The Jazz Image: Masters of Jazz Photography
No mean jazz photographer himself--see hisImages of Jazz(1996)--Tanner generously shares space with his peers in this album for which he wrote the historical preface, explaining why jazz photography is an after-1930 development, and selected the pictures. If there are more Tanner photos here than anyone else's, they don't upstage anyone else's, either. This black-and-white gallery is as distinguished for its egalitarianism as a jam session. It is understood, however, that it, like a jam session of real pros, represents an egalitarianism of the elite. The participating lensers include many of the most famous in documentary and commercial photography--the likes of Gjon Mili, William Claxton, Dennis Stock, Frank Wolff, Herman Leonard, Carole Reiff, Val Wilmer, and Jim Marshall--and, of course, the most famous photographer among jazz musicians, bassist Milt Hinton. To a person, they obtained the kind of images that Alfred Wertheimer inElvis at 21(2006) calls some of the best possible: pictures of people doing something more important to them than having their picture taken.Ray OlsonCopyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved