More than 1,600 photographs of many of the greatest names in jazz are now available online in "William P. Gottlieb: Photographs from the Golden Age of Jazz." They can be accessed from the American Memory Web site of the Library's National Digital Library Program.
Left, Billie Holiday (from Down Beat, 1947); right, Dizzy Gillespie on 52nd Street in New York (ca. 1947).
The William P. Gottlieb Collection (see LC Information Bulletin, Oct. 2, 1995) documents the jazz scene from 1938 to 1948, primarily in New York City and Washington, D.C. In 1938 Mr. Gottlieb began working for The Washington Post, where he wrote and illustrated a weekly jazz column -- perhaps the first in a major newspaper. After World War II he was employed as a writer-photographer for Down Beat magazine, and his work also appeared frequently in Record Changer, the Saturday Review and Collier's.
During the course of his career, Mr. Gottlieb took portraits of prominent jazz musicians and personalities, including Louis Armstrong, Duke Ellington, Charlie Parker, Billie Holiday, Dizzy Gillespie, Earl Hines, Thelonious Monk, Stan Kenton, Ray McKinley, Benny Goodman, Coleman Hawkins, Ella Fitzgerald and Benny Carter. This online collection presents Gottlieb's photographs, annotated contact prints, selected published prints and related articles from Down Beat.
