The Golden Age Of Jazz: A Lookbook
F. Scott Fitzgerald immortalized the Jazz Age when he wrote ‘The Great Gadsby’. The ‘Roaring 20’s’ saw a cultural boom and yet it was a paradox. At the same time when women enjoyed more freedoms and danced in the Jazz Age, there were those who pushed for Prohibition-era restrictions
Based on the name alone, the Jazz Age seems like a pretty fun time to be alive. One imagines martini glasses clinking to the timbre of piano keys, and Charleston dancers. However, the following two decades were fraught with conflict between old and new schools of thought. Post-war ideals about immigration, religion, piety, and sexuality were contested.
We look at some archival images of musicians from this golden age of Jazz (1920’s – 1940’s), including iconic portraits by veteran photographers like Herman Leonard and William Gottlieb.
1. Nat King Cole performing in a Jazz club in NYC, 1949, courtesy of H. Leonard.
2. Frank Sinatra in New York City, 1956, by H. Leonard.
3. Vaudeville and jazz singer, Josephine Baker, riding an ostrich-carriage in 1920.
4. Portrait of Doris Day, Aquarium, New York, N.Y., ca. July 1946, by W. Gottlieb.
5. Portrait of Wesley Prince, Oscar Moore, and Nat King Cole, Zanzibar, New York, N.Y., ca. July 1946, by W. Gottlieb.
6. Portrait of Jazz composer Leonard Bernstein in his apartment, New York, N.Y., between 1946 and 1948. (W. Gottlieb).
7. Louis Armstrong in Jazz club Aquarium, NYC, circa July 1946, by W. Gottlieb.
8. Portrait of musician Mel Torme, by William P. Gottlieb (1946).
9. Jimmy Crawford in New York, by William P. Gottlieb, between 1946 and 1948.
10. View of the crowds outside the Lafayette Theater, in Harlem, New York, 1920s, by Anthony Barboza.
By: Anjana Sathyanarayan
