Jazz
Since the 1950s, Herman Leonard's photographs of jazz musicians have been crucial in shaping the image of the music and the world in which it was created. Leonard's friendships with jazz greats such as Dizzy Gillespie and Miles Davis gave him rare access to the innovators who made modern jazz and the places in which they made it. Leonard took his camera into the smoky clubs and after-hours sessions, to backstage parties and musicians' apartments, to build an incomparable visual record of one...
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Since the 1950s, Herman Leonard's photographs of jazz musicians have been crucial in shaping the image of the music and the world in which it was created. Leonard's friendships with jazz greats such as Dizzy Gillespie and Miles Davis gave him rare access to the innovators who made modern jazz and the places in which they made it. Leonard took his camera into the smoky clubs and after-hours sessions, to backstage parties and musicians' apartments, to build an incomparable visual record of one of the twentieth century's most significant art forms. His luminous images of Charlie Parker, Ella Fitzgerald, Duke Ellington, Billie Holiday, and many others, both in performance and "off duty," are at once supreme examples of the photographer's art and a unique record of a musical revolution. For this definitive collection of his work, Leonard has retrieved scores of previously unseen photographs, published here for the first time, alongside his most famous and widely recognized images. Accompanied by an essay exploring the stories behind the pictures, and an interview with Leonard revealing his techniques, Jazz captures and preserves the glory days of the music that has been called "the sound of surprise."
\ Library JournalAccurately billed as the "definitive collection of [Leonard's] work," this volume gives his jazz photographs the attention they deserve, just months after his passing at age 87. His work has been collected before in smaller books or alongside critical commentary, but a single volume dedicated to his sessions with jazz musicians was missing. Ten years after the beautiful Blue Note Jazz Photography of Francis Wolff, this Leonard edition creates the perfect bookend for jazz portraiture, covering the seminal period of the medium from the 1940s through the 1960s, along with images from the last 20 years—e.g., picturing Wynton Marsalis and a young Trombone Shorty and late photographs of one of Leonard's favorite subjects, Miles Davis. Compiling rarely seen photographs and his best-known images, this work also features a brief but enlightening interview with Leonard about the techniques of his work and his evolution with cameras. VERDICT Essential for any enthusiast of jazz or photography, this book belongs in every library as a tribute to these loved musicians.—Peter Thornell, Hingham P.L., MA\ \
