[2] Jaffe left Penn State at the age of 19, returned briefly to New York where he played harmonica and guitar in various bands, and then picked up suddenly and moved to Brazil.
Jaffe became close to the influential Brazilian filmmaker Neville d’Almeida and the artist Hélio Oiticica, with whom he collaborated in the April 1970 exhibition “From Body to Earth” in Belo Horizonte.
When Jaffe returned in New York in 1971, he continued making films, such as Impact, with the conceptual artist Vito Acconci, and Brooklyn Bridge, with Gordon Matta-Clark.
[4] His works have been characterized as “large scale, multi-media historical assemblage.”[5] Through his work, he has explored various themes of marginalization in American history, such as “the exploitation of the black performer in America, the cruelty of the fur industry, the relationship of the Native American to his environment, the ambiguity of America's traitors.”[6] Jaffe has exhibited at major museums worldwide, including Moderna Museet, Stockholm, Sweden; Irish Museum of Modern Art, Dublin, Ireland; and the Ikon Gallery, Birmingham, England.
This book is a sort of autobiography in which Jaffe reveals precious details about his meetings and relations with Bob Marley and other extraordinary artists including Peter Tosh, Hélio Oiticica, Vito Acconci, and Jean-Michel Basquiat just to name a few.