We’re stoking on Arne Reimer’s incredible portraits of elderly musicians in American Jazz Heroes. The funny thing about jazz as a movement is that, although it was certainly the hip style of its time, most of its players faded into relative obscurity, perhaps as a result of its sporadic manoeuvres into the avant-garde. These images were first published in Axel Steinhoff’s ‘Jazz Thing’ magazine over a period of three years and focus on “older musicians who were not so much in the focus of the media anymore”. Some of our personal favourites appear throughout, including Yusuf Lateef, drummer Idris Muhamad, pianist Cecil Taylor and drummer Bernard Purdie, all pictured above.
The book was actually published last year by Jazz Thing, although Reimer is currently seeking an English language publisher.
