Why Jazz Teddy Bears?

In 2007, Kent Rogowski released a book of photographs of teddy bears that he had opened up and turned inside-out.

I think you create a simple and surprising conflict between what we like to think childhood represents, and the icon of that, with the realities of that experience. Teddy bears are designed to be innocuous and non-threatening creatures. Inside-out the bears are still sometimes recognizable but are now much more complicated and contradictory.

Music is the same. All you may see and hear is someone playing an instrument but peel back the layers and you'll find a maelstrom of different influences, of masters past and present, from different musical genres and around the world, and our own personal heroes and demons.

When you look at the inside-out bears they appear to have a history or a past. They no longer offer comfort but instead seem to want our empathy.