Doing it for the love
JOSH YOUNG: THE EYE BEHIND THE LENS
The sound is the most important part of jazz, but what about the look? Looking jazzy is essential. Just ask Josh Young, the eye behind the lens who snaps all those zippy photos at every Tucson Jazz Society concert.
Young not only takes the pictures, he produces the quarterly JazzBeat publication, designs all the TJS ads that appear in Tucson Lifestyle, Desert Leaf and other community publications, designs all the posters (often using his photographs), creates the banners displayed at the tables selling tickets and memberships, all the graphics elements at every TJS event as well as the display tables that society members set up at other cultural events around town.
“I’m not appointed to do any of these things,” Young says with a little chuckle. “But if it is visual, I’m concerned.”
In the fine print of Young’s lengthy professional resume as a graphic arts designer it notes he is a “specialist in corporate and institutional identity, logo and poster design.”
After two careers in big time advertising, one in big cities (including the design of posters selected by NASA to celebrate the Voyager missions, and in 1962 designing a presidential trophy given by President Kennedy to astronaut John Glenn commemorating the first US manned orbital space flight) and one career with the University of Arizona.
After retiring from that big city life in Chicago and Los Angeles, he returned to Tucson joining the University of Arizona as a graphics designer. Now he is best remembered as the man who designed two of the city’s most iconic images: the fierce Wildcat face seen on everything from t-shirts to pickup trucks; the unique scene of saguaro and mountains painted on the basketball court at McKale Center.
He also had a hand in the committee work that developed the controversial Block A in blue and red that has now become the university’s most immediate identity.
Around the year 2000 he was asked to help give the Tucson Jazz Society a newer, more professional look.
“At that time,” Young says, “The whole organization was run by volunteers. All their photos were black&white.”
Young saw lots of full-color possibilities. Now the Tucson native and graduate of Tucson High School pours all of his talents into TJS. Always being a visual person, he’s always seeing the bigger picture. And he’s always doing it for the love.
Volunteering four to eight hours of time and energy every day to TJS, Young truly does apply his talent to virtually every aspect of how the 32-year-old organization looks in public.
Instead of just applying his vision to JazzBeat, the print media display ads and larger-than-life posters that bring in the crowds, Young gets out there in the audience during every concert – indoors or outdoors – looking at the stage lighting, checking the backdrops, seeing how the musicians are being framed. Being sure the performance looks as professional as it sounds.
It’s a long way from being that starving college student and devoted jazz fan at the Art Center College of Design in Pasadena back in the early 1950s, scrunching up close to the bandstand at The Haig in L.A. (“It was across the street from the Coconut Grove.”) where he would sit three feet from the band for hours at a time.
“I would look up through the slats of Red Norvo’s vibes and see Charles Mingus playing bass,” Young remembered. “Tal Farlow was on guitar.”
Other favorites included Bud Shank, Bob Cooper, June Christy and Jimmy Giuffre. “I heard them all at Rumsey’s Lighthouse on Hermosa Beach,” Young said proudly.
“At the Haig there was a waitress who would wink at my buddies and I, then let us sit there all night with just one drink,” Young remembered. The memories still make him smile.
The graphic arts designer and photographer-on-the-spot has lots to smile at these days, too. In the past decade he has given TJS that bright new professional look.
The organization is fortunate to have him, because its clear for everyone to see, Young gave them the look, alright – THE LOOK OF LOVE.
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