William Gottlieb (photographer) - R.I.P.

[Mike Schwartz]

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My father, William P. Gottlieb, died at home today. I am attaching a
brief biography which is mostly copied from his website,
www.jazzphotos.com. A more extensive bio with photographs can be found
on the Library of Congress website:
http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/wghtml/wgbio.html. Though he is best known
as a world renowned photographer of jazz musicians he had many other
notable achievements in his life.

Thank you. Ed Gottlieb for the Gottlieb family.

Born: Feb. 28, 1917 Married Delia Potofsky in 1939 (married 66 years)
Beloved by: wife Delia; children Barbara, Steven, Richard, Edward &
spouses Teri & Jacki; sister-in-law Jacqueline; grandchildren Leah,
Sara, Brian, Jason,Celia, & Noah; and great grandchildren Evan, Lily, &
Enzo. Memorial Service will be held on Friday, April 28th at 11:00 at
Riverside-Nassau North Chapels, 55 North Station Plaza, Great Neck, NY.
In lieu of flowers, contributions may be made to: Jazz Musician
Emergency Fund c/o Jazz Foundation of America 3rd Floor 322 West 48th
Street New York, NY 10036 Email: pledge@jazzfoundation.org Although he
hasn't photographed jazz people in more than 50 years, Bill Gottlieb, in
a 1990 Issue of Modern Photography, was called "The Great Jazz
Photographer." The New York Times credits Bill with "the flair of a high
artist." The New Yorker said, "Gottlieb stopped photographing jazz
musicians in 1948. No one has surpassed him yet." Bill first used a
camera in 1939 to illustrate his pioneering weekly jazz column, "Swing
Sessions", in the Washington Post. He was paid for the writing, not the
photography, and since the film, flash bulbs, and cameras (Speed
Graphics and Rolleis) were bulky and expensive, he typically made only
three or four exposures a session (all taken "on location"). So he
learned to shoot very carefully. The photography paid off, it enhanced
his column, later helped him become an Air Force photo officer in WWII,
then clinched an editor's job on Down Beat Magazine (though he was still
not paid for his photos). Bill left the jazz scene in 1948 to produce
educational filmstrips, eventually as president of University
Films/McGraw-Hill. He also wrote and illustrated 16 books, mostly for
children. One of his GOLDEN BOOKS, "Laddie the Superdog" sold more than
one million copies. Upon retiring from McGraw-Hill in 1979, Bill
published his old jazz photos as The Golden Age of Jazz. The New York
Times predicted that Bill also "seems to be entering the golden age of
William P. Gottlieb." How prescient! His jazz images have since appeared
on more than 350 record album and CD covers, on two dozen posters, and a
like number of postcards and T-shirts. They have been in hundreds of
books, magazines, calendars, TV documentaries, and even in major motion
pictures as background atmosphere or used to recreate a historic site.
Meanwhile, exhibitions of the prints have appeared in more than 160
venues,from the Museum of Modern Art in Stockholm,Sweden, to the Navio
Museum in Osaka, Japan. The Golden Age of Jazz is now in it's 13th
printing. Some of Bill's photos,starting with Duke Ellington, were
acquired by the National Portrait Gallery: and his images are the basis
of four US Postage Stamps. In 1997, the New Jersey Jazz Society honored
him as the non-musician who did the most for jazz that year. In 1998,
Down Beat presented Bill with their annual Lifetime achievement award.
In a recent 12 month period, 21 different books were published that
included some of Gottlieb's photos. The Library of Congress, using funds
from the Ira & Leonore S. Gershwin Fund,purchased all 1700 of Gottlieb's
jazz images "for posterity". Bill retains the copyright and commercial
rights for many years to come. Bill was also a competitive tennis
player. With son, Steven, he was frequently the Number One ranked
father-son team in the Eastern United States, as well as being twice in
the top eight teams in the United States.

[Lois Gilbert]

This is extremely sad news. I disagreed that there was no one interesting to photograph in jazz in 50 + years but he was and remains a wonderful photographer

[Ron Thorne]

This is as great a loss as any jazz musician. What a phenomenal eye he had.

William Gottlieb's famous black & white photo of 52nd Street in NYC has graced our desktop for the past several years. I never tire of seeing his work.

Bill Gottlieb: I took that when there was still a little light left in the sky, but the lights were on full forces at the clubs and you could see the names of Onyx and the Three Deuces and a few other clubs. The lights were all on and it was drizzling. And my wife was holding an umbrella above me and the camera on the tripod.

You could see the Onyx Club that was on the left... that was the first jazz club on 52nd Street. You could see the Three Deuces which was where the more modern jazz was played.


Thankfully, William Gottlieb's outstanding work is ensconced in the Library of Congress. Click here to enjoy it.



Jimmie Lunceford, William Gottlieb, Gene Krupa

Also, there's a fascinating 1997 interview here.


R.I.P., William Gottlieb~

[Jimmy Cantiello]

I was fortunate enough to meet Mr. Gottlieb a bunch of years ago during a book signing in connection with a concert at Fairfield University. I snagged a copy of "The Golden Age Of Jazz" which he signed for me. Very gracious man................

RIP, Bill Gottlieb

[Gary Sisco]

Sorry to hear about this. He was a great photographer. I have a couple of his black and whites in frames in the music room.

RIP.

[Lois Gilbert]

William P. Gottlieb, photographer of jazz greats, dead at 89

By BONNIE PFISTER
Associated Press Writer

April 24, 2006, 7:04 PM EDT

GREAT NECK, N.Y. -- William P. Gottlieb, whose photographs of such jazz greats as Billie Holiday and Louis Armstrong are recognizable worldwide, died Sunday at his home in Great Neck, N.Y., of a stroke, his family said. He was 89.

Gottlieb's images have appeared in newspapers, museums, documentary films and on more than 250 album covers. His 1947 photo of a luminous Billie Holiday _ eyes closed, head thrown back in song _ is said to be one of the most reproduced jazz photographs of all time.

"They are such wonderful photographs and so typical of the artist they represented that it stuck in my memory that this is what Coleman Hawkins looked like, and this is what Lester Young looked like, and this is what Louis Armstrong looked like," the late jazz scholar Walter Schaap once remarked, according to Gottlieb's biography on file with the Library of Congress. "Today, when I recall these musicians whom I knew, I think of them in terms of what they look like in Bill's photographs."

Gottlieb stopped taking photos around 1949 in order to have a normal family life, his son Ed said. He published his photographs in a collection, "The Golden Age of Jazz," in 1979. Four of his images were immortalized on U.S. postage stamps in 1994. The following year, the Library of Congress acquired his negatives.

Born in Brooklyn and raised in Bound Brook, N.J., Gottlieb's celebrated work came almost by accident. An ad salesman for The Washington Post, he volunteered to write a weekly column on the jazz music he'd fallen in love with while a student at Lehigh University. Initially, the paper sent a photographer to accompany him.

"But when they saw the overtime bill, they said, `Forget it,' " Ed Gottlieb, said Monday.

So in 1939 the music buff traded in hundreds of records from his collection for a Speed Graphic press camera, film and a flash so he could continue to illustrate the column, "Swing Sessions."

"He walked into the press room at the Post and said, `Show me how to use this, guys,"' his son said.

He employed his skills as an Air Force photo officer during World War II, then landed an editor's job at Down Beat magazine. After leaving the jazz scene, he produced educational filmstrips for McGraw-Hill.

In interviews with filmmaker Bill Hall in "Riffs," a forthcoming documentary about Gottlieb's life, musicians and jazz lovers celebrate his ability to capture musicians' personality and love of song.

"The photographs stand as a testament to the soul of the music in the soul of the time," Jazz at Lincoln Center Director Wynton Marsalis says in the film. "He embraced the musicians as human beings. This is a time where images of Afro America were all minstrel show. The jazz photographer was the exact opposite."

Gottlieb is survived by his wife of 66 years, Delia; four children; six grandchildren, and three great-grandchildren.

A memorial service is scheduled for 11 a.m. Friday at Riverside-Nassau North Chapels in Great Neck, N.Y.

[John P. Cooper]

He was one talented guy!

[clinthopson]

Several years ago my uncle gave me a copy of "Golden Years of Jazz." I go back to it regularly. It's a great visual memory of jazz's apotheosis.

[Chris D]

Originally Posted by Lois Gilbert

His 1947 photo of a luminous Billie Holiday -- eyes closed, head thrown back in song -- is said to be one of the most reproduced jazz photographs of all time.

I've got this on the wall of my cube.