The best photographs linger in the mind even after you shut your eyes. It's the same with great jazz songs, whose melodies seem to stay awhile, even after the last note sounds. In both, there's a sense of eternity, which is why the marriage of the two — as in the jazz images of photograper Jim Marshall can seem timeless.
Mark your calendar for Sunday, October 30. In Tales from the Golden Road on the Grateful Dead Channel of SiriusXM, Amelia Davis (award-winning photographer and owner of Jim Marshall Photography LLC), David Gans (musician, music journalist, and friend of Jim Marshall), and Gary Lambert (musician and editor/writer of the Grateful Dead's official newsletter) talk about Jim, jazz, jamming, and "Jazz Festival," Jim's new, acclaimed photojournal of '60s jazz greats.
Whenever there’s mention of the work of the late San Francisco photographer Jim Marshall, the first thing most people think of is rock ’n’ roll. A pioneering rock photographer, he was famous for his iconic images of Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin, the Grateful Dead and many other bands and musicians from the heyday of rock in the late 1960s and ’70s.
Jazz connoisseurs have been hearing that eulogy for at least half a century. They're a picky bunch, often complaining about the quality of contemporary jazz while pointing to some golden era when "real" jazz thrived.
But if jazz did indeed die, what was the cause of death, and when did it pass away?
A new book, "Jazz Festival: Jim Marshall," offers some possible answers. It features a handsome collection of black-and-white photos of jazz icons playing for and mingling with the glamorous crowds at the Monterey Jazz Festival in the early 1960s. The photos were taken by the legendary music photographer Jim Marshall, who captured those final summers when jazz was still widely popular -- and when it started to lose its commercial appeal.
The Guardian: Jazz was the catalyst for change': Jim Marshall’s images of 60s festivals
by Sean O'Hagan
“Jim was a guy you either loved or hated, there was no in-between,” says Amelia Davis, Jim Marshall’s erstwhile assistant and now archivist. “If he loved you, he would lie down in front of a truck for you. If he hated you, he would happily drive the truck over you.”
