cover image The Jazz People of New Orleans

The Jazz People of New Orleans

Lee Friedlander. Pantheon Books, $50 (119pp) ISBN 978-0-679-41638-8

Noted photographer Friedlander ( Nudes ) exquisitely preserves jazz history in 94 photographs, taken between 1957 and 1974, of New Orleans clubs and bands, and of the city's fabled performers. His portraits and street scenes include subjects such as Johnny St. Cyr with his arms resting on his guitar, Robert Pete Williams playing for his wife, and Manuel ``Fess'' Manetta playing two horns at the same time. Friedlander took many of these pictures while accompanying jazz scholars Richard Allen and William Russell as they conducted interviews for Tulane University's Archive of New Orleans Jazz. New Yorker critic Balliett's recollections of a 1966 trip to New Orleans provide a vibrant context for Friedlander's work. He retells stories about Buddy Bolden, Bunk Johnson and Buddy Petit, while trumpeter Red Allen eloquently describes what funeral and parade brass bands looked and sounded like 50 years ago. (Nov.)