On this day in 1958, the famous photo A Great Day in Harlem was shot. It shows 57 jazz musicians in a group portrait, which represents an important and unusual document in the history of jazz.
For the author of the photo, Art Kane, who followed Robert Benson‘s idea to gather these musicians at one place, this was the first professional photograph he ever took. Kane did not want to photograph the famous artists in a controlled environment of a studio, but rather at an authentic location, the streets of Harlem. Thanks to Benton’s engagement, they succeeded to everybody’s surprise, to gather at one place the most important names of New York’s scene, which was the jazz capital of the world back then. The shooting was set for 10:00 AM although most of the musicians played in clubs until early morning hours the night before, like almost any other night of the year.
In front of the lens were gathered names among whom were Count Basie, Art Blakey, Dizzy Gillespie, Charles Mingus, Thelonious Monk, Horace Silver, Lester Young, Ernie Wilkins, Benny Golson, Sonny Rollins and many more historically important jazz musicians. Special oddity about it was Monk’s presence no one believed in, which made some of the musicians appear at the shooting, only in order to see if Monk will really show at the appointment.
In 1994 New York radio producer Jean Bach made a documentary of the same name about the making of this photo, which got nominated for the Oscar. This photograph is the key element of Steven Spilberg‘s movie The Terminal, where the main character comes to the United States of America to get an autograph from Benny Golson, in order to complete a collection of autographs of all musicians on the photo.
From the 57 noted personalities on the photo, only Golson and Rollins are among the living.