Jazz Heroes: The Riverside, Apollo and Vanguard Sessions

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.

Steve Schapiro (1934–2022) was an American photographer known for his photojournalism work and for capturing key moments of the Civil Rights Movement, such as the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom, the push for voter registration, and the third Selma to Montgomery march. He is also famous for his portraits of celebrities and movie stills, most importantly from The Godfather (1972) and Taxi Driver (1976). Schapiro worked with many notable figures, including Andy Warhol, Muhammad Ali, David Bowie, James Baldwin, Martin Luther King Jr, Robert F. Kennedy, Barbra Streisand, Bill Evans and Samuel Beckett.

Schapiro’s work is represented in many private and public collections and can be found in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, MoMA, the Art Institute of Chicago, the National Museum of African American History and Culture, the High Museum of Art, and the J. Paul Getty Museum.

In 2017, Schapiro won the Lucie Award for Achievement in Photojournalism.

Richard Scheinin's work has appeared in the New York Times, GQ, and other national publications. A staff writer at SFJAZZ, he was the San Jose Mercury News' classical music and jazz critic for more than a decade and has profiled scores of public figures, from Sonny Rollins to Ike Turner and the Dalai Lama. He is the author of Field of Screams: The Dark Underside of America’s National Pastime (W.W. Norton), a history of baseball.