Puff daddy
Dexter Blows Hot and Cool Dexter Gordon Dootone Records This is high art. The photographer is Hermann Leonard who shot most jazz legends beginning in the 1940’s. I met him once in the eighties. Nice guy. A lot of his photos include the curling smoke of a musician’s cigarette. This is a famous shot of Dexter Gordon on the rare Dootone label. A beautiful cover for a beautiful jazz record.
November 28th, 2006 at 4:41 am
You know, it’s funny. I was at the Jazz Standard in New York recently, after maybe a 20 year club hiatus. It was a half hour or so before I realized why it was so different than I remembered…NO SMOKE! The New York anti-smoking laws (spreading throughout the globe) has taken away a cultural touchstone of jazz. In fact, the first cogent thought I had was “What’ll happen to the ‘new’ Herman Leonard?!”
November 28th, 2006 at 5:05 am
Thanks for the note Fred. It’s Dizzy’s Coke-a-cola Theater now, not the Kool Jazz Festival.