"Kirk Joseph / Sousaphone" framed photograph (19.5" x 33.5") by Michael Weintrob is a part of Michael Weintrob's surrealist photo project "InstrumentHead"

About the Artist:

For the best part of 20 years, Brooklyn-based photographer Michael Weintrob has been taking pictures of the biggest musicians in the world for prestigious publications such as Rolling Stone, Spin, Jazz Times and Newsweek.  Whether he is standing in front of the stage or working in his New York studio shooting his subjects, his effervescent enthusiasm for both photography and music shines through.

InstrumentHead captures the very essence of an eclectic array of unique characters that ranges from iconic figures such as Bootsy Collins and King Sunny Ade to lesser-known but equally fascinating musicians like Big Chief Boudreaux and Uncle Lionel Batiste, who both look just as cool as their names suggest.  “Whether they are famous or almost completely-unknown, whether they play mbira or Moog, saxophone or sitar, the one thing that all of them have in common is that music really is absolutely central to everything they do,” Weintrob explains, “I decided to place their instruments in front of their faces in an attempt to blur the boundaries between each individual personality and the tools of their trade.”

“When I was asked to think of a tagline to explain the idea behind my InstrumentHead exhibition, what I initially came up with was – ‘Where their head’s really at.’  I thought it sounded like it was trying a bit too hard to be hip, but when I began to really think about these intriguing, larger-than-life characters for whom music is seemingly just as important as air, I thought that “Where their head’s really at’ summed up the whole idea perfectly.”