All three make multiple appearances in “Herb Snitzer: Glorious Days and Nights,’’ which runs at Gallery Kayafas through Feb. 26. Other musicians include Thelonious Monk (at the keyboard, mouth agape, wearing a coolie hat), John Coltrane (backstage, lost in thought), Jimmy Rushing (his raised index rhyming with the head of the microphone he’s singing into).
The final element in this long and happy partnering of sight and sound is another set of whos: gifted photographers like Herman Leonard (who died last August), William Gottlieb, William Claxton, Milt Hinton (whose day job was playing stalwart jazz bass), and Francis Wolff (a co-owner of Blue Note records). Snitzer belongs in their company.
There are two dozen black-and-white photographs in the show, most taken in performance, a few posed. Miles, of course, never really posed. He presented — like a monarch letting his subjects gaze upon him. Has anyone, anywhere, surpassed him at staring down the camera? Snitzer’s refuses to blink.
The photographs divide into two chronological groups, circa 1960 and circa 1990. This allows us to appreciate the consistency of Snitzer’s passion for the music. That he felt the gloriousness of those days and nights is plain. It’s there in the captivating sculpture elegance of his shot of Eddie Jones, Count Basie’s bassist, cradling the neck of his instrument. The sculpture — a Barbara Hepworth? — could be called “Strings and Fingers.’’ That was 1960. Thirty years later, Snitzer shows us Sonny Rollins onstage in full Saxophone Colossus mode. Sculpture has given way to gale. Uniting both are the photographer’s equally fine eye, instincts, and reflexes.
