Paris Blues (1961)

Duke Ellington behind the scene of Paris Blues (1961) with Billy Strayhorn (left), director Martin Ritt, Louis Armstrong and production designer Alexandre Trauner.

Duke Ellington by Gordon Parks

Duke Ellington (live TV broadcast control room) photo by Gordon Parks, 1960. (c) Gordon Parks Foundation.

"Parks was seventeen when, in 1929, he first met Edward Kennedy “Duke” Ellington in the back of the Orpheum Theatre in Minneapolis. Parks [who] was living on the streets, playing piano in flophouses, hanging around nightclubs and pool halls, and skipping school [was] enthralled by Ellington’s style, grace, and musical genius.

Ellington became a hero for the young man. Decades later, in 1960, Parks was overjoyed by the opportunity to tour with Ellington’s band, calling it “a trip through paradise” (To Smile in Autumn, 1979). In his photographs, Parks revealed his admiration for the musician’s pensive elegance, magnetic personality, and exceptional stage presence." [source]

4 Photographs of Jimmie Lunceford in the 1930s

Courtesy of University of North Texas, four raw negative scans of photographs by Byrd Moore, taken of Jimmy Lunceford and his orchestra in Fort Worth, Texas, possibly in the 1930s.

Billie Holiday by Burt Goldblatt

http://alla-nazimova.tumblr.com/post/154025563807/hennyproud-i-was-lucky-to-spend-so-much-of-my

 

Billie Holiday at Newport 1957 - Two Color Pictures

Color photographs of Billie Holiday from Newport Jazz Festival 1957, taken on July 6 by Bill Spilka.

Photoset: Dizzy Gillespie at Fort Belvedere, 1963

http://classicbluenotes.tumblr.com/post/136988362531/themaninthegreenshirt-dizzy-gillespie-july

Duke Ellington & Orson Welles

Cab Calloway on the right, 1944.

The David Frost Show, circa June 1970.

The opening of The Blessed and the Damned at the Theatre Edouard VII in Paris. June 20, 1950.

Orson (composed by Billy Strayhorn-Duke Ellington)
Duke Ellington and His Orchestra
LA, April 7, 1953

Duke Ellington (p); Clark Terry, Willie Cook, Cat Anderson, Ray Nance (t); Quentin Jackson, Britt Woodman, Juan Tizol (tb); Russell Procope (as, cli); Rick Henderson (as); Paul Gonsalves (ts); Jimmy Hamilton (cl, ts); Harry Carney (bs); Wendell Marshall (b); Butch Ballard (d).

Further reading at the Place, Man.

Image of the Day: Chasin' the Bird

Charlie Parker unpacking his alto saxophone in Royal Roost, New York City. Probably March, 1949.

The Duke Ellington TV

Happy Birthday Edward Kennedy "Duke" Ellington (April 29, 1899 – May 24, 1974)

Gjon Mili: When Jazz, Film and Photography Meet

Gjon Mili [pic above] is the photographer/filmmaker whose single cinematic achievement, Jammin' the Blues, changed the history of jazz on film. By bringing authenticity and artistic vision to capturing a performance on film, Mili was probably the first filmmaker who ever thought of transposing jazz, as an art form, into cinema.

Commissioned by Warner Bros. in 1944, Mili who was left free to choose the subject of his first short, turned to Norman Granz and asked him to put together a group of jazz musicians for a film which was meant to reconstruct the feeling of jazz after hours.

Granz not only invited some of his JATP stars, but also included some of the older, non-JATP musicians such as Sid Catlett (the original plan was to have Louis Armstrong on-board). The shooting was wrapped up in four sessions and the film reached the screens in December 1944 to critical acclaim. It was even nominated for an Oscar but lost it to Who's Who in Animal Land!

the last shot of Jammin' the Blues

70 years onwards, the UCLA film archive has restored the film and it's going to be screened as a part of the programme curated by me and Jonathan Rosenbaum for Il Cinema Ritrovato film festival in Bologna.

Anyone who has seen this true gem of jazz cinema and is familiar with Mili's groundbreaking photography for Life, will immediately detect a concept practiced by Mili to perceive the filming opportunity as an extension of photographic work, studying bodies and gestures and exploring the relation between musicians and space around them -- the study of the physical energy of a performance.

The photographs that I've collected here, all taken by Mili, serve as an evidence to that argument and also demonstrate some of the most dense, telling compositions ever created in jazz photography.

Herman Leonard at Work

Herman Leonard Photographing Ella Fitzgerald, New York City , 1949

Bob Willoughby's Jazz Photography

Big Jay McNeely at the Olympic Auditorium, LA, 1953. © Bob Willoughby.

Have you visited photographer Bob Willoughby's website yet? If not, it's a must. A treasury of some of the most iconic black and white jazz photography is presented in online gallery which features, among many others, Coleman Hawkins, Shelly Manne, Duke Ellington, and Billie Holiday. Visit it here.

Nevertheless, Willoughby's film photography, taken of Hollywood stars and behind the scene situations, is equally amazing. (+)

David Redfern, Photographs

Stan Kenton in London; Price: £750 - £1000. Visit the website.

The jazz and rock photographer David Redfern died at the age of 78. The Telegraph obituary is online here. This gallery, assembled from various online sources, mostly Tumblr, shows some of Redfern's best photographic works. All rights belong to David Redfern. For further information, visit his website here.

A Foggy Night In London

Charles Mingus in London, 1951. Photo by Robert Frank.

RIP Charlie Haden (1937-2014)

Happy Birthday Cootie Williams!

Charles Melvin "Cootie" Williams (July 10, 1911 – September 15, 1985)

Image of the Day: Duke Ellington and Hazel Scott

Hazel Scott and Duke Ellington. This is the picture in which the Duke's infamous scar, result of a razor cut by a jealous woman, is the most visible.

Ella Sophia!

Ella Fitzgerald and Sophia Loren

Billie Holiday Through the Lens of Carl Van Vechten

In 1949, Carl Van Vechten, the American essayist, novelist and photographer who had a profound interest in music, literature and Afro-American culture (in 1926 he wrote Negro Blues Singers for Vanity Fair), as a part of his African Americans Portraits project photographed Billie Holiday.

It was Gerry Major who arranged the session and asked Billie to wear on a gown. Billie, ignoring the request, showed up in a grey dress and even greyer mood. Van Vechten talked her into a more intimate look and choice of clothes which she eventually accepted with changing to a silk gown and a Gauguinesque dress underneath.

They worked through the night and it didn't go well at all until Van Vechten, at the verge of giving up the whole idea, showed Billie his pictures of Bessie Smith. Lady Day, staring at the pictures of one of her idols, started to cry. That softened the mood drastically. They shot until dawn and then Lady left. That was the last time Van Vechten saw Billie Holiday.

These photographs are from that night in March 1949.

[Click to enlarge]

Image of the Day: Tubby Hayes + Charles Chaplin

Today I spotted the great British tenor saxophone player, Tubby Hayes, in a scene from Charles Chaplin's A King In New York, shot in Shepperton Studios in England, 1957. Other band members seen in this shot are Tony Crombie, playing the drums (while his cymbal is positioned exactly on Chaplin's head) and Jimmy Logan, bass. Does anyone know the trumpet player? [update: the trumpeter is probably Les Condon. See comments.]