American Musicians - Hardcover

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1564660567 ISBN 13: 9781564660565

Publisher: D.A.P./Distributed Art Publishers, Inc., 1998

Synopsis

"...an irresistible appeal... a new and exciting understanding of Friedlander, one of our most important contemporary photographers."--Andy Grundberg, The New York Times Book Review. "This informail but vast [book] -- 514 images! -- may be the best look yet at a half century of American music... Few labors of loves ever paid off so handsomely."--Malcolm Jones, Jr., Newsweek. "The sheer breadth of American Musicicians puts it in a class by itself."--Jason Berry, Chicago Tribune.

About this title

Review:

Of all the great modern photographers, MacArthur "genius grant" winner Lee Friedlander is probably the hippest to music. Inspired by a Charlie Parker record at 16, he left Aberdeen, Washington, and launched his career alongside ambitious friends like Diane Arbus. Arbus had a cold eye, but as this book of photos he took for Atlantic Records from the 1950s to the '70s proves, Friedlander's eye was warmly empathetic, at one with his subjects' emotions. (He has compared himself to the guy in the Joe Turner song who's "like a one-eyed cat peekin' at a seafood store.")

A first-rate visual extravaganza, American Musicians captures the country's virtuosos in some of their most candid moments: Aretha Franklin getting respect in 1968, Mahalia Jackson wailing on her knees, Ella in her heyday, on the road with Count Basie, Miles Davis actually looking the viewer right in the eye the year of Bitches Brew. Friedlander was a great discoverer--he found the discarded 1917 photos of New Orleans' Bellocq (immortalized in the film Pretty Baby), and one of his own early nude models was the unknown Madonna Ciccone. He helps people bare their souls to the camera, and the souls in this book are of historic importance. American Musicians also includes Friedlander's interviews with Ruth Brown and Steve Lacy.

About the Author:

Born in 1934, Lee Friedlander is one of the world's most important living photographers. Among his previous books are the seminal Self Portrait and The American Monument, and more recently, American Musicians, Letters from the People, Little Screens, The Desert Seen and Sticks & Stones. His work was the subject of a major 2005 retrospective at The Museum of Modern Art, New York, which travels to SFMOMA in 2008.

About this edition

• Publisher: D.A.P./Distributed Art Publishers, Inc.
• Publication date: 1998
• ISBN 10: 1564660567
• ISBN 13: 9781564660565
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 272