This is a book of photographs taken at the recording sessions described above (and elsewhere) during the early 1960s. Before receiving this book I already had several others consisting mainly of photos of jazz musicians, but this is larger than any of them. It measures around 10 inches by 13 inches and is well over an inch thick. And, of course, it’s heavy. So it won’t fit in most bookshelves and falls into the “coffee table” category.
The 300 photographs included were taken by a certain Steve Schapiro before he became well-known by photographing James Baldwin, Martin Luther King, Robert F. Kennedy and others who were more famous than jazz musicians. So these photographs were stored away with thousands of similar ones until Schapiro died (in 2022, aged 87) and his wife began a selection of the best. Later Richard Scheinen, who wrote the introduction and further helpful commentary on individual musicians, became involved in a process which reduced a thousand images to this final selection. There’s a foreword by the late Sonny Rollins, who lived just long enough to see the book in its final form. The six photos of Rollins included here can give an example of the variety Schapiro provides. In the first (beside his foreword) he holds his partly assembled saxophone and looks seriously at a smiling Paul Chambers. They are clearly in a kind of dressing room and there’s a long bar with heavy weights on the floor. Many pages later two photos show Rollins about to lift the bar and then lifting it. Immediately afterwards we see him more conventionally, horn in his mouth, once on his own and once with Bob Cranshaw and his bass.
This contrast between conventional and unconventional images recurs throughout the book. A review can’t list the names of all the musicians, both famous and little-known, who appear here but the former category includes Basie, Blakey, Miles Davis, Dolphy, Edison, Eldridge, Bill Evans, Gillespie, Hawkins, Milt Jackson, Elvin Jones, Jo Jones, the MJQ, Mulligan, Shorter, Strayhorn and Clark Terry. (And special mention should be given to Bobby Timmons, a photogenic man who appears an amazing 10 times.) Most of the many other musicians fall into the “modernist” category but Milt Hinton and Ida Cox were caught at the latter’s Riverside session and Jimmy Archey, Pops Foster and Lil Hardin can be seen on a similarly nostalgic occasion.
Turning to the pictures as photographs I should make it clear that all are in black and white and in sharp focus. Many take up a whole page, some occupy half a page and a handful are spread over two pages. (And many are accompanied by Scheinen’s helpful commentary.) Composition varies from conventional to striking and there’s plenty of imaginative artistic virtue. Amongst similar collections I would rate this very highly (and at the time of writing the book is available at amazon.co.uk with a significant discount). Moreover, as an afterthought, if this collection sells well enough a second selection from the massive Schapiro archive could provide a sequel.
Jazz – Best Of The Apollo, Village Vanguard and Riverside Sessions by Steve Schapiro and Richard Scheinen. Accart Books, 316pp, hb, ISBN 978-1-78884-342-3
