This famous 1958 photo by Art Kane, A Great Day in Harlem, brought together 57 jazz musicians for a group portrait. Luminaries range from Count Basie and Coleman Hawkins to Charles Mingus and Dizzie Gillespie and Sonny Rollins. Norbizness points to a helpful web page: harlem.org, which provides a clickable version of the photo! Point to any musician, and it will tell you who they are and provide a brief biography.
Years ago I saw a documentary by Jean Bach about the making of the portrait, which included many interviews with the surviving musicians (now available on DVD). My favorite part was seeing Thelonious Monk get ready for the shoot. You see him strategizing about how to stand out among all the other luminaries. First he decides to wear black, to look cool. Then he figures that everyone else will be wearing black, so he’s going to wear white. (As it turns out, everyone else had the same thought, so there’s a lot of white jackets in the photo.) Finally he realizes that the best thing to do will be to grab a spot next to the ladies, where everyone will be looking first. And lo and behold there he is, next to fellow pianists Mary Lou Williams and Marian McPartland (still going strong as host of NPR’s Piano Jazz). Monk needn’t have worried; he didn’t have any trouble standing out.
An Interactive Day in Harlem
March 22nd, 2006 at 3:23 pm
Way cool.
The only way that could be cooler would be to have Clifford in it.
March 22nd, 2006 at 9:00 pm
There’s a whole bunch of kids in this photograph too, sitting on the curb (I counted 13 of them) and also in the window. I wonder who they were! Future jazzmen?
March 22nd, 2006 at 9:06 pm
Sahib Shihab, who I always thought had one of the coolest names in Jazz turns out to be one Edmund Gregory, I am crushed…
March 23rd, 2006 at 12:23 am
Pyracantha — click on them! They were recruited for the purpose by Count Basie.
March 23rd, 2006 at 11:48 am
That’s a really cool picture.
March 24th, 2006 at 10:55 pm
adam. Perhaps I am.
-cvj
March 25th, 2006 at 1:54 pm
Interactive Harlem Jazz Photo
Anna and I just returned from our Seattle trip and I’ll post lots about that soon. In the meantime, here’s a great post from CosmicVariance…This famous 1958 photo by Art Kane, A Great Day in Harlem, brought together 57 jazz