sloth unleashed

burnedshoes:

© William Claxton, ca. 1960s, The Ramsey Lewis Trio at Chicago’s Loop

Eldee Young (bass), Ramsey Lewis (piano) and Isaac “Redd” Holt (drums).
From the book “Jazz Life” by William Claxton.

“Early in October of 1959 I received a telephone call from Germany. The person introduced himself as Joachim-Ernst Berendt, a musicologist living in Baden-Baden. In very good English, he explained that he was coming to America to do a study of  “America’s great art - jazz.”

He went on say that he needed a photographer to work with him - a photographer who liked and understood jazz. He had seen a great deal of my work published in European magazines and on record covers and thought that I would be the perfect choice to work with him - “because your pictures have soul.”

He went on to explain that the book would be mainly a collection of my images to augment his writings about jazz. There would be interviews with musicians, descriptions of the various places where one hears jazz, and a look at the origins of jazz as well as the art itself.

He made it all sound a bit erudite, but it seemed like a very important project, and I was thrilled by his offer. The chance to photograph many of my jazz heroes in addition to the many unknown and yet-to-be-discovered jazz musicians all around America, was too tempting to resist.” (William Claxton; read more)

» find more photos of famous people here «

rootsnbluesfestival:

Ella Fitzgerald by Annie Leibovitz

(via highgatedreams)

donnalethal:

Charlie Barnet & his monkey, Re-Bop   “Charlie Barnet’s pet monkey, Re-Bop, pretends that he doesn’t find much harmony in the sax tootlings of his maestro on the cover of this issue. But it’s all in fun, and the grimaces of the monkey are not the reason that Charlie is breaking up his dance band early this month. He’s going out to California to rest for the remainder of the summer, probably will re-organize on the west coast this fall”