All That Jazz - Library of Congress Posts Iconic Photos of Jazz Age Musicians on Flickr

via flickr.com

Writer and essayist Gerald Early once said, "when they study our civilization two thousand years from now, there will only be three things that Americans will be known for: the Constitution, baseball and jazz music." I imagine that the Gottlieb Collection will be cited as source documentation. These are such stunning photos.

Equipped with a bulky Speed Graphic camera, William Gottlieb, a young self-taught photographer and columnist for the Washington Post and later a writer for Down Beat magazine, photographed jazz musicians and performers, capturing iconic images. Gottlieb photographed the jazz greats from 1938 to 1948. Per Gottlieb's wishes, these photos entered the public domain in February, 2010. (Please note, additional rights of privacy and publicity may apply.) The Library of Congress will continue to add more photos each month, until all 1,600 from the collection are included.

Celebrated jazz artists come to life in photographs by William P. Gottlieb. His images document the jazz scene in New York City and Washington, D.C., from 1938 to 1948, a time recognized by many as the "Golden Age of Jazz".

Gottlieb was both a notable jazz journalist and a self-taught photographer who captured the personalities of jazz musicians and told their stories with his camera and typewriter. His portraits depict such prominent musicians and personalities as Louis Armstrong, Duke Ellington, Billie Holiday, Thelonious Monk, Ella Fitzgerald, and many more.

Previous sets of Library of Congress photos uploaded to their Flickr Commons Colection, include Baseball Americana, Farm Security Administration Favorites, Abraham Lincoln, News in the 1910s, World War I Panoramas and more.