Post-Dispatch critic reviews jazz photo exhibit at the Sheldon Art Galleries

In other jazz-related news from the Post-Dispatch, visual arts critic David Bonetti has reviewed the exhibit of jazz photos by Herb Snitzer now on display at the Sheldon Art Galleries, calling it "the most engrossing" of the three shows currently running there. Read the whole thing online here.

As an aside, though Bonetti may know his stuff about visual art, he's apparently quite a bit less well informed about music, as his review calls the late 1950s and early 1960s - the time when Snitzer took the photos now on exhibit at the Sheldon - "the twilight of an art form." Many jazz fans, yr. humble editor included, would disagree fervently with this assessment, and a professional critic from any discipline ought to know better that to confuse commercial popularity, or the lack thereof, with aesthetic and artistic merit. By tacitly admitting his ignorance of all the great jazz music recorded since then, and the many jazz artists who continue to do significant work today, Bonetti undermines his own credibility and does a disservice to his readers and to the jazz community.

Herb Snitzer's jazz photo exhibit at Sheldon Art Galleries featured in AP story

Photographer Herb Snitzer, whose pictures of jazz musicians from the late 1950s and early 1960s are featured in a new exhibition at the Sheldon Art Galleries, is the subject of a feature story that's out today on the Associated Press wire. You can read the article online here.

Exhibit of jazz photos by Herb Snitzer to open May 16 at Sheldon Art Galleries

The Sheldon Art Galleries will celebrate the opening of the new exhibition Herb Snitzer: Jazz Photographs from the Last Years of Metronome with a complimentary wine and cheese reception from 5:00 p.m. to 7:00 p.m. on Friday, May 16 (which is also the date of the next Grand Center Gallery Walk).

As the name implies, the exhibit focuses on the work that freelance photographer Herb Snitzer made during the late 1950s and early 1960s for yesteryear jazz magazine Metronome. Snitzer's career spans more than 50 years, including work for top national publications such as Life, Look, The Saturday Evening Post, Fortune, and Time as well as for the New York Times and Herald Tribune. In 1958, he began freelancing for Metronome, becoming photography editor, and then associate editor of the magazine in 1960. During those years, he met, befriended and photographed many jazz greats including Miles Davis, Duke Ellington, John Coltrane, Count Basie, and Nina Simone. Still active in his 80s, Snitzer now lives in Florida, where he continues to do freelance and fine art photography with a special interest in issues of civil and social rights.

The exhibit was curated by historian and jazz specialist Benjamin Cawthra and will continue in the Sheldon Art Galleries' History of Jazz Gallery through September 20. Cawthra, an assistant professor of history at California State University - Fullerton, previously spent nine years working at the Missouri Historical Society, where he researched and curated numerous exhibitions, including Miles: A Miles Davis Retrospective, the first major museum exhibition on Davis' life. An exhibition catalog, published by the Sheldon Art Galleries with an essay by Cawthra and a foreword by Gallery director Olivia Lahs-Gonzales, accompanies the exhibition, and a limited edition portfolio of ten gelatin silver prints of some of Snitzer's greatest jazz photographs, published by Palm Press, Concord, MA, also will be available for purchase.

Gallery hours are noon to 8:00 p.m. on Tuesdays and Thursdays; noon to 5:00 p.m. on Wednesdays and Fridays; 10:00 a.m. to 2 p.m. on Saturdays; and one hour prior to Sheldon performances and during intermission. Admission is free. For more information on the exhibition, visit the Galleries’ Web site.