The Jazz Image: Seeing Music through Herman Leonard's Photography

INTRODUCTION

3 Introduction Herman Leonard’s photographs are some of the most recognized images in jazz history. His depictions of predominantly african american jazz musicians in new york city have created not only a visual record of jazz in the 1950s, but have also become the standard by which the musical style of jazz was, and continues to be, visually represented. His photographs have, in effect , established a strong association between the image and music of jazz. the term image can be illusive and loaded with multiple meanings, but for the purposes of this book, it means not only concrete visual depiction, but also a mental picture or collective understanding of something. in this case, the visual image as facilitated by Leonard in his photography has come to represent a particular mental understanding of the sound and look of jazz. Leonard was already successful with his commercial photography taken from the 1950s to the 1980s ranging from Life magazine to Playboy, but his more recent claim to fame stems from the Special Photographer’s company in 1988. at this London exhibit, Leonard displayed the photographs of jazz musicians he had taken while he was first learning how to use the camera as a tool and creative art form in the 1940s and 1950s. Musicians such as charlie Parker, Miles Davis, ella fitzgerald, Duke ellington, and Dizzy Gillespie contributed to the vitality of jazz during the mid-twentieth century. Leonard took his photographs at an important turning point in jazz history—the evolution of bebop and modern jazz. He was present as bebop emerged onto the jazz scene and successfully captured on film what the musicians were trying to do themselves: to create a new interpretation from existing standards. these photographs have had a large impact on both listeners and performers of the jazz community. they have been used in books on jazz ranging from biography to classroom textbook.1 Leonard was featured in Ken Burns’s nationally broadcasted documentary television series entitled Jazz: A History of America’s Music, and has himself been the subject of a documentary film, Frame After Frame: The Images of Herman Leonard, produced and directed by tika Laudun for Louisiana Public Broadcasting and narrated by 4 InTRoDuCTIon tony Bennett. the instant success of these images reflects upon the admiration that both the non-jazz and the jazz community have for Leonard’s talent for photography. His images capture the very essence of jazz. other jazz photographers have also garnered recognition for their work such as William Gottlieb, William claxton, ray avery, ole Brask, Herb Snitzer, Milt Hinton, francis (frank) Wolff, and Lee tanner. With the work of these photographers combined, one can assemble in retrospect a canon of jazz photography. although the work of these photographers consists of past jazz musicians, and like Leonard’s are as much as sixty years old, the canon of jazz photography is now in a process of being collected and redistributed. record companies, advertising representatives, agents, collectors , musicians, jazz repertory ensembles, museum curators, and universities have asked these jazz photographers for copies or prints of their work as a part of a revival in classic jazz that began in the 1980s. Spurred by a reissuing of classic jazz cDs and jazz imagery, the visual image of jazz has been on the rise. Born in allentown, Pennsylvania, in 1923, Herman Leonard discovered —on the yearbook staff in high school—that the camera could grant him access into many venues. He decided to pursue the photography program at ohio University in athens, ohio, at that time the only university to offer a degree in photography.2 in 1943 he was drafted into the United States army, and traveled to Burma with the 13th Mountain Medical Battalion as an anesthetist. for over two years he trekked the Burma road from assam to Mandelay, all the while developing film late at night in his combat helmet. after being honorably discharged from the army, he finished school in 1947, the same year he attended one of norman Granz’s traveling Jazz at the Philharmonic concerts in columbus, ohio, and took his first few photographs of jazz musicians.3 He received the remarkable opportunity to serve as an apprentice to the famed portraitist yousuf Karsh and was influenced by the work of Henri cartier-Bresson, irving Penn, and W. eugene Smith. after a year under Karsh’s tutelage, Leonard opened his first studio in Greenwich village, and from 1948 to 1956 his photographs appeared regularly on...