Roberto Masotti

He has run through the musical history of our country since the early 70s, working with genuine institutions such as Gianni Sassi's Cramps Records, Area, Demetrio Stratos, John Cage and many others. One of his photographs of Franco Battiato graces the definitive Italian pop record, “His Master's Voice”. He is among the driving forces behind the legendary magazine Gong, has worked with the German label Ecm and (alongside his wife Silvia Lelli, herself a celebrated photographer) for La Scala. But it is jazz above all that has given him his greatest satisfactions: through his lens he has captured the likes of Miles Davis, Archie Shepp, Carla Bley, Sam Rivers, Cecil Taylor, Charles Mingus, Ornette Coleman and Keith Jarrett. With the latter he forged a special relationship that led to the book “Keith Jarrett, a portrait”, published by Seipersei and available from January 2020. The photo book is already available for pre-order in a first limited run of 150 signed and numbered copies, available at this address.

Roberto Masotti talks to us about his latest work and takes us on a journey through the experiences that made him one of the most internationally acclaimed Italian music photographers.

Tell me about your relationship with Keith Jarrett, how and where you met him, what drew you to his music.

It was a commission from Arrigo Polillo (editor of “Musica Jazz”), who in 1973 invited me to create a portrait of the pianist for the magazine's cover, which was indeed published as planned. We were in Bergamo, in the upper town, during the Jazz Festival where Keith played one of his legendary piano solo sets. “Facing You” had come out the year before, and there was a lot of curiosity around him as a figure. That's where I met him — when you do portraits, after all, you have to interact with your subject. At one point, towards the end of the session, Jarrett asked me to submit the photos to two different record labels, selecting two different sets of images: Impulse and ECM. He must have sensed I was putting together something good. That was kind of him. From there began my relationship with Manfred Eicher and ECM, which led me to take thousands of photos of countless artists, and repeatedly of Jarrett himself. I had already photographed him with Miles's electric band in 1971 in Berlin and Milan, and at his first European appearance as a trio leader in Bologna in 1969. As you can see, it's a long story. His way of playing, his gestures and expressions have always fascinated me — the touch, the precision, the density.

What can you tell me about Jarrett as a person? He's often portrayed as a difficult artist, not easy to deal with. In your relationship, did everything always go smoothly?

I got to know a kind and determined person, very approachable and accommodating, yet extremely engaged and controlled. You could tell he was demanding, and that it was worth the effort. Then you become mellower, and someone paints you as a diva. Illness and suffering can strike suddenly, and your character hardens, you become intolerant. I was always welcome at rehearsals and concerts, with the usual restrictions for the piano solo shows, and I was able to do some exclusive things. Sometimes Jarrett even urged me to be freer and more relaxed — can you imagine? Six years ago, when Keith saw the Arcana book, he called it the best gift he received for his seventieth birthday.

I imagine you've witnessed many of his performances — is there one (or more than one) that has stayed close to your heart?

The solo show in Villalago as part of Umbria Jazz in 1974, the “American” quartet in Bregenz in 1976 and the “European” one in Zurich the following year, then the trio in Ravenna in 1985 — but I'm sure I'm forgetting something, there were so many of his concerts I attended.

How did the idea for the book dedicated to him come about?

There was a first attempt and a first result six years ago with Arcana Edizioni: a photo album covering 40 years of pictures of him, with many different musicians and settings across Europe. The text was mine alone; it was mainly the photos telling the story. The new book is more concise, with fewer photos and only in black and white — more essential and refined, in my view and in that of Stefano Vigni of Seipersei, who, among other things, had laid out the first book and therefore knows the material very well. There are more texts this time, still brief, by Geoff Dyer, Franco Fabbri, and one of my own. As in the first book, the photos remain the main focus. A similar format will be used again for John Cage, which will be the second title in the “:a portrait” series.

In 2019 you published (again with Seipersei) “Jazz Area”, featuring your portraits of figures such as Miles Davis, Archie Shepp, Carla Bley, Sam Rivers, Cecil Taylor, Charles Mingus, Ornette Coleman... How did this project come about?

In 1973 I was invited to put on an exhibition at the first edition of Umbria Jazz. I staged it again in other venues, but it never became a publication — no great loss, since I had plenty of editorial and record-related opportunities over the years. For a long time I felt I shouldn't do any more exhibitions, until Roberto Valentino urged me to put one together for Pavia's Jazz per Due festival. Given how it was structured, this exhibition was hard to translate into a book, so it “limited” itself to touring many venues, with great success. Then a sense of challenge, along with the publisher's encouragement, made me realize that this format too could fascinate me. But above all, it was the autobiographical angle that proved essential. It's my story with jazz, not a history of jazz — it would be quite presumptuous of me to attempt that. In the book there's my broad view of jazz, with many facets, spanning half a century, but above all there are the artists, the musicians, and the relationship between them and their instruments. A complex story, and truly fascinating.

Your work ranges across the full spectrum, from jazz to classical, from avant-garde to improvisation, to rock... Which genre do you feel closest to?

I tend to be very selective about the quality of the music, but I don't pick a single genre — I embrace many. With Silvia Lelli we put together the work MUSICHE, which is really a manifesto for music in the round, shown at Palazzo Reale in Milan last year; we consider it very important because it's rich in multiple references as well as extremely select and evocative photographs. That said, what interests me most of all is the realm of improvisation, not only because I've developed a tendency to follow the most radical experiences, but also because I've put myself on the line directly through video: through this medium, together with Gianluca Lo Presti, I improvise with musicians. Last year in Naples, for instance, we did this with Barre Phillips, a giant of the double bass, at the invitation of Angeli Musicanti, and it was wonderful. Something to repeat, in fact.

Tell me about your beginnings in photography? What drew you to this craft?

What drew me in was curiosity, including the curiosity to explore the relationship between photography and music, something I'm still doing today. I started out taking photos at rock and jazz concerts: Ornette Coleman, Charles Mingus, Canned Heat, Van Der Graaf Generator, Frank Zappa... just to give an idea. In recent years I've come to realize that my best photos from that period are the portraits I took of Silvia, my wife and colleague — truly, we were still students back then. At the same time, studying Industrial Design in Florence led me to study photography in its various aspects, and above all to actually use it. I graduated with a thesis on point of view in object photography. Even before finishing my degree, I opened a studio in Ravenna with a colleague, and then in Bologna, before the final leap to Milan.

Was it difficult to establish yourself as a music photographer back when you started out?

Looking back, there weren't that many difficulties, apart from the ones tied to freelance work, risk, investment, the usual things. Starting out as a professional in the early Seventies, there wasn't all that much competition, and compared to now, magazines were more curious and open to unusual pitches. At the start, I did some pretty decent reportage from Montreux for Ciao 2001. The famous photo-essay! As for the quality of the writing, let's not go there — though I did get the hang of it after a while.

During the Seventies your name left an indelible mark on the visual identity of a historic magazine like Gong. What memories do you have of that experience?

With some friends we'd started out with Muzak, which was based in Rome, then we decided to go it alone and Gong was born — a wonderful adventure, though not so much a seminal one, since it remained a one-off. We did exclusive features, with lots of musicians in the studio (Herbie Hancock, Nico, Popol Vuh, Kevin Ayers, Area, Pfm…), trips like the one to London right as punk was exploding… and the collaboration with Mario Convertino, who really knew how to use photographs and was decidedly a visionary. Then there were writers like Fumagalli, Bertoncelli, Pellicciotti, Ungari, Delconte, Cella, Bolelli — and naming them, I realize how many have already left us.

Was there (and is there) also a political dimension to your work?

Music as a social phenomenon — the gatherings, the transformations, the changes — how could you not pay attention, not observe them, not interpret them? Trying to produce good images amounts to a political-cultural stance that I've naturally always held. Taking photographs helps you understand — it's still an act of knowing.

What was it like working with Gianni Sassi?

A charismatic figure, a demanding professional, a cultural agitator who nonetheless gave you room to breathe, who trusted you, and above all who gave real value to photographs — not just placing them within a graphic design of the highest level, but launching them as a communication mechanism, betting on certain images and choosing them with great determination. You can imagine how satisfying that was!

During the golden age of Italian prog your work became iconic, especially the projects tied to Cramps. What can you tell me, for instance, about the work you did for Area and for Stratos?

I'd call them friends first and foremost — there was a lot of complicity (to use a word dear to Sassi), a real rapport, a desire to do things together, to talk about them, to discuss, to listen together. Then again, Area were never really prog, as we know — not outsiders to it, but not fully inside it either. I'll say more, I'll confess: I was never a fan of prog, much like singer-songwriters. Paradoxically, I appreciate a bit of it here and there more now.

Another artist who tied his music to your images is Franco Battiato, a relationship that began during his experimental wanderings and continued right up to your cover photo for the pop album par excellence: "His Master's Voice".

Unfortunately I missed the "Pollution" period, but from "Sulle corde di Aries" onward it was a great journey. Franco is another friend — we did so many photo sessions together, in the most varied situations.

Then, when Silvia and I became La Scala's official photographers, the relationship inevitably slowed down, but we ran into each other often at the theatre — he'd turn up with Roberto Calasso and Fleur Jaeggy. When our arrangement with La Scala ended, he told me: "Good, let's pick up right where we left off." Nice, isn't it?

Among the legendary artists with whom you formed a special bond, John Cage can't go unmentioned.

My meeting with Cage dates back to 1977, the year of the "concert" at the Lirico in Milan. That again ties back to my relationship with Sassi and Cramps. The following year came the Train, "Alla ricerca del silenzio perduto", three days travelling between Bologna, Porretta Terme, Ravenna, Rimini, and then to his home in New York and many other occasions besides. The connection with him was immediate — I produced a great deal in a limited number of years. He died the same year my father passed away. Something similar happened with Arvo Pärt: charismatic figures, deeply intense, who don't intimidate you but who make you act with real involvement, aware of the importance of what you're doing. I'll dedicate the second of the books I'm working on to John, after the one on Jarrett, due by 2021.

Your wife, Silvia Lelli, is another great name in Italian photography. How did your artistic relationship begin, and how did it develop over time?

In the meantime, it's worth knowing that we've known each other since 1966, we got married in 1972, and we've been fellow photographers since 1974, the year we moved to Milan. She also started using photography at the Faculty of Architecture in Florence, and once in Milan she decided to give it a real go. It didn't take long before she was already on the scene, drawn to theatre, dance, music. She worked for Gong too, but then "Musica Viva" came along, founded by Lorenzo Arruga, and she was its official photographer from the very start. Later came La Scala, and that's when Lelli e Masotti was born. We worked four-handed to cover that demanding, complex commitment, but we also conceived and carried out projects together, while each keeping our own independence, which led to important work for each of us, always moving almost exclusively within the performing arts.

How did you experience the shift from the commitment of the '70s to the retreat of the '80s?

The Seventies were years of a creativity that's hard to imagine unless you actually lived through them. That commitment was just as tangible, and, as I said before, there was a strong urge to document it by producing material to publish and share. Work on the avant-garde and on the most extreme edges of artistic expression gradually diminished through the '80s and '90s, but if anything I never lost the drive to stay engaged and to follow the experiments that artists never stopped producing and putting forward. The masses get distracted; only a few stay focused.

Working with La Scala alongside Silvia, from the sweltering worlds of jazz and rock to the austere world of classical music.

I called it a demanding, complex task earlier, and it really had to be done by two people, no less. Silvia brought me in, since she was the one who'd been asked. Then, if we're being thorough, we should also mention the assistants, who were important too. We brought a reportage spirit into La Scala, dynamic and curious, which came directly from our previous experiences — jazz, avant-garde theatre, performance art. I think we changed the image of opera, of classical music, which up to that point had been stately and static. Newspapers started publishing a lot more photos, which hadn't happened before. The style of programme booklets changed too, and for the first time rehearsal photos appeared in them. A small revolution, in short. We kept working freelance, and kept following our own interests as far as we could.

And your relationship with Manfred Eicher?

It's always been very simple and friendly. He liked my way of photographing and the rapport I built with the musicians. I was respectful and discreet, especially in the recording studio, a place that demands patience and where you have to be very careful and quiet. It seems impossible, but you manage, even if you're holding your breath the whole time. Starting from the first photos published in 1973 — the Jarrett shots taken in Bergamo I mentioned earlier — things moved to a full-on pace in the following decades, which also included promoting the label in Italy, a job I started in '75. I was the ECM man for almost forty years, until I left to focus on my own photographic work, with exhibitions and publications, curating the archive (in the meantime recognised by the Mibact), and selling prints through a partnership with the 29 Arts In Progress gallery in Milan. I still feel a very strong bond with the label and with Manfred, given that a good part of my life has been spent in Munich and along those sound-filled streets. As proof of that bond, in fact, the book on Jarrett will be featured on their website.

Among the many things you do, you're also a musician with Tai No-Orchestra — what kind of experience is that?

It's an informal collective bringing together some of the best Italian improvisers, both established and younger ones. We've put on festivals, released two albums for Setola di Maiale, and made videos. Just last year we took part in the Roccella Jonica festival with the project "Una fetta di limone", for three trios plus video projection, and then shortly after everything shut down, as we all know. We were about to do it again as part of the "Città Sonora" series — an association I'm part of — at the Radio Popolare auditorium, and then that too was halted. I wonder what will become of these more marginal musical forms if things carry on like this. Improvisation really needs an audience — maybe not a big one, but people actually there. As for me, I'm a "non-musician", if you please!

Plans for the future?

With Città Sonora there's a project for an exhibition/installation on John Cage, as well as a documentary, plus the book I mentioned earlier. Still with the association, we're trying to work around the various shutdowns with "calls for works" that bounce the contributions we ask of the artists we want to reach off onto social media audiences. On December 21st, the anniversary of Zappa's death, a series of videos by guitarists and bassists will go up on the association's YouTube channel — a fresh, original kaleidoscope. Personally, I want to get back as soon as possible to a project on nature and landscape that I've been building over the years and that still hasn't taken its final shape. The title is Naturae Sequentia Mirabilis. Then there are a few video projects... but we'll talk about those another time.

Ride the wave of great music

Add OndaRock to your favorite sources on Google Discover. Don't miss our reviews, milestones and latest news straight in your feed.

Follow on Google