Jazz has captivated the camera’s eye for as long as the music has existed—whether the attraction be the music itself, the culture surrounding the music, or a desire to document a unique American phenomenon in the making, or all of the above.

Collectively, the photographs that jazz has inspired trace its history, cultural and social, through its performers, promoters, and audiences. Images show musicians and vocalists performing on stage or in recording sessions, behind the scenes rehearsing or socializing, alone or in groups, in private moments or in the public eye. 

What the cameras have recorded has also depended on the photo technology available. Up until the 1930s, formal portraits of the musicians dominated this photographic genre. Exterior settings won out over interior locations for ease of photographing because indoor pictures required using the artificial lighting provided by flash powders, which were dangerously explosive.

The development of the photoflash and camera shutter synchronizers heralded the arrival of modern photojournalism, which facilitated candid shots and emphasized rapid news reporting as well as entertainment happenings. The invention of the Leica—the small-format 35 mm camera—a decade earlier also supported these new opportunities. 

In the case of jazz, photographers expanded their repertoires to include performances, on stage or after hours, rehearsals, and other behind-the-scene activities. They also followed the musicians and vocalists into recording studios. In the 1940s, a revolution in available-light photography—via small format cameras whose lenses and films boasted new capabilities to record light—allowed photographers to capture at last the low-lit club environments without auxiliary lighting. 

As these developments in technology and formats suggest, the function of these jazz images also expanded from publicity shots to mass media reports appearing in the entertainment sections of newspapers and magazines. Down Beat, a leading magazine on jazz, published its inaugural issue in 1934.

William Gottlieb, who wrote the first regular newspaper column devoted to jazz for the Washington Post between 1939 and 1948, taught himself photography and shot more than 1500 portraits to accompany his columns. With the appearance of the new LP (long-playing) records in 1948, came the first professionally designed record jackets and a new avenue for marketing. Candid performance photographs replaced the early, more conventional graphic layouts of the jackets and played a critical role in creating visual identities for their record labels. 

By the mid-twentieth century, the pool of photographers had expanded from aficionados and self-taught journalists to formally trained professionals with degrees in photography from art schools, colleges, and universities. The genre of jazz photography moved into the realm of art. Since then jazz photographs have become the focus of enthusiastic collecting and the subject of handsome, large-format books and museum/gallery exhibitions.

Chuck Haddix (2005)

William Gottlieb