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tony Bennett Praises herman Leonard’s Artistry, friendship
erman Leonard is my favorite artist,”
“HTony Bennett said as we were looking
at Leonard’s photographs only a few days after
Leonard’s death at 87 on Aug. 14. They were
friends for more than 50 years, and Leonard’s
photos hang all around Bennett’s studio and
apartment in New York.
“He was a jazz artist with a camera,” Bennett
said. “Most photographers, they’ll take 15 or 20
pictures, then pick out the best picture. He didn’t
do that. He worked like a jazz artist. His mind
was so quick. He’d just take the camera and click.
The lighting would be right. The composition
was right there just with one click. He did that
with all these jazz artists.”
In one frame are two photographs of Duke
Ellington. One is a photo of Ellington’s shoes
and a cup of tea reflected in a mirror. In the way
Leonard developed the image, the photo looks
painterly. “It’s a photograph, but he turned it into
a kind of negative,” Bennett said.
“He was assigned to photograph me when I
first started at Columbia,” remembered Bennett.
Across the title page of Bennett’s memoir, The
Good Life, is Leonard’s photo of Bennett at the
beginning of his career. Sitting on the floor. Leaning
against the wall of a recording studio. “This
is my favorite photo of me. It’s dreamy. You can
hear the music.”
When we looked at Leonard’s iconic portrait
of a young Dexter Gordon, his tenor sax across
his knee, looking up as cigarette smoke billows
from his lips, I observed that photography, like
jazz, is an art of the moment. No two solos of
Gordon are alike. No two puffs of smoke alike.
“In Los Angeles, Herman came backstage to
see me,” remembered Bennett. “Someone asked
him, ‘What’s the difference between the 1950s
and the way you photograph now?’ And he said,
‘There’s not enough smoke.’”
Smoke often highlights a Leonard jazz photo,
a visual leitmotif like one of Claude Monet’s haystacks.
Frank Sinatra sings in a whirl of smoke and
light in a Leonard photo to the left of Bennett’s
television. “His back is turned, with a cigarette up
in the air, singing to Princess Grace,” Bennett said.
“You can’t see Sinatra’s face. He’s like a shadow
in the corona of a spotlight. But you know at once,
from the swagger of the singer, who it is. That’s the
best photograph ever taken of Sinatra.”
One of Bennett’s own paintings is inspired by
Six years ago, the board of the Pulitzer Prize
for American Music changed the definition
of its rules, and the make-up of its judges, to
encourage more jazz composers to enter its
competition for composition. As Sig Gissler,
administrator of the Pulitzer Prizes said, “The
prize honored great music, but the rules were
too narrowly structured for the modern age.”
Among the changes, a written score was no
18 DOWNBEAT NOVEMBER 2010
tony Bennett, new york City, 1950
a Leonard picture of Charlie Parker playing.
Floating around the image of Parker are strings
of colorful dots. “I’m trying to get Aboriginal
pointillism, like lots of notes,” he said.
Leonard’s photos are also displayed on one
wall of Bill Clinton’s Harlem office. The former
president came to the photographer’s rescue after
Katrina.
“Herman called me up when Katrina hit,”
Bennett said. “His negatives were on the top floor
of his building in New Orleans, and the water was
going up. The National Guard wouldn’t let anyone
in that area. He called me and said, ‘I don’t know
what I’m going to do. I’m going to lose all my negatives,
all the years of work.’ So, I called President
Clinton and told him the problem. He got it done.”
Leonard called Bennett once more, just before
his passing. “Herman’s secretary told me I was the
Pulitzer Prize Board Broadens Jazz outreach
longer required to accompany a recorded
composition, and the jury pool was changed
to bring in more musicians from different
backgrounds.
But while jazz composers have received
the award in years since—notably Ornette
Coleman in 2007—the Pulitzer administrators
are still working to get the word out among
jazz writers of the changes. Gissler said that of
last person he spoke to.”
Herman’s story was like a helluva movie,”
Bennett continued. “He knew what he wanted to
do, and he did it. He loved New Orleans, so he
painted—he photographed New Orleans. He was
a true artist. He went toward what he loved. He understood
jazz, and he took the greatest photographs
anyone ever took of Erroll Garner, Duke Ellington,
Louis Armstrong. I’ve never met anyone more
spontaneous. He makes it look so effortless. It’s
like a Charlie Parker solo. Or a Count Basie beat.
His timing was impeccable.” —Michael Bourne
heRMAN LeONARD’S PhOTOGRAPhS hAve BeeN COL-
LeCTeD IN The BOOkS Jazz, GianTs and JournEys:
ThE PhoToGraPhy of hErman LEonard (SCALA)
AND IN The ReCeNTLY ReLeASeD Jazz (BLOOMSBuRY).
LeONARD’S WORk IS ALSO AvAILABLe ThROuGh hIS
WeB SITe, heRMANLeONARD.COM
the 160 submissions last year, eight were jazz
entries. Their renewed outreach efforts include
soliciting entries from more musical organizations
(like Jazzmobile) and small labels (like
Pi) to its Web site, pulitzer.org.
“While we’re not favoring jazz, we’re trying
to get it better represented among the overall
pieces submitted and let excellence prevail,”
Gissler said. —Aaron Cohen
HeRman leonaRd pHotoGRapHy llC/CtsimaGes.Com