Lisette Model: The Jazz Pictures - by Audrey Sands (Hardcover)

Book Synopsis

Shelved during the McCarthy era, Model's photographs of jazz musicians--together with a text by Langston Hughes--are finally published for the first time

Street photographer Lisette Model spent more than 10 years documenting Louis Armstrong, Billie Holiday, Duke Ellington, Percy Heath, Miles Davis, Dizzy Gillespie and countless other luminaries of America's jazz scene. From the 1956 Newport Jazz Festival to nightclub shows and raucous afterparties in cramped apartments, Model's images are effusive and full of empathy, celebrating jazz at a time when the genre was under increasing political and cultural scrutiny.
During the 1950s, the New York Photo League was investigated by the House Un-American Activities Committee for purported connections to the Communist Party. Model was interviewed by the FBI and eventually placed on its National Security Watchlist. This mounting political pressure led publishers and funders to rescind support of Model, and ultimately caused her to shelve the book dedicated to her jazz pictures, which was to feature an essay by Langston Hughes.
Now, this clothbound book finally realizes Model's self-censored project, providing a fresh look at familiar faces who today signify the fight for freedom, equality and creative expression. Alongside Hughes' original essay, texts by author Audrey Sands and saxophonist Loren Schoenberg underscore the importance of this series and the revelatory insight it shines on jazz music, both onstage and off.
Lisette Model (1901-83) was born in Vienna. She moved to Manhattan in 1938 and two years later Model hosted her first solo exhibition with the New York Photo League. Following the group's dismantlement by the FBI, Model transitioned to teaching. Her most notable pupils included Diane Arbus, Helen Gee and John Gossage.

Review Quotes

The photographs - made during the final years of segregation - reveal the transcendent genius and power of the Black American music genre. For Model, who trained as a classical pianist and singer in Europe for a decade before she became a photographer, 'The Jazz Pictures' was both a return to her first love and an awakening to the political realities of her adopted homeland.--Miss Rosen "Huck magazine"

Though it's a bleak comfort, 'The Jazz Pictures' is a healthy reminder that today's round of state repression is not unprecedented, but rather regressive. The existence of this publication reflects a triumph over this ugly period in United States history, however delayed. As Langston Hughes writes in one of the book's concluding essays, 'To me, jazz is a montage of a dream deferred.'--Julia Curl "Hyperallergic"

[Some] of her 1,800 revealing portraits of jazz luminaries (such as Duke Ellington at the Newport Jazz Festival) are at last united.--Nathalie Atkinson "The Globe and the Mail"

A new book titled 'The Jazz Pictures' gathers together [a] remarkable archive and includes an introduction by Langston Hughes, originally written for a book Model hoped would be published in her lifetime but wasn't.--Carolina de Armas "Air Mail"

Jazz Pictures' is an exceedingly handsome piece of bookmaking.--Mark Feeney "The Boston Globe"

Remembering that Model was the woman who taught historic photographers Diane Arbus and Larry Fink to look, unblinkingly, at life's most unadulterated fare, be it bare and bleak or perfect and pure, we get a deep and genuine kick (not always a fun one) at what it is to be gloriously unvarnished and to turn that into an aesthetic. Staring at the pages of 'Lisette Model: The Jazz Pictures' -- each one starker than the last -- is akin to getting lost in the music, only louder.--A.D. Amorosi "Jazz Times"

[A] remarkable collection of art photography, with excellent new texts by Audrey Sands and Loren Schoenberg.--Andy Hamilton "The Wire"

[Lisette Model's] jazz photographs are intimate depictions of the genre's giants.--Angelina Torre "The Wall Street Journal"

A trove of her negatives and prints on the jazz theme--unpublished in her lifetime and only discovered after her death--is a revelation, showing how widely she explored jazz and American culture.--Michael Dashkin "The Library Journal"

Compared to her earlier street photography, often so hard-edged, these pictures have an exuberant sense of pleasure.--Andrew Dickson "The New York Times"

The black-and-white photos resemble fresh souvenirs from a trip back in time 70 years...--Peter Saenger "The Wall Street Journal"

America is many things--joy and pain, freedom and repression--and Model's photos of jazz musicians and their audiences captured the full range.--David A. Graham "The Atlantic"