Designed by fsc student and agb design fellow, riley karau
Herman Leonard (1923-2010) may not have been a jazz musician himself, but he is tied intricately into the history of jazz — and the way we recall it visually. Considered the foremost photographer of the international jazz community, Leonard captured an era in music through his now-timeless images, and our collective memories of larger-than-life figures like Duke Ellington, Billie Holliday, and Miles Davis, to name a few, have been shaped by his masterful camera lens.
Over the course of seven decades, beginning in the late 1940s, Leonard began photographing all the greats and all the hot music spots, and, early on, his photographs became his price of entry. Soon enough, Leonard was the go-to photographer of jazz performers in cities around the world, but especially in New York City, where he opened a portrait studio in Greenwich Village and where jazz flourished in the clubs on and around 52nd Street (nicknamed “Swing Street”). Leonard was a frequent patron (and documentarian) of area haunts like Birdland, where Charlie Parker was the headliner, and the Royal Roost, where musicians including Davis, Dizzy Gillespie, and Dexter Gordon made it the bebop center of the music world.
