A Great Day in Harlem 1958 is a 1958 black and white group portrait of

57 jazz musicians photographed on a street in Harlem, New York City.

Art Kane, a freelance photographer working for Esquire magazine, took the picture

around 10 a.m. on August 12, 1958. The musicians had gathered on 126th Street,

between Fifth and Madison Avenues in Harlem.

Jean Bach, a radio producer of New York, recounted the story behind it in her 1994 documentary film, A Great Day in Harlem. The film was nominated in 1995 for an Academy Award for Documentary Feature.

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Musicians in The Photograph.

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Red Allen Buster Bailey Count Basie Emmett Berry Art Blakey Scoville Browne Lawrence Brown Buck Clayton Bill Crump Vic Dickenson Roy Eldridge Art Farmer

Bud Freeman Dizzy Gillespie Tyree Glenn Benny Golson Sonny Greer Johnny Griffin

Gigi Gryce Coleman Hawkins J.C. Heard Jay C. Higginbotham Milt Hinton

Chubby Jackson Hilton Jefferson Osie Johnson Hank Jones Jimmy Jones Jo Jones

Taft Jordan Max Kaminsky Gene Krupa Eddie Locke Marian McPartland

Charles Mingus Miff Mole Thelonious Monk Gerry Mulligan Oscar Pettiford

Rudy Powell Luckey Roberts Sonny Rollins Jimmy Rushing Pee Wee Russell

Sahib Shihab Horace Silver Zutty Singleton Stuff Smith Rex Stewart Maxine Sullivan

Joe Thomas Wilbur Ware Dicky Wells George Wettling Ernie Wilkins

Mary Lou Williams Lester Young

Trumpeter Miles Davis didn’t begin to draw and paint in earnest until he was in his mid-fifties, during the early 1980s and a period of musical inactivity. He was said to have worked obsessively each day on art when he wasn’t touring and he studied regularly with New York painter Jo Gelbard.

His style was a sharp, bold and masculine mixture of Kandinsky, Jean-Michel Basquiat, Picasso and African tribal art. I also find his work puts me in mind of the output of painter Phil Frost.

Davis’ paintings weren’t exhibited much during his lifetime, but since his death in 1991, his estate has mounted several traveling gallery and museum shows. Quincy Jones is known to own a number of Miles’ canvases.  In 2013, Miles Davis: The Collected Artwork was published.

Physicist and saxophonist Stephon in The Jazz of Physics that Albert Einstein and John Coltrane had a lot in common. Alexander in particular draws our attention to the so-called “Coltrane circle,” which resembles what any musician will recognize as the “Circle of Fifths,” but incorporates Coltrane’s own innovations. Coltrane gave the drawing to saxophonist and professor Yusef Lateef in 1967, who included it in his seminal text, Repository of Scales and Melodic Patterns. Where Lateef, as he writes in his autobiography, sees Coltrane’s music as a “spiritual journey” that “embraced the concerns of a rich tradition of autophysiopsychic music,” Alexander sees “the same geometric principle that motivated Einstein’s” quantum theory.

Best Jazz Albums of 2020 featuring Nubya Garcia, Ambrose Akinmusire, Immanuel Wilkins, Chick Corea, Sun Ra Arkestra, Josh Johnson, Eric Revis, Nduduzo Makhathini and Nduduzo Makhathini

Best Jazz Christmas Albums aka 12 Days of Jazzmas features Oscar Peterson, Ramsey Lewis Trio, Louis Armstrong, Jimmy Smith, Classical Jazz Quartet, Dexter Gordon Quartet, McCoy Tyner, The Arthur Blythe Quartet, Heath Brothers, Dave Brubeck, Vince Guaraldi Trio, Paquito D’Rivera, Wynton Marsalis Quintet, Kenny Barron, Ron Carter, Stefon Harris, Lewis Nash, Eddie Higgins & John Coltrane. Playlist

American Jazz Music Society 2020 Community Survey. What activities and services would you like to see from our organization in the coming year?

More than 50% of the musicians responding to Jazzfuel's survey have no gigs booked for 2021. An international survey of 266 jazz musicians asked musicians for details of how they are dealing with the fallout from the global COVID pandemic.

On average, a jazz musician has canceled 35.5 gigs so far in 2020. 56% of pre-COVID income came from live performance. 61% of musicians will see a reduction in income by at least half in 2020.

British photographer William Ellis, whose work can be seen in the permanent collections of the American Jazz Museum and the National Portrait Gallery London, among others, is releasing a set of handmade silver gelatin prints from his archive of long-forgotten images of jazz legends such as Miles Davis, Dizzy Gillespie, Herbie Hancock, and Tony Bennett. During his time in quarantine lockdown in 2020, Ellis spent many hours reviewing his extensive archive of film negatives and rediscovered these photographs.

Best Jazz Films: The spirit of jazz is often best found in films that shed any biographical concerns whatsoever. French director Bertrand Tavernier’s entrancing ’Round Midnight (on Chili) envelops real-life jazzman Dexter Gordon in smoky, invented, after-hours drama. Spike Lee’s Mo’ Better Blues

Executive Producers Brandon Baker and Kwame S. Brathwaite collaborate with musicians Nicholas Payton, Marcus Gilmore and Spoken Word Artist Marc Bamuthi Joseph to change the narrative around the BLM movement. Special Guest vocalists Jasmine Mitchell, Melanie Charles and Vegas Cola complete the media project inspired by Kwame Brathwaite’s images.

November 2020 New Jazz Releases: Dave Brubeck, Fred Hersch, Linda Sikhakhane, Mariel Bildsten, The Nels Cline Singers, Papo Vazquez Mighty Pirates Troubadours, Will Vinson, Gilad Hekselman & Antonio Sanchez, Eric Reed

Billie: Documentary Film about Billie Holiday, directed by James Erskine. New Black Films. 96 Minutes. Film review by Tessa Souter. It is a testament to the depth and emotional intensity of Billie Holiday’s artistry that, over 60 years after her death, she still fascinates. She has been the subject of more than 25 biographies, including her memoir Lady Sings the Blues; a movie starring Diana Ross; a musical, Lady Day at Emerson’s Bar & Grill; at least ten documentaries (on YouTube alone); and countless interviews and movie clips.

Jazz is music born of the African American experience. Those who present, play and enjoy this music are duty-bound to recognize its origins.