Apr 2, 2024 12:59 PM
Saxophonist, Sonic Explorer Casey Benjamin Dies at 45
Casey Benjamin, the alto saxophonist, vocalist, keyboardist and producer who stamped his distinctive sounds on the…
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.
Benjamin possessed a fluid, round sound on the alto saxophone, and he was often most recognizable by the layers of electronic effects that he put onto the instrument.
Apr 2, 2024 12:59 PM
Casey Benjamin, the alto saxophonist, vocalist, keyboardist and producer who stamped his distinctive sounds on the…
Albert “Tootie” Heath (1935–2024) followed in the tradition of drummer Kenny Clarke, his idol.
Apr 5, 2024 10:28 AM
Albert “Tootie” Heath, a drummer of impeccable taste and time who was the youngest of three jazz-legend brothers…
“Both of us are quite grounded in the craft, the tradition and the harmonic sense,” Rosenwinkel said of his experience playing with Allen. “Yet I felt we shared something mystical as well.”
Mar 12, 2024 11:42 AM
“There are a few musicians you hear where, as somebody once said, the molecules in the room change. Geri was one of…
Henry Threadgill performs with Zooid at Big Ears in Knoxville, Tennessee.
Apr 9, 2024 11:30 AM
Big Ears, the annual four-day music celebration that first took place in 2009 in Knoxville, Tennessee, could well be…
“I’m also at a point in my life where I don’t feel like I have anything to prove, like at all,” Akinmusire says about his art.
Mar 26, 2024 12:45 PM
At the risk of oversimplifying and romanticizing the story, Ambrose Akinmusire came bursting on the jazz scene at the…
