Herman Leonard died last Saturday in Los Angeles at 87. A master of backlighting in smoky atmospheres, and of meticulous darkroom wizardry, Leonard photographed
images that caught the mood of music-making by some of the most significant jazz artists of the 20th century. For an obituary, see the New Orleans Times-Picayune‘s website. Leonard lived and worked in New Orleans for more than a decade until Hurricane Katrina ruined his house and studio and he moved to L.A.
On a wall of my music room is a prized signed print of Leonard’s shot of Dexter Gordon at the Royal Roost in New York at the height of the bebop era. The picture was widely known as an album cover, but like much of Leonard’s early work created for utilitarian purposes, it took on larger fame as a symbol of the spirit of jazz, and as a collectors’ treasure.
Herman Leonard, RIP.
Doug Ramsey on Jazz and other matters...
My wife bought me a large format print of Leonard’s famous picture of Monk (looking through the piano, composing, pen in right hand, cigarette in left) as a wedding present from a Chicago gallery 19 years ago. We treasure it.
Your photo of Dexter caught my eye (as it always does). At the time of the Chicago show of Leonard’s work, the gallery was also selling posters and we bought one of that image of Dexter — this was before my wife hatched the idea of secretly conspiring to buy the Monk photo. Anyway, what’s interesting about the poster, and something I did not notice until sometime later after we framed it, is that the image is cropped differently at the bottom than the famous print, which stops at about mid-calf. My poster shows the image extended all the way to the floor. You can see the cuff of Dexter’s pant and argyle design of his sock. I have never seen a print or even another reproduction cropped this way. I never met Leonard and would have liked to ask him specifically about this — in addition to telling him what a gifted artist he was.
The varying aesthetics of jazz photographers are interesting. William Gottlieb was really more about “capturing the moment” as a journalist, though his finest images ascended to the level of art in terms of defining personality and formal composition. But Leonard was an artist fundamentally, making portraits with a sharp eye not ony for personality but theater and drama and compositions that mixed myth and metaphor, including, of course, his trademark back-lit cigarette smoke.
Can you identify the musician in the background of the famous Herman Leonard photo of Dexter Gordon? Is it Fats Navarro?
(It’s Kenny Clarke—DR)
Amoeba Music did a really great interview with Herman Leonard back in 2008. Check it out. And RIP Mr. Leonard.
http://www.amoeba.com/live-shows/videos/herman-leonard.html
Herman Leonard, William Gottlieb, and William Claxton are surely in the pantheon of jazz photographers. From what I know of their work, I have the impression that Leonard’s work is the most fastidious. But I’m told that he said,” Hey! What’s all this ‘artistic’ [stuff]? I was just taking pictures.”
Charlton, you’re right. And I think Burt Goldblatt belongs there too.