Rare Photos of Jazz Icons by Herman Leonard

Last winter, The Jazz Loft Project was one of readers’ favorites — a rare and fascinating look at the secret life of a New York loft, where some of the most iconic jazz musicians of the 1950s came to play at night. This season brings us a greater treasure still: Jazz — a humbly titled yet absolutely amazing retrospective of the work of legendary photographer Herman Leonard, who passed away a few weeks before the book was published. Leonard had been photographing jazz musicians since the 1950s and developed close friendships with greats like Dizzy Gillespie and Miles Davis, which gave him unique access to these innovators and their larger worlds beyond the stage. The book reveals a rare glimpse of the underbelly of a cultural revolution through stunning, luminous never-before-seen images of icons like Billie Holiday, Duke Ellington, Charlie Parker, Ella Fitzgerald and more.

Frank Sinatra

Image courtesy of Herman Leonard

Louis Armstrong, Paris, 1960

Image courtesy of Herman Leonard via NPR

Billie Holiday, New York, 1955

Image courtesy of Herman Leonard via NPR

Thelonious Monk, Minton's Playhouse, New York, 1949

Image courtesy of Herman Leonard via NPR

From backstage parties to afterhours sessions to private get-togethers in musicians’ apartments, Jazz is both a bittersweet remembrance of one of the greatest entertainment photographers in history and a remarkable record of an era whose legacy shaped everything from music to pop culture for decades to come.

Percy Heath, Miles Davis and Gerry Mulligan, Newport Jazz Festival, 1955

Image courtesy of Herman Leonard via NPR

Dizzy Gillespie, San Francisco, 1990

Image courtesy of Herman Leonard via NPR

Ella Fitzgerald, Duke Ellington, Benny Goodman, NYC, New York, 1948

Image courtesy of Herman Leonard

Frank Sinatra

Image courtesy of Herman Leonard

Charlie Parker

Image courtesy of Herman Leonard

Lena Horne

Image courtesy of Herman Leonard

Doc Cheatham

Image courtesy of Herman Leonard

Ella Fitzgerald

Image courtesy of Herman Leonard

Duke Ellington

Image courtesy of Herman Leonard

Alongside the images is a fascinating essay contextualizing the stories behind the photographs, as well as an interview with Leonard pulling the curtain on his signature techniques and unique creative vision.

With its vibrant, exhilarating record of live performances and its intimate portraits of musicians’ off-stage personas, Jazz is a priceless timecapsule of the glory days of “the sound of surprise,” a cultural icon in its own right.

via NPR

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My Mother She Killed Me, My Father He Ate Me: Modernist Fairy Tales

There’s hardly a genre older and more familiar yet timeless and relentlessly captivating than the fairy tale, and no one breathes new air into this classic blend of folklore and morality better than author and editor Kate Bernheimer. Her latest gem, My Mother She Killed Me, My Father He Ate Me: Forty New Fairy Tales is an ambitious anthology of 40 modernist fairy tales inspired by classic folktales from around the world and organized roughly by country of origin. With stories by some of today’s greatest fiction writers, including Neil Gaiman, Michael Cunningham, Aimee Bender and Lydia Millet, the book is a literary treasure chest, like the one in your grandmother’s attic where the whimsical and the macabre come to life on cold winter evenings as logs crackle in the fireplace downstairs.

Once you start looking, it is easy to see the variety — the sheer fractal ferocity — and intelligence of fairy tales. This collection contains stories reflective of current trends; it also contains stories told in more linear, straightforward ways. Some of the selections pay homage to midcentury and later styles; others come poetically through modes associated with the tradition of oral folklore. You will find stories that hew closely to their enchantment, and others that announce hardly any magic — until you encounter a tiny keyhole in the wall of their language. In each instance, you will easily enter these secret gardens.” ~ Kate Bernheimer

Beautifully written and utterly enchanted, the stories draw on everything from Hans Christian Andersen’s and Brothers Grimm’s classics to the popular entertainment of medieval Japan to fairy tales by Goethe and Calvino. Brimming with dark whimsy and gorgeous grotesqueness, the imaginative tome is an absolute treat for readers of all ages — so go ahead and treat yourself.

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To sweeten the treat, Dugan has made the letters available for purchase not only as full alphabet sets, but also as self-adhesive, eco-friendly individual prints to spell your way to home decor bliss.

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