BY RICK de YAMPERT
ENTERTAINMENT WRITER
Jazz trumpeter Miles Davis "wasn't the nicest of guys," photographer Herb Snitzer says. "You read his biography and he makes the statement: 'If white people ever knew what black people were thinking, they'd be scared to death.' Stuff like that."
Snitzer found himself in a backstage showdown with Miles at a Boston jazz festival in 1988.
"You know Miles had this reputation for turning his back to the audience," Snitzer says by phone from his St. Petersburg home. "So he did that and he sees me. Now, I had known Miles since 1960, right? He's wearing these light-tinted sunglasses. He looks over the glasses at me and he has this stern look as if to say, 'I don't want you photographing me.'"
"And I thought to myself, 'Well, what's Miles going to do? Is he going to come back and hit me? Is he going to walk offstage?' He wasn't going to do that. So I just said to myself, 'Screw you, Miles' and I kept shooting."
ENTERTAINMENT WRITER
Jazz trumpeter Miles Davis "wasn't the nicest of guys," photographer Herb Snitzer says. "You read his biography and he makes the statement: 'If white people ever knew what black people were thinking, they'd be scared to death.' Stuff like that."
Snitzer found himself in a backstage showdown with Miles at a Boston jazz festival in 1988.
"You know Miles had this reputation for turning his back to the audience," Snitzer says by phone from his St. Petersburg home. "So he did that and he sees me. Now, I had known Miles since 1960, right? He's wearing these light-tinted sunglasses. He looks over the glasses at me and he has this stern look as if to say, 'I don't want you photographing me.'"
"And I thought to myself, 'Well, what's Miles going to do? Is he going to come back and hit me? Is he going to walk offstage?' He wasn't going to do that. So I just said to myself, 'Screw you, Miles' and I kept shooting."
Snitzer, after all, was a veteran of shooting the jazz scene. As the
photo editor of Metronome magazine and a New York resident in the late
1950s and early '60s, Snitzer had snapped -- and befriended -- such
legends as Duke Ellington, John Coltrane, Nina Simone, Louis Armstrong,
Miles and many others.
Today at the Museum of Arts and Sciences in Daytona Beach is the opening of "All That Jazz: Louis Armstrong & the Greats -- The Photography of Herb Snitzer 1958-1962."
Snitzer talked by phone about his jazz work.
You were engaging these jazz musicians, not just photographing them from a distance?
I knew them on a personal as well as a professional level. Like Nina Simone, the great singer, was one of my closest friends. These were people I hung out with. It was pretty thrilling for somebody 25 years old. Once they realized I was in their world and I really loved them, I became part of the crowd.
Is there one shot where you thought "Wow, that really captured that person's soul."
There are a couple. There's the one of Louis Armstrong on a bus. We're taking a tour and he's sitting there, he's got an open collar, short-sleeve shirt and he's smoking.
And he's wearing a Star of David?
He is. That was given to him by the Karnofsky family when he was a kid in New Orleans. His mother was a prostitute. He never knew his father. He was taken in by the Karnofsky family and one birthday they gave him a Star of David. He wore it his whole life and he was buried with it.
There was no prejudice in Armstrong. The only thing he wanted to know was, "Can you play?" If you can play, great. If you can't, well ... (laughs).
This photo shows the serious side of Armstrong. It also shows the tiredness in his eyes, because jazz musicians worked really hard doing one-nighters and traveling. More important was the relationship between African Americans and Jews in that period of time in the music business -- many of the managers were Jewish.
And the Mafia was involved in the music, which was also significant in that photograph. I see it all in that photograph.
There's one early Miles photo in your exhibit, from 1960.
All the photographs in this show were taken between 1958 and 1961 ... 1958, that's only two years after the bus boycott. Race issues were also very much in the air because of what we now see as the very momentous cultural transition in America.
These musicians were not unaware of what was going on. Nina composed pieces related to the civil rights movement. John Coltrane composed pieces.
It was extraordinary what those musicians had to put up with. Dizzy Gillespie told me stories about traveling and working in the South. It was unbelievable. Jimmy Rushing told me in Virginia Beach in 1961 -- we're hanging out backstage and Jimmy is really tired and very sick. I said to him, "Jimmy, here, why don't you sit down?" He says, "Oh no, Herb, I don't sit down when white people are present."
And I thought he was putting me on. He was dead serious. You can hear it in all of the music of that period. Or I could anyway.
Today at the Museum of Arts and Sciences in Daytona Beach is the opening of "All That Jazz: Louis Armstrong & the Greats -- The Photography of Herb Snitzer 1958-1962."
Snitzer talked by phone about his jazz work.
You were engaging these jazz musicians, not just photographing them from a distance?
I knew them on a personal as well as a professional level. Like Nina Simone, the great singer, was one of my closest friends. These were people I hung out with. It was pretty thrilling for somebody 25 years old. Once they realized I was in their world and I really loved them, I became part of the crowd.
Is there one shot where you thought "Wow, that really captured that person's soul."
There are a couple. There's the one of Louis Armstrong on a bus. We're taking a tour and he's sitting there, he's got an open collar, short-sleeve shirt and he's smoking.
And he's wearing a Star of David?
He is. That was given to him by the Karnofsky family when he was a kid in New Orleans. His mother was a prostitute. He never knew his father. He was taken in by the Karnofsky family and one birthday they gave him a Star of David. He wore it his whole life and he was buried with it.
There was no prejudice in Armstrong. The only thing he wanted to know was, "Can you play?" If you can play, great. If you can't, well ... (laughs).
This photo shows the serious side of Armstrong. It also shows the tiredness in his eyes, because jazz musicians worked really hard doing one-nighters and traveling. More important was the relationship between African Americans and Jews in that period of time in the music business -- many of the managers were Jewish.
And the Mafia was involved in the music, which was also significant in that photograph. I see it all in that photograph.
There's one early Miles photo in your exhibit, from 1960.
All the photographs in this show were taken between 1958 and 1961 ... 1958, that's only two years after the bus boycott. Race issues were also very much in the air because of what we now see as the very momentous cultural transition in America.
These musicians were not unaware of what was going on. Nina composed pieces related to the civil rights movement. John Coltrane composed pieces.
It was extraordinary what those musicians had to put up with. Dizzy Gillespie told me stories about traveling and working in the South. It was unbelievable. Jimmy Rushing told me in Virginia Beach in 1961 -- we're hanging out backstage and Jimmy is really tired and very sick. I said to him, "Jimmy, here, why don't you sit down?" He says, "Oh no, Herb, I don't sit down when white people are present."
And I thought he was putting me on. He was dead serious. You can hear it in all of the music of that period. Or I could anyway.
Leave a comment