August 12, 1958: "A Great Day In Harlem"

August 12, 1958: Art Kane takes a photograph of 57 jazz musicians on the stoop of an apartment building at 17 East 126th Street, between 5th Avenue and Madison Avenue, in the Harlem section of Upper Manhattan, America's most famous African-American neighborhood and a major jazz center.

Esquire magazine publishes the photo in its January 1959 issue, under the title A Great Day in Harlem, as part of an article titled The Golden Age of Jazz.

In alphabetical order, they were: Red Allen, Buster Bailey, Count Basie, Emmett Berry, Art Blakey, Lawrence Brown, Scoville Browne, Buck Clayton, Bill Crump, Vic Dickenson, Roy Eldridge, Art Farmer, Bud Freeman, Dizzy Gillespie, Tyree Glenn, Benny Golson, Sonny Greer, Johnny Griffin, Gigi Gryce, Coleman Hawkins, J.C. Heard, Jay C. Higginbotham, Milt Hinton, Chubby Jackson, Hilton Jefferson, Osie Johnson, Hank Jones, Jo Jones (not to be confused with Philly Joe Jones), Jimmy Jones, and Taft Jordan.

Also: Max Kaminsky, Gene Krupa, Eddie Locke, Marian McPartland, Charles Mingus, Miff Mole, Thelonious Monk, Gerry Mulligan, Oscar Pettiford, Rudy Powell, Luckey Roberts, Sonny Rollins, Jimmy Rushing, Pee Wee Russell, Sahib Shihab, Horace Silver, Zutty Singleton, Stuff Smith, Rex Stewart, Maxine Sullivan, Joe Thomas, Wilbur Ware, Dickie Wells, George Wettling, Ernie Wilkins, Mary Lou Williams and Lester Young.

Of the 57, 15 of them had also been in the CBS broadcast The Sound of Jazz, 8 months earlier: Allen, Berry, Dickenson, Eldridge, Hawkins, Hinton, Johnson, Jo Jones, Monk, Mulligan, Rushing, Russell, Stewart, Wells and Young.

Quincy Jones, not in the photo, would later say, "The importance of this photo transcends time and location, leaving it to become not only a symbolic piece of art but a piece of history."

He added: "The fact that all 57 musicians agreed to show up for a 10 AM photoshoot is a true testament to how dedicated they were. These musicians did not gather together on this early morning because they thought they would be paid or instantly be made an international superstar. Rather, they did it to celebrate the golden age of jazz and all that it stood for. Jazz was never just a genre, it was a way of life. And it still is." 

Golson said, "There was going to be an unusual shooting of a photograph for Esquire Magazine and I was being invited to be a part of it. I couldn’t believe it! Nobody really knew me that early in my career. But zippo, I was there on the intended date. When I arrived, there were all of my heroes."

It was lucky that the picture was taken then: Lester Young died on March 15, 1959, a little over 7 months later.

Almost as notable is who isn't in the photo. Willie "the Lion" Smith was standing just out of the camera's range. Billie Holiday, who also died the following year, wasn't there. It's not clear if she wasn't invited, or if she was but was too ill to make it.

Also not there, because they were touring, were Louis Armstrong, Duke Ellington, Ella Fitzgerald, Miles Davis and John Coltrane. Benny Goodman was invited, but was in Los Angeles, and couldn't get there in time. Ronnie Free, Mose Allison and Charlie Rouse got to the site too late for the photo. And I don't know the status of Cab Calloway, who, at the least, should have been invited.

In 2004, Tom Hanks starred in The Terminal, playing Viktor Navorski, a jazz fan from Eastern Europe, who had gotten autographs from 56 out of the 57 musicians, and was flying to New York to get one from the last holdout, Golson. Golson, presumably chosen because he was still alive and thus available, did appear as himself in the film, and signed the autograph for Navorski.

As of August 12, 2022, Golson, who is 93 years old, Sonny Rollins, who stands to turn 92 next month, are the last 2 survivors of the photo. Photographer Kane died in 1995. (UPDATE: Golson died on September 21, 2024, leaving Rollins as the last survivor. Rollins died on May 25, 2026, at 95 -- in Woodstock, New York, a town associated with not what "hippies" were in the 1950s, jazzmen, but what they were in the 1960s, long-haired peace singers.)

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August 12, 1958 was a Tuesday. It was the off-season for the NFL, the NBA and the NHL. But there were Major League Baseball games played on that day:

* The New York Yankees beat the Baltimore Orioles, 7-2 at Yankee Stadium. Mickey Mantle and Gil McDougald hit home runs, to back the pitching of Tom Sturdivant. So it was a pretty good day, if not a great day, in the South Bronx.

* The Cincinnati Redlegs beat the Philadelphia Phillies, 12-4 at Connie Mack Stadium in Philadelphia. (Due to Cold War hysteria, the Cincinnati team had been officially named the Redlegs since 1953. They went back to the name Reds in 1959.)

* The Pittsburgh Pirates beat the Milwaukee Braves, 10-0 at Forbes Field in Pittsburgh. Red Witt pitched a shutout, allowing only 2 hits: A double by Frank Torre in the 2nd inning, and a double by Hank Aaron in the 9th.

* The Chicago White Sox beat the Cleveland Indians, 4-1 at Cleveland Municipal Stadium.

* The Detroit Tigers beat the Kansas City Athletics, 7-6 at Briggs Stadium in Detroit. (It was renamed Tiger Stadium in 1961.)

* The Chicago Cubs beat the Los Angeles Dodgers, 9-3 at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum.

* The St. Louis Cardinals beat the San Francisco Giants, 7-3 at Seals Stadium in San Francisco.

* And a game at Griffith Stadium in Washington was rained out, and made up on September 26. The Boston Red Sox beat the Washington Senators, 6-4.