Books &Music Entropy | 26 Nov 2010
Everything in its time
Listen: Herman Leonard and his World of Jazz
Herman Leonard’s life was an example of the phrase “everything in its time.”
Shortly after earning a fine-arts degree in photography in the late 1940s, Leonard was making a living as a commercial photographer during the day and hanging out in jazz clubs in New York at night. Leonard focused his camera’s lens on young musicians who would go on to become jazz legends: Billie Holiday, Dizzy Gillespie and Miles Davis, to name just a few.
Today, Leonard’s black-and-white photographs of jazz musicians are considered as artful and expressive as the music they chronicled.
“You could look at his photos and almost hear the music,” says John Edward Hasse, curator of American music at the Smithsonian National Museum of American History. “He used light, shadow and smoke, and he made indelible the faces of many of the greatest American musicians of the 20th century.”
Listen: Herman Leonard and his World of Jazz..
The Publisher 21st Editions has announce Listen: Herman Leonard and His World of Jazz, its newest upcoming Platinum Series title and a 2010 Lucie Award Nominee for Book Publisher of the Year.
Listen: Herman Leonard and His World of Jazz includes an introduction by Quincy Jones and more than 60 iconic photographs of Jazz greats such as Louis Armstrong, Duke Ellington, Dizzy Gillespie, Billie Holiday, Charlie Parker, and many others.
Each book includes 12 platinum prints (each signed on the mount), 3 of which are loose for framing: Dexter Gordon, Duke Ellington, and Lester Young’s Hat.
The book, bound in Japanese marbled silk and goatskin leather, is signed by Herman Leonard, Quincy Jones (Introduction), and Steven Albahari (Afterword). Only 40 numbered copies, 10 artist’s copies, and 2 publisher’s copies. Only 28 numbered copies are for sale.
Edited and published by Steven Albahari. 21st Editions. 13.5 x 17.5 inches. 88 pages. Set in 26.5/38.25 Univers Light Condensed with Univers Bold Condensed and Tungsten Bold. Printed at The Studley Press. Binding by Praxis Bindery
Learn more here.
on 26 Nov 2010 at 9:29 pm 1.Marie said …
Herman Leonard says “Time is expensive, Film is cheap” and for sure, by looking at the photos one can value time as treasure.
http://www.21stphotography.com/plat_listen.htm
Smoke and light going through adds magic to music, and Jazz needs those elements ( not necessarily smoke of cigarettes..), as well as the voices of those who made its world, as well as the way the artists played or improvised.
Lucky us to listen today to such talents, and lucky those who can afford the book.
Time is indeed expensive, and maybe I would add, time is priceless.
This was another great and emotional subject Ajay
on 29 Nov 2010 at 6:48 pm 2.Nimesh said …
The photo Essay which you have sourced is astounding and has this freshness to it despite it being from the yester years.
The expression on Louis face’s is priceless.
Nimesh
on 30 Nov 2010 at 12:13 pm 3.Nimesh Dadia said …
Encounters and Gatherings
The street is a theater , admission free. Our clothing , faces and gestures tell the stories of our lives – as individuals and as members of community. The hand held Camera nearly as quick as the eye – is an ideal tool for observing this spectacle.
Henri Cartier Bresson