What a Great Time To Be In Detroit...

...at least if you're me. Not only is this weekend a long Labor Day break from the drudgery of nine-to-five, but I'll have a chance to flex my photography skills with two of my favorite pastimes (besides photography, of course).

This Friday through Sunday is the Detroit International Jazz Festival. It's the largest free jazz fest in the world. Some of the best jazz players alive will be performing at various venues; this year featuring players from Detroit and Philadelphia. Those that know jazz will know that these two cities have produced players that have changed the face of jazz music since King Oliver and his band, including Louis Armstrong, left New Orleans to spread the sound early in the 20th century.

On the same weekend is the Detroit Belle Isle Grand Prix; featuring roadracing sports cars (American Le Mans Series) and open wheeled racers (Indy Racing League). I will be covering and photographing the Grand Prix for a Canadian online motorsports journal; Race Family Motorsports (http://www.rfmsports.com/).

What do these two events have in common? Me, for one thing. I've been photographing motorsports since 1972 when I spent rolls of film shooting at the Canadian Grand Prix at Mosport Park in Bowmanville, Ontario. My best friend and I were so taken by the spectacle of open wheel road racing, we spent the next 8 or 10 summers running our own Formula Ford in Sports Car Club of America sanctioned events.

As far as jazz goes, I've been fascinated by it since I was 12 or 13 years old and I asked my dad for a Dave Brubeck album for my birthday (Brubeck, in his late 80's, is appearing at this years Jazz Fest).

Jazz and roadracing share other traits. Both require the ultimate in concentration and mastery. Both reward those best able to control their instruments as extensions of themselves, while improvising within a structured framework that tests both the right and left brain. Both reward their practitioners (and their fans) with the joy that comes from the supreme expression of what it means to go to the edge and dance on the precipice.

The choruses are straightaways, the verses are turns, improvise your way through them and I'll meet you at the bridge.