The Jazz Image: Seeing Music through Herman Leonard's Photography 1st Edition/1st Printing HARDCOVER by K. HEATHER PINSON

Contents:

ILLUSTRATIONS

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

INTRODUCTION

CHAPTER 1

The Formation of the Jazz Image in Visual Culture

CHAPTER 2

The Construction of Signs in Jazz Photography

CHAPTER 3

Ceci n'est pas jazz: The Battle for Ownership

CHAPTER 4

A "Style Portrait" of the Avant-Garde

CONCLUSION

The Visual Image of Jazz

APPENDIX A

Herman Leonard Timeline 1923 to 2008

APPENDIX B

List of Exhibitions for Herman Leonard's Photography

NOTES

BIBLIOGRAPHY

INDEX

Typically, a photograph of a jazz musician has several formal prerequisites: black-and-white film, an urban setting in the mid-twentieth century, and a black man standing, playing, or sitting next to his instrument. That's the jazz archetype that photography created. Author K. Heather Pinson discovers how such a steadfast script developed visually and what this convention meant for the music.

Album covers, magazines, books, documentaries, art photographs, posters, and various other visual extensions of popular culture formed the commonly held image of the jazz player. Through assimilation, there emerged a generalized composite of how mainstream jazz looked and sounded. Pinson evaluates representations of jazz musicians from 1945 to 1959, concentrating on the seminal role played by Herman Leonard (b. 1923). Leonard's photographic depictions of African American jazz musicians in New York not only created a visual template of a black musician of the 1950s, but also became the standard configuration of the music's neoclassical sound today. To discover how the image of the musician affected mainstream jazz, Pinson examines readings from critics, musicians, and educators, as well as interviews, musical scores, recordings, transcriptions, liner notes, and oral narratives.

HOW PHOTOGRAPHER HERMAN LEONARD AND OTHERS CREATED THE ICON OF THE SOPHISTICATED JAZZ MUSICIAN

"Pinson's contribution is not only a welcome analysis of the photographs of a leading American photographer, but a visual portal into the ways jazz musicians are imagined, regarded, and heard. If the 'jazz image' is more vivid in the popular imagination than the music- and if the image, in fact, conditions listeners-as Pinson claims, then a cultural study of jazz and its meanings needs more studies like this one that not only include photography, but bring it into special focus. This study of the production, travels, reincarnations, and many uses of Herman Leonard's jazz photographs is a compelling model for more jazz studies in which the visual is front-row-center.”

-Sherrie Tucker, associate professor of American Studies, University of Kansas

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Reader Reviews:

5.0 out of 5 stars

Excellent Book on an Outstanding Photographer

A well researched book with interesting discussions of Leonard's idiosyncrasies and background on his iconic artistry with his camera. Leonard was the Ansel Adams of main stream jazz. His artistry remains a treasure trove of what jazz was all about in the twentieth century.

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5.0 out of 5 stars

A master work on a master

I bought this as a gift for a friend who is a jazz photographer. He knew of Leonard's work but said he really got a lot out of reading this. Indeed, I think his photography, always great, has improved as a result.