In Mahalia Jackson's living room
One of the most beautiful jazz books has been reissued: Jazzlife takes the reader back to 1960 and takes them on a journey across the USA to discover the genre.
In 1960, photographer William Claxton (1927-2008) traveled through the USA with German music journalist and producer Joachim Ernst Berendt (1922-2000) to capture jazz musicians and street scenes in places like New York, Kansas City and Philadelphia. The book with the title Jazzlife was published in a large print run of two million copies and was nevertheless always out of print. In 2003, Taschen-Verlag republished the volume, which was expanded to include numerous color photos and articles. And now, for the first time, a hardcover edition of the book has been published. There are almost 600 pages in which jazz is no longer young, but has no gray hair either.
Claxton, who became known for his style-defining photos of jazz icon Chet Baker and actor Steve McQueen, recalls in his foreword why Berendt wanted him for the project: his pictures had soul. And indeed, the US-American managed to take pictures that increasingly had the quality of cover art and yet never lost any of their warmth. Thousands of photos had been taken and hundreds of interviews conducted, but only a fraction of them ended up in the book, which hurt him, said Berendt. But what a fascinating fraction! Because the two editors took a broad definition of jazz, the reader also gets an insight into the world of gospel, blues and Dixieland at the time. You can see Mahalia Jackson giving the two visitors a taste of her skills in her Chicago living room, meet Duke Ellington at the Monterey Jazz Festival and meet Thelonious Monk in San Francisco wearing a trench coat and sitting in front of a champagne cocktail. There are also many unknown or forgotten faces to discover, as well as stories that tell of the remnants of segregation or the jail on the other side of New Orleans.
Before the trip, Berendt was advised against it - with the argument that the entire jazz scene was in New York. Far from it, as Jazzlife proves this as impressively as it does.
William Claxton, Joachim Ernst Berendt, Jazzlife - A Journey For Jazz Across America in 1960, German/En/Fr, 600 p., hardcover in slipcase, € 49.99, Taschen-Verlag, Cologne 2016, ISBN 978-3-8365-4293-7
