Jazz breaking news: Legendary photographer Herman Leonard dies on eve of major book launch

A family spokesperson said he passed away on Saturday 14 August at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles no cause of death was given.

He had moved to LA from his home in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina struck in 2005, which sadly saw his home flooded, destroying 6000 of his prints. Thankfully his negatives were saved and are the basis for a major new book of his work, simply entitled Jazz, to be published later this year.

His bewitching photographs were famous for dramatic back lighting, capturing the giants of jazz in clubs from the late 1940s onwards.

"I took advantage of being a photographer to get myself into the clubs so I could sit in front of Charlie Parker," he told The Times in March before the opening of an exhibit on jazz photography at the Fahey/Klein Gallery in Los Angeles. "I got to listen to music in person. That enriched me. The money didn't. And I tried to make images that would satisfy me."

Many critics regarded Leonard’s photographs as far more than simply documenting the golden era of jazz, he brought an artistic flare to his work that helped capture many timeless images. Former President Bill Clinton declared Leonard was “the greatest jazz photographer in the history of the genre.”

Born in Allentown in 1923 and became interested in photography early on thanks to encouragement from his older brother. He attended Ohio University to study photography but that was interrupted by a stint in the Army from 1943 to 1945. Leonard returned to college and graduated with a bachelor's degree in 1947.

After working as an apprentice for famed portrait photographer Yousuf Karsh, Leonard moved to New York in 1948 and started becoming immersed in the jazz scene. Using a 4-by-5 Speed Graphic camera, he shot Art Tatum, Dizzy Gillespie, Sarah Vaughan and countless other jazz greats including Ellington watching Ella Fitzgerald sing in 1948. Dexter Gordon sitting, holding a cigarette and balancing his saxophone on a knee. There was music, amazing access and plenty of smoke.

"The smoke was part of the atmosphere of those days and dramatized the photographs a lot, maybe I over-stylized them a bit," he told The Times in 1990.

Luckily after the tragic loss of so much of his work in 2005, his New Orleans colleagues managed to save negatives of his work the night before the storm broke, storing them in the vault at the Ogden Museum. In the aftermath of the hurricane Leonard discovered many previously unseen photographs he had kept in his archives. These have been reproduced for the first time – alongside many of his most recognisable images – in a new book entitled Jazz by Herman Leonard, with an introduction by Wynton Marsalis to be published by Atlantic Books on 2 December.   

"When I was photographing Miles or Dizzy in the early days, I knew these were good and important musicians, but not as important as they turned out to be," he told the Chicago Tribune in 1999. "I had no idea. If I had any inkling, I would have shot 10 times as many pictures."

Leonard is survived by children Valerie, Shana, Michael and David; and six grandchildren.