Pete Turner’s “The Color of Jazz”

Music

I normally don’t do book reviews, but this book happens to have musical ties. One of my favorite photographers is Pete Turner. Not exactly a household name, unless you’re familiar with many well-known jazz albums in the 60s and 70s. Turner’s photography graced the album covers from various labels such as Impulse, Verve, A&M/CTi and then CTi after Creed Taylor left A&M to start his own independent jazz label. For years, many jazz fans and collectors have wanted a coffee table book of Turner’s finest, and this book, “The Color of Jazz”, delivers.

The Color of JazzThis book is a fantastic look at Turner’s photography. For the first time, the photos are printed in a high enough quality that I can see far more detail on these pages than I can on the original album covers. Inside the book, you will find a variety of presentations:

  • Selected photographs are shown at full album size, on their own;
  • Small reproductions of the album covers with photographs are shown as “thumbnails”;
  • A brief description of the album’s contents;
  • Turner’s notes about the photographs and their use on the album cover;
  • A handful of “outtakes”, pictures that Turner preferred over the ones that were used on the album covers.

Even if you aren’t a jazz fan, seeing Turner’s photography in a nice presentation makes the book an entertaining read. His style involves the use of colors, bold images, and unusual usage of ordinary objects. For instance, a simple “soap bubble” is a swirl of rainbow colors, hovering against a black background, lit from beneath. A glass eyeball becomes a prop inside of a peach can. Cones and cylinders of various sizes become a futuristic city skyline.

Want bold colors? One of his most famous photos, the “Giraffe” photo (used on the Wave album by Antonio Carlos Jobim), is a study in reds and purples. A close-up view of icicles in the sun is the perfect contrast for an album called Summertime by Paul Desmond, in hues of crystal blues and whites. Umbrella trees against an orange backdrop grace the cover of Tamba 4’s Samba Blim.

Even his portraiture is unique. A lot of his images feature the hands of the performers, or unusual angles that most photographers would refrain from using. Moody, close-up shots as done by Turner are far more intersting than the standard “head shots” you normally see.

An excellent book of photography, as well as a portable museum of Turner’s photography. Highly recommended!