Jazz is an essential volume of rare and previously unseen photos by Steve Schapiro, featuring the biggest 1960s jazz legends.

"These pictures are very emotional for me. They take me back to a time when everything was copasetic. Elvin Jones is smiling. And I don’t think I’ve ever seen a photo of Paul Chambers smiling, but there he is. Paul Chambers is smiling! All these guys: Ron Carter, Miles, Red Garland. I mean, these pictures take me back into a time which will never be like that again." Sonny Rollins, Jazz, from The Foreword

"This is a great, great book. The shots are unbelievable, just absolutely beautiful, and the writing is spot-on.,,.[It] brings back the times, the power of those times in the 1960s when everything was changing.” Charles McPherson

"A truly magnificent work. We have been overwhelmed by its beauty." Louis Hayes and Nisha Hayes

One of the leading social documentary photographers of the 1960s, Steve Schapiro’s images stand among the most important of the 20th century, covering Muhammad Ali, Martin Luther King, Jr., James Baldwin and many others. These largely unknown jazz photos – shot just before his career breakthrough – showcase his early mastery and his empathy for his subjects, making Jazz: Best of the Apollo, Village Vanguard, and Riverside Sessions an essential archive.

In the early ’60s, when Schapiro arrived on the scene, New York jazz was enjoying a golden age. A young freelance photographer who had grown up in the Bronx and somehow snagged a gig with Riverside Records, he began voraciously documenting shows, players, venues, recording sessions and gatherings both in his native New York and later in Chicago. Whether it’s Sonny Rollins lifting weights backstage, or Bobby Timmons lost in an instant of discovery at the piano, Schapiro was on their wavelength.

Written by US jazz journalist Richard Scheinin Jazz: Best of the Apollo, Village Vanguard, and Riverside Sessions features dozens of never-before-seen photos of jazz legends like Cannonball Adderley, Melba Liston, Bill Evans, Wayne Shorter, Freddie Hubbard, Sonny Rollins, Count Basie and more.