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It was difficult to tell whether Jazz Memories would be more aptly evaluated as a jazz book, with accompanying music, or as a 2-CD jazz sampler with accompanying text and photographs. In intention, it was probably the latter, so let me start there.
Jazz Memories is a capitulation of the jazz scene of (primarily) the 1950s, seen through the eyes of gifted photographer Herman Leonard at clubs, off-beat moments on the street, and recording sessions. The 35 photographs, all black and white, are stark in their display of jazz greats, almost all long gone. Monk and Erroll Garner, each caught smoking a cigarette and contemplating the keyboard or sheet music; Lady Day a divine presence; Sonny Stitt through a slight haze of smoke playing an alluring ballad; Prez in a moment of pre-performance solemnity; Sonny Rollins in a larger-than-life view from the ground up, his tenor as gigantic as his stature in music. These, and Louis Armstrong, Miles, Adderley, Duke and Strayhorn, Ella and Sarah-what a wondrous way of "seeing" what we normally hear, a viewing enhanced first by a brief verbal sketch accompanying each picture, a reminiscence or an insider’s note penned by jazz writer Ross Firestone.
Don’t forget the music. The boxed set includes, in addition to the photo album, two compact discs, 31 recordings from between 1947 and 1967. Decidedly mainstream, there is nothing new and nothing particularly shocking, but what befits this collection is its occasionally selection of the less than prominent work of the featured artist. For Erroll Garner, it is a ruminative "Jitterbug Waltz," for Cannonball the eloquent "Stars Fell Over Alabama," for Stan Getz the heart-stopping "Body and Soul," and an absolutely spell-binding keyboard maelstrom when Bud Powell hits his stride on "Hallelujah."
In sum, a striking set of photographs, and a couple of hours of settle-back-and-dig music, the climax of bop and the emergence of "modern" jazz. If nothing new, it is still a beautifully-packaged offering of truly beautiful music, music to be "seen" as well as heard.
— Jules Epstein, December 2001
Release Date: 13 November 2001
Jazz Memories (Gravity Limited/Innerhythmic)
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last update 12 February 2001