RAYMOND ROSS (1926-2006)

Jazz portraits and performances, 1960s, subjects include: Thelonious Monk, Billy Strayhorn, Phineas Newborn Jr., Rahsaan Roland Kirk
46 gelatin silver prints, of which seven mounted to board
the majority titled in ink or pencil, with stamped photographer’s credit (verso)
each 8 x 10 in. (203 x 254 mm), seven trimmed and mounted to board approx. 9½ x 7 in. (241 x 178 mm).

After starting out as a commercial photographer, Raymond Ross moved to Manhattan’s Lower East Side and immersed himself in the local jazz culture, becoming ‘a well-known and widely admired figure in the New York downtown music scene. His intimate photographs document the flowering of Jazz, as he was one of the few to chronicle the transition from the big band sound of Duke Ellington to the Bebop era ushered in by John Coltrane and Miles Davis.’ New York Times obituary. Of the present group, twelve shots feature Monk - at the Newport Jazz Festival, 1965 and 1966, the Garden State Jazz Festival, 1969, and the 5 Spot Café, New York, 1962. Fourteen images show Strayhorn – at Westbury Music Fair, Long Island, with the Duke Ellington Orchestra, at Fine Sound Recording Studio, New York, 1964, and on stage at Basin Street East, New York, 1964.