Jazz Portraits: An Eye for the Sound : Images of Jazz and Jazz Musicians. This item is unavailable.Jazz Portraits: An Eye for the Sound : Images of Jazz and Jazz Musicians

A profile of contemporary jazz brings readers to the clubs of the 1940s and describes the work of such figures as Art Blakey, Miles Davis, Johnny Hodges, and Chet Baker through quotes, anecdotes, and black-and-white photography.

The author credit "by Tim Motion and Ronnie Scott" is incorrect. I was a friend of Ronnie Scott and asked him to write a foreword for the book, which he did. Initially the book was to be a best selection of my own photographs of jazz and blues musicians. However, the publishers, and the salesmen I guess, especially Smithmark New York, insisted that it had to be chronological, i.e. 30s, 40s, 50s etc., just like hundreds of other books on jazz. That was not the point of it for me. I started photographing musicians in the early 70s so missed many of the great names like Charlie Parker and Ellington. My intention was to produce a book of my best photographs of musicians which expressed the feeling and the sound of the music, irrespective of whether it was Joe Bloggs or Miles Davis. However, the commercial pitch won the day even though the book was never intended to be a definitive 'history' like so many others. As it is, the book is a collectible item and, as Val Wilmer remarked, one of the best of its kind.