A Great Day in Harlem, Jazz Portrait by Art Kane Poster Litho 24 x 35 Vintage
Poster Size: 24" x 35"
Finishes Available:
Print Only
or
Plaque Mounted
Plaque Mounted Description: We mount the print to a custom-cut 3/8" thick wood board, and laminate it with a transparent laminate. The sides are edged in black with a slight bevel from print front to side. A keyhole slot in the back of the plaque makes the finished piece ready to hang
Never framed or on a wall.
A Classic iconic photo that is said to be captured somewhat spontaneously.
A Great Day in Harlem or Harlem 1958 is a black-and-white photograph of 57 jazz musicians in Harlem, New York City. The picture was taken by freelance photographer Art Kane for Esquire magazine on August 12, 1958. The musicians gathered at 17 East 126th Street between Fifth and Madison Avenue. Esquire published the photo in its January 1959 issue.
On August 12, 1958, a photograph - The Big Picture - was commissioned for Esquire Magazine's feature issue Esquire's World Of Jazz (Gillenson, 1975). Three people created the photograph that became the centerfold of Esquire's 'Golden Age Of Jazz' issue, which came out in January 1959. Harold Hayes was the innovative and unconventional features editor of Esquire. Robert Benton was the graphics editor who decided to include a batch of new photographs of jazz musicians for the special jazz issue of the magazine. Art Kane was the unknown (non) photographer hired to take pictures for the proposed jazz issue. Although Kane had never taken any professional photographs, he was a dyed-in-the-wool jazz enthusiast, and then Seventeen Magazine's art director. Kane suggested that a group photograph be taken in Harlem, the cradle of New York Jazz.
Esquire wrote letters to every jazz musician whose address could be found. They also passed the word in jazz clubs, at musicians' bars, and at Musicians' Union Local 802 on 52nd Street in Manhattan. Then they followed up with telephone calls the day before the show. Word went out on the jazz grapevine, and jazz journalist, Nat Hentoff, endeavored to spread the word too:
Nobody knew how many people would show up (at 10.00 in the morning). But at the appointed hour they began coming, by subway at the Le toxington Avenue 125th Street stop, by taxi, and some even on foot, to the brownstone apartment building at 17 West 126th Street, between Park and Fifth Avenues. The main photograph, taken by Art Kane, became the centerfold of Esquire's January 1959 issue - The Golden Age Of Jazz (Graham and Morgenstern, 2000: 7).
Fifty-eight musicians began trickling in on time on that Saturday morning. Jazz musicians are night creatures, and one musician at the shoot said he was astonished to discover that there were two ten o’clocks in each day. They included New Orleans, New York, Chicago, Kansas City and bebop musicians, all participants in the glorious scene of jazz as it existed in the late fifties in New York.
Three luminaries not pictured were Louis Armstrong, Duke Ellington and Charlie Parker, but many who showed up were legends, including Roy Eldridge, Coleman Hawkins, Lester Young, Gene Krupa, Willie 'The Lion' Smith and Thelonious Monk.
Jazz Musicians in the photo:
Red Allen, Buster Bailey, Count Basie, Emmett Berry, Art Blakey, Lawrence Brown, Scoville Browne, Buck Clayton, Bill Crump, Vic Dickenson, Roy Eldridge, Art Farmer, Bud Freeman,
Dizzy Gillespie, Tyree Glenn, Benny Golson, Sonny Greer, Johnny Griffin, Gigi Gryce, Coleman Hawkins, J.C. Heard, Jay C. Higginbotham, Milt Hinton, Chubby Jackson,
Hilton Jefferson, Osie Johnson, Hank Jones, Jo Jones, Jimmy Jones, Taft Jordan, Max Kaminsky, Gene Krupa, Eddie Locke, Marian McPartland, Charles Mingus, Miff Mole,
Thelonious Monk, Gerry Mulligan, Oscar Pettiford, Rudy Powell, Luckey Roberts, Sonny Rollins, Jimmy Rushing, Pee Wee Russell, Sahib Shihab, Horace Silver, Zutty Singleton,
Stuff Smith, Rex Stewart, Maxine Sullivan, Joe Thomas, Wilbur Ware, Dickie Wells, George Wettling, Ernie Wilkins, Mary Lou Williams, Lester Young
Licensed item, not copied or reproduced in any way.