The Ghosts of Harlem
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In the mid-1980's Les Pockell
suggested that I think up another jazz book, something a little more
ambitious than the Eddie Condon Scrapbook of Jazz, I had done with him
a decade earlier. My idea was The Ghosts of Harlem; it was both a
book and a photo project.
The idea was simple. I picked out about fifty
jazz musicians who were active when that legendary town within a city
was at it's musical peak. I asked them the same ten questions and
photographed them in their homes with my Deardorff view camera.
The questions were largely centered around "where did the music go and
why did it leave?" The portraits were all posed very
formally. No one could be playing an instrument; a few chose to
hold one. There were hundreds of supplemental photographs, as
well as pertinent memorabilia interspersed with the interviews and
portraits.
The book was issued in 1996, forty-one musicians
made the cut and still the book came out to 431 pages. Of the
forty-one musicians in the book, only five are alive today, the oldest
being Lawrence Lucie, who remains active at 96. I photographed a
few noted musicians who performed uptown after the book was published,
and I continue to do so. I consider these photos as part of this
project. There are still five more people on my list that I would
like to do, but I'd better hurry.
Please click on the images below for a larger view.
