Musical Instruments

A guitar in the hands of a naked man makes a certain kind of sense. There’s the musician fantasy—the guy in the band, the private serenade, or the suggestion that clothes came off somewhere between songs. A grand piano adds its own domestic fantasy: an elegant den, a man wandering in from the bedroom, perhaps playing something before wandering back.

1. Johnny Menendez holding a guitar between his legs.

2. Tom Kane holding a mandalin on a fold out couch.

3. Sonny Landham holding an acoustic guitar in the same fold out couch.

4. Unknown model in a white tank playing a guitar.

5. Jean Cardin in half t and tube socks in front of a grand piano.

Then things get a little stranger. Mike Stern sitting naked on the edge of a bed with a bugle balanced on his knee? Emil Swoboda blowing a shofar naked in the backyard? Why? Who knows. That may be precisely the charm. Like so many of these handheld props, the instrument gives the model something to hold, play with and play against—sometimes creating fantasy, sometimes simply delightful absurdity.

6. Mike Stern holding a bugle...likely a military reference, the Bugle Boy...naked in bed.

7. Emil Swoboda blowing into a shofar in the back yard.

The headphones bring everything back home. Listening to music is private and intimate, suggesting the ordinary pleasure of sharing space—or perhaps musical taste—with another man. The technology also dates the photographs beautifully. Those big headphones belong unmistakably to their moment.

8. Richard Burke dancing in his headphones.

9. Richard Burke wearing headphones and adjusting the reel-to-reel tape player.

10. Cory Eliot wearing white collared shirt and white socks and listening to his walkman.

Please leave thoughts, questions, corrections or additions in the comments. Thank you, bns