Documentary Photography and all that Jazz.

Dennis Stock. Jazz Book. USA. New Orleans, Louisiana.1958. Magnum Collection, ARTstor.

After thumbing through the Magnum Collection I decided on this photo of four gentlemen playing the best of American inventions, Jazz (sorry baseball, football, Ford, and apple pie).  I did not choose it because of any artistic aspect and possibly the appeal was the simplicity.  Camera in front of stage, frame everything up, and *FLASH* this image.   What did appeal to me was that these men are playing a heavily improvised style of music, even if the song is considered a standard. This song was most likely not recorded, and this photo is the only evidence of that specific night, song, scale, solo, bend of a note, roll of the drum, etc.   It also reminds me that photographs are still representations of something that is fluid, and that's what makes them so important; not the specific snapshot, but everything before and after that one moment that we remember.  Finally, the history nerd in me was flooded with the context of Jazz in American society once I stumbled upon this image.