Monday, March 19, 2007

The perfect combination of sound and vision

I have been carrying it everywhere the past few days, cracking it open frequently to take another look.
Lee Tanner's "The Jazz Image: Masters of Jazz Photography" is a magnificent collection of the iconic, black-and-white photographs of the jazz scene.
All of the famous photos are here:
* William Gottleib's shot of Charlie Parker and Red Rodney listening to Dizzy Gillespie (who is viewed in a reflection).
* Herman Leonard's portrait of Dexter Gordon at the Royal Roost, with smoke swirling around his head.
* Val Wilmer's depiction of avant-garde sax player Frank Lowe leaning against a subway station stairway railing while a train whizzes past him.
* Frank Wolff's wonderful shot of pianist Bud Powell with his son John Earl Powell peeking over his shoulder (pictured above).
The atmospheric, indelible images make me want to hear the music the subjects created, so I have been listening to a lot of jazz.
Together, the photos in the book and the music make a wonderful combination of sound and vision.

1 Comments:

Blogger Mike said...

Erik, Carnegie-Stout Public Library recently added the DVD A Great Day in Harlem which "tells the story of Art Kane's famous 1958 group photograph of the jazz greats of the period. Includes home movie footage of that day of the musicians arriving and greeting each other the morning of the shoot. Also includes conversations with musicians and archival performance footage." See the photo here: http://www.harlem.org/.

10:49 AM  

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