The music photographer David Redfern, who has died aged 78, caught artists from Frank Sinatra and the Beatles to Arcade Fire in action, in almost half a century of globetrotting with a camera. Redfern was an informed and passionate jazz fan (the knowledge guided his sense of when to click the shutter), whose unobtrusiveness at work made him a favourite with musicians. He toured with Sinatra, could count several jazz stars as personal friends (Buddy Rich used to demand Wheres Redfern? on his opening nights, and Dave Brubeck once came to the footlights to shake his hand in mid-concert) and his images adorning the walls at Ronnie Scotts have long been crucial to the clubs unique atmosphere.
Perhaps most importantly, Redfern was an early explorer of jazz photography in colour, at a time in the 1960s when the accepted wisdom was smoky low-light shots in monochrome. He liked working in daylight at the worlds jazz and rock festivals, and captured many of his images of 1960s rock celebrities on TV pop shows such as Ready Steady Go! and Thank Your Lucky Stars. Redferns images brought subcultures out into the open, and he often made jazz look like an open and exuberant pursuit, rather than a dark and downbeat one.
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