“Above all, enjoy the music” – Herman Leonard
March 6, 1923 – August 14, 2010
Art Blakey
Paris, 1958
Charlie Parker
NYC, 1949
Herbie Hancock
Fats Navarro,
NYC, 1948
Sonny Stitt
NYC, 1953
Dexter Gordon
NYC, 1948
Lester Young’s Hat
NYC, 1948
Herman’s passion for jazz brought him to New York City’s Greenwich Village, where he established a studio at 220 Sullivan Street and captured the swinging clubs of Broadway, 52nd Street and Harlem. With the camera as his free ticket, he photographed and developed friendships with some of the greats of jazz history including Charlie Parker, Dizzy Gillespie, Billie Holiday, Duke Ellington and many more.
Herman’s jazz photographs, now collector’s items, are a unique record of the jazz scene of the 1940s, 1950s and 1960s. The Smithsonian claims 130 original Herman Leonard photographic prints in its permanent collection, where they are considered as essential to American music history as Benny Goodman’s clarinet or Louis Armstrong’s horn.
The Herman Leonard Jazz Archive was established in 2007 and in 2008 was awarded a Grammy Foundation Grant for Archiving and Preservation. Herman’s goal through the archive is to bring his entire jazz collection, comprising a visual documentation of America’s original art form, back to life and preserve it for future generations. [extracts : herman leonard photography]
what a splendid collection of jazz portraits!
oh, indeed!…wonderful!…love that one of Herbie and Lester’s hat.