Jun 10, 2025 4:13 PM
Theo Croker’s Dream … Manifested!
Partway through his early set at Smoke Jazz Club, Theo Croker blinks the room back into focus. He leans over the piano.…
William Gottlieb, whose iconic photos of jazz legends such as Billie Holiday, Duke Ellington and Louis Armstrong helped to define the image of jazz to music fans worldwide, died Sunday, April 23, at his home in Great Neck, N.Y., of a stroke. He was 89.
Gottlieb first used a camera in 1939 to illustrate his weekly jazz column “Swing Sessions” in the Washington Post. He was paid for the writing, not the photography, and since the film, flash bulbs, and cameras (Speed Graphics and Rolleis) were bulky and expensive, he typically made only three or four exposures a session. He learned to shoot very carefully.
The photography paid off. It enhanced his column, later helped him become an Air Force photo officer in WWII, then clinched a job on DownBeat, where many of his images of the likes of Thelonious Monk and Dizzy Gillespie were first published. While at DownBeat, Gottlieb was an exceptional “man on the street” reporter, letting the artists tell their stories through his articles such as his “Posin’” column (after which today’s “The Question” column in DownBeat is modeled).
Gottlieb left the jazz scene in 1948 to produce educational filmstrips, eventually as president of University Films/McGraw-Hill. He also wrote and illustrated 16 books, mostly for children. One of his Golden Books, “Laddie The Superdog” sold more than 1 million copies.
Upon retiring from McGraw-Hill in 1979, Bill published his old jazz photos as The Golden Age of Jazz. The New York Times predicted that Gottlieb “seems to be entering the golden age of William P. Gottlieb.”
His jazz images have since appeared on more than 350 record album and CD covers, on two dozen posters, and a like number of postcards and T-shirts. They have been in hundreds of books, magazines, calendars, TV documentaries, and even in major motion pictures as background atmosphere or used to re-create a historic site.
Meanwhile, exhibitions of the prints have appeared in more than 160 venues, from the Museum of Modern Art in Stockholm to the Navio Museum in Osaka, Japan.
Some of Gottlieb’s photos, starting with Duke Ellington, were acquired by the National Portrait Gallery: and his images are the basis of four US Postage Stamps. In 1998, DownBeat presented Gottlieb with our annual Lifetime Achievement Award.
In 1995, the Library of Congress, using funds from the Ira & Leonore S. Gershwin Fund, purchased all 1,600-plus of Gottlieb’s jazz images “for posterity.”
To view Gottlieb’s collection on the Library of Congress web site, go to: http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/wghtml/wghome.html.
To record Dream Manifest (Dom Recs), Croker convened artists from his current and recent past ensembles, plus special guests.
Jun 10, 2025 4:13 PM
Partway through his early set at Smoke Jazz Club, Theo Croker blinks the room back into focus. He leans over the piano.…
“There’s nothing quite like it,” Springs says of working with an orchestra. “It’s 60 people working in harmony in the moment. Singing with them is kind of empowering but also humbling at the same time.”
Jun 17, 2025 11:12 AM
When it came time to pose for the cover of her new album, Lady In Satin — a tribute to Billie Holiday’s 1958…
James Brandon Lewis earned honors for Artist of the Year and Tenor Saxophonist of the Year. Three of his recordings placed in the Albums of the Year category.
Jul 17, 2025 12:44 PM
You see before you what we believe is the largest and most comprehensive Critics Poll in the history of jazz. DownBeat…
Galper was often regarded as an underrated master of his craft.
Jul 22, 2025 10:58 AM
Hal Galper, a pianist, composer and arranger who enjoyed a substantial performing career but made perhaps a deeper…
Chuck Mangione on the cover of the May 8, 1975, edition of DownBeat.
Jul 29, 2025 1:00 PM
Chuck Mangione, one of the most popular trumpeters in jazz history, passed away on July 24 at home in Rochester, New…