Francis Wolff's Best Photographs for Blue Note

Alex Benjamin · Nov 5, 2024

Short, but interesting article on the work of Francis Wolff, who photographed many jazz greats for Blue Note covers.

Behind the Covers - Francis Wolff's Best Photographs for Blue Note - Everything Jazz

Francis Wolff’s photographs are synonymous with jazz. EJ’s picture editor Verity Roberts picks her favourite images for Blue Note. Read on Everything Jazz

www.everythingjazz.com

John Coltrane, 1957

David Lingham · Nov 6, 2024

Excellent book, great music as well.

jvo · Nov 6, 2024

Shame on you!!!!

innocently, excitedly - and always interested in jazz and jazz photography - you introduced me to this site!

As I wandered through reading, enjoying the photography and musical offerings, I clicked on an album or two, (i thought). Needless to say I spent a bit more than I anticipated and eagerly await the arrival of some wonderful music.

Thank you

logan2z · Nov 6, 2024

Thanks for the link. I love Wolff's work and have many of the original LPs for which he shot covers.

Interestingly, Lee Friedlander shot the covers for many famous jazz LPs early in his career. There's an entire book of Friedlander's jazz photographs called American Musicians that can be found pretty inexpensively.

ntenny · Nov 6, 2024

logan2z said:
Interestingly, Lee Friedlander shot the covers for many famous jazz LPs early in his career. There's an entire book of Friedlander's jazz photographs called American Musicians that can be found pretty inexpensively.

I see his credits include the portrait of Mingus on the cover of _Blues & Roots_, which is one of my favourite portraits ever (it’s not a photographic genre I usually like, but when it’s good it’s really good). Thanks for the pointer, and thanks to Alex Benjamin for this thread.

-NT

logan2z · Nov 6, 2024

ntenny said:
I see his credits include the portrait of Mingus on the cover of _Blues & Roots_

Yup, that's a great one.

logan2z · Nov 6, 2024

On the subject of jazz photographers, Jim Marshall took some iconic photographs of Jazz musicians, like John Coltrane and Miles Davis. A couple of books of his jazz photographs have been published but, sadly, are out of print.

jvo · Nov 7, 2024

a wonderful book "All That Jazz" photography by Ryszard Horowitz, and very complementary text by Dave Brubeck, George Wein and Hank Oneal.... interesting backstories of the artists.

Francis Wolff's Best Photographs for Blue Note

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