Bobby Wellins

I spotted the a review of Herb Snitzer’s new book Glorious Days and Nights: A Jazz Memoir in the Wall Street Journal.

According to WSJ:

“Working in New York between 1957 and 1964, the photographer Herb Snitzer witnessed a transition in jazz. The big bands had already given way to smaller groups, but now the music was growing more experimental. Once everyone went to big halls and danced; now aficionados sat through sets in small clubs. In 1960, Snitzer took a picture of Dizzy Gillespie backstage at a Louis Armstrong show. Stylish in a houndstooth suit, the bebop trumpeter laughs with Trummy Young and Billy Kyle, resplendent in tuxedos: the new fella having a smoke with two mainstays of Armstrong’s swinging All-Stars. But bop was giving way, too. An image, taken at the moodyVillage Gate in 1961, epitomizes the new age as John Coltrane (launched in a Gillespie band) and Eric Dolphy perform over the backing of two bassists. Jazz was looking inward. 

“You see it in photo after photo: the joyous performing of Armstrong and Velma Middleton and Ray Nance is replaced by the intense stares of Ornette Coleman and Sonny Payne and the inner storms evident in Thelonious Monk’s face. Some era. Some photos.”

Amazon describe it in this way.

“This is a stunning collection of iconic images and anecdotes from renowned jazz photographer Herb Snitzer. Glorious Days and Nights is a personal account of the 50 year career of renowned jazz photographer Herb Snitzer. A photojournalist for Life, Look, and Fortune, and associate editor of the influential jazz magazine Metronome, Snitzer plied his trade during a period of political, racial, and social strife. But throughout the demonstrations, civil and racial unrest, what remained constant for him was jazz. In Glorious Days and Nights, Snitzer recalls what it was like to go on the road with these musicians. His reflections run the gamut from serious meditations on his development as a photographer working with musicians already of great stature to more conversational recollections of casual moments spent having fun with the jazz artists many of whom became close friends – all accompanied some of the most iconic jazz images ever seen.” 

Now you can buy the book in the UK from Amazon Herb Snitzer – Glorious Days and Nights: A Jazz Memoir.