Steve Schapiro's unseen jazz photos collected in new book with Sonny Rollins foreword

A new book, 'Jazz: Best of the Apollo, Village Vanguard, and Riverside Sessions,' collects previously unknown photographs by Steve Schapiro of New York's jazz golden age, with a foreword by the late saxophonist Sonny Rollins. Schapiro, who died in 2022 at 87, is renowned for documenting Muhammad Ali and Martin Luther King Jr., but his jazz work has rarely been seen. The images were selected from 20,000 negatives by his wife Maura Smith and son Theophilus Donoghue, then narrowed to 300 with input from jazz journalist Richard Scheinin. The book features portraits of Roy Eldridge, Coleman Hawkins, Bill Evans, Babs Gonzales, Junior Mance, Bobby Timmons, Ron Carter, Bob Cranshaw, Elvin Jones, Dizzy Gillespie, Elmo Hope, Percy Heath, Philly Joe Jones, Dorothy Ashby, and Cedar Walton, captured between 1961 and 1962 at venues like the Apollo Theatre and Riverside Records studios. Rollins, who appears in several images, describes the photos as emotional, recalling a time when 'everybody was working' and jazz was appreciated. The book is published by ACC Art Books.