the most inspiring, delightful, warm, sensitive, funny, brilliant people to be around. And his music reflects that."
- David Amram

www.youtube.com/watch?v=mQWB...

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Dean Frey @dean.bsky.social · 21h

Thelonious Monk by Burt Glinn, New York, 1975

"I felt I learned from him in every way - through the senses, theoretically, technically. I would talk to Monk about musical problems, & he would sit at the piano & show me the answers just by playing them."
- John Coltrane

Monk in his trademark knit hat, smoking a cigarette at the piano

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Dean Frey @dean.bsky.social · 21h

Thelonious Monk by W. Eugene Smith, c. 1965

"He does not take his jazz the easy way. Each note is apparently considered, weighed, analysed and then reluctantly committed to the audience. It does not make for easy listening, but why should it?"
- Harold Jackson

www.youtube.com/watch?v=YCmr...

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Reposted by Dean Frey

Dean Frey @dean.bsky.social · Oct 10

For Thelonious Monk's birthday, this great photo by William P Gottlieb
Minton's Playhouse, New York, September 1947

"Although it's sort of not in my department & I don't know too much about that type of music, I like it an awful lot. Wonderful piano."
- Count Basie

A young Monk at the piano, in front of an Art Deco mural. He’s dressed in a striped suit.

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Reposted by Dean Frey

Dean Frey @dean.bsky.social · Oct 10

Thelonious Monk's Underground, 1968

Photography by Steve Horn & Norm Griner
Art direction by John Berg & Richard Mantel

"After the photo session Monk got up & left with The Baroness. The only word he had spoken in all that time was to the cow."
- Michael Cuscuna

Album cover:
Monk at an upright piano. He has an automatic weapon, & on a table nearby are more guns & grenades. On the piano is a bottle of red wine. Behind him are a live cow, a mannequin in a German officer’s uniform, roped to a chair. A Nazi flag hangs over an end table.

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Reposted by Dean Frey

Dean Frey @dean.bsky.social · Oct 10

Remembering Thelonious Monk on his birthday 🎂
📷 Erich Auerbach, 1961

"Monk is really making use of all the unused space around jazz, and he makes you feel that there are plenty of unopened doors."
- Paul Bacon

A closeup of Monk breathing out cigarette smoke. He’s wearing a cloth cap.

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Dean Frey @dean.bsky.social · 22h

Claude Simon
Musiciens, c. 1937

Musicians seen in silhouette on a platform, as they play for dancers in a town square.

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Dean Frey @dean.bsky.social · 22h

Claude Simon
Enfant et bicyclette, between 1937 & 1960

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Dean Frey @dean.bsky.social · 22h

Besides being a Nobel Prize-winning writer, Claude Simon was a superb photographer.

📷 Danseuses, Paris, c. 1937

Three young girls dance on a Paris street

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