Insightful portraits of world-famous jazz legends

The first publication of Sepp Werkmeister’s New York cityscapes

A fascinating portrait of its time. New York and its music scene in the 1960s and 1970s

24,95 $ [US]

Sepp Werkmeister

New York 60s • Photographs

Born in Munich, Sepp Werkmeister has over the course of the last decades made a name for himself as one of Germany’s leading jazz photographers. He created insightful black-and-white portraits of all of the greats, from Louis Armstrong and Ella Fitzgerald to Oscar Peterson and Miles Davis in Munich, New York and at international festivals.

description

His New York cityscapes of the 1960s and 1970s, which provide fascinating insights into the everyday life of the American metropolis, have remained entirely unknown, however. Werkmeister captured the entire panorama of New York’s urban society using his Rolleiflex camera: the rubbish, the stranded and the homeless on the one hand, and the rich and fashionably dressed inhabitants on the other hand. This publication presents more than 120 pictures from the photographer’s archive.

press commentaries

Bilder, die so schön sind, so melancholisch und witzig, so einprägsam in der Komposition und soziologisch so scharfsinnig, dass man gar nicht glauben will, dass all dies Schätze bislang in einem Münchner Keller herumlagen.

Süddeutsche Zeitung

Werkmeister spent the '60s and '70s photographing jazz luminaries like Ella Fitzgerald and Miles Davis, which meant he spent an awful lot of time traipsing around New York. So he started taking photos between performances, too, capturing the streets of Harlem, the East Village, and Times Square, along with their inhabitants. Those cityscapes can be seen together for the first time.

The Cut

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