Sight Readings : Photographers and American Jazz, 1900-1960 / Alan John Ainsworth ; foreword by Darius Brubeck.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Ainsworth, Alan (Photographer), author.

Contributor:

Brubeck, Darius, writer of foreword.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Photography--History--20th century.

Photography.

Jazz--History and criticism.

Jazz.

Jazz in art.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (474 pages)

Edition:

First edition.

Place of Publication:

Bristol, England : Intellect Ltd, [2022]

Summary:

Discussion of jazz as a visual subject and analysis of how photographers approached their subject. Includes work often overlooked - from African American photojournalists, studio photographers, early twentieth-century émigrés, Jewish exiles of the 1930s and vernacular snapshots. 135 half-tones.

Contents:

Front Cover

Half Title

Frontispiece

Sight Readings Photographers and American Jazz, 1900- 60

Copyright information

Dedication

Table of contents

Illustrations

Foreword

Acknowledgments

A Note on Language

Introduction Approaching Jazz Photography

I. Agency and jazz photography

II. Scope of the study

III. Methodology

Notes

1 Jazz Photography and Photographers, 1900-60

I. The significance of jazz photographs

Photographs and the "Golden Age" of jazz

Interest in jazz photography

II. Key names in jazz photography

Studio photographers

African American jazz photography

White photographers of the interwar period

The European exiles

2 Jazz Writing and the Photographic Image

I. Jazz studies and visual evidence

II. Perception and surface interpretation

The lure of photographic surfaces: Four bebop pioneers

III. Conclusion: The new jazz photography canon

3 The Jazz Image as Document

I. Introduction

II. Reading documents

Musicians and their activities

Musical relationships

Evolution of jazz bands

Discographies

Studio recording techniques

Gender and race in jazz

Life on the road

The jazz family album

4 Expression in the Jazz Image

I. Visualizing the sounds of jazz

Sight and sound

Visualizing musical embodiment

Spontaneity and improvisation

Photography and interiority

II. Visualizing jazz culture

Jazz as subculture

An artistic subculture

Black culture

The "jazz life"

III. The expressivity of material objects

IV. Conclusion: Reuniting document and expression

5 Jazz in the Portrait Studio

I. Artistic and theatrical portrait studios

Theatrical portrait studios

Hollywood modernism

II. Jazz enters the studio

Early jazz studio portraiture.

Jazz "stars" and the portrait

III. Jazz in the émigré studio

Early emigrants and strategies of assimilation

Maurice Seymour Studio

Murray Korman

Bruno of Hollywood

James J. Kriegsmann

IV. Mid-century studio photography

V. Conclusion

6 Document and Realism Early African American Jazz Photography

I. Black photography in the early twentieth century

The development of black photography

"First-generation" concerns

II. New Orleans Band Photography

III. Black studios, 1900-1930s

James Van Der Zee

Edward Elcha

Carroll T. Maynard

Woodard's Studios

IV. Conclusion: Authenticity from the inside

7 Expressive Realism African American Photography

I. "Second-generation" Black identity and photography

Communities and the Black press

The nature of expressive realism

II. Black photographers and jazz

Jacks of all trades

African American eyes on music

Charles "Teenie" Harris: Celebrating the unidentified

Howard Morehead and the glamour of jazz

The photojournalist's' credo: Bob Douglas and Ted Williams

III. Expressive realism after mid-century

Agency and expression: Roy DeCarava

The insider: Milt Hinton

IV. Conclusion

8 Authenticity and Art "New Generation" White Photography

I. A new generation

Photographers and the new middle class

Authenticity, art, and culture in the 1930s

Authenticity and art: The "cultural whole"

A common artistic discourse

Jazz and the new generation

Photographers and jazz

II. Framing authenticity and art

Provenance and place: Documenting authenticity

III. Authenticity and the "amateurs"

Expressions of art

Capturing the artistry of the jazz musician

The "look of jazz"

9 Interrogating Jazz Exiles and Jewish Photography

I. Displaced identities.

Exiled photographers of the 1930s and 1940s

Adaptation and reflexivity

Photographers and the agency of adaptation

Jazz, Jews, and Jewish photography

II. Jazz and exilic vision

The exile as outsider

Clemens Kalischer

Otto Hess and Henry Ries

The exile as portraitist

Gjon Mili

Fred Plaut

10 Looking Back, Looking Forward Jazz Photography after 1960

Jazz, photography, and photographers after 1960

Looking forward, looking back

Conclusion: Herb Snitzer, Pops (1960)

Appendix Agency in Jazz Photography

I. Photography and agency

The case for photographic agency

A technology of self

Photographic agency in practice

II. Tradition, affinity, and subjectivity

Reflexivity, identity, and photographic practice

III. Conclusion

Bibliography

Personal interviews and correspondence

Photographic archives consulted

Other sources

Index

Back Cover.

Notes:

Description based on print version record.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN:

9781789384222

1789384222

9781789384239

1789384230