PHOTO BY MARK A. LEE // MURAL BY PAMELA BLISS
Posted by Kyle Long on Mon, Mar 24, 2014 at 2:57 AMLast week, Indiana lost an important figure in Hoosier jazz history when jazz photographer Duncan Schiedt passed away at the age of 92. Schiedt was a talented photographer whose work captured iconic images of many Indianapolis jazz luminaries. Schiedt was already well established behind the lens when he moved to Indy in the 1950s, having spent the decade prior photographing jazz royalty like Louis Armstrong and Sidney Bechet.
In addition to his work as a photographer, Schiedt also authored a few significant titles on jazz history, including Ain't Misbehavin' an early biography of Fats Waller (1950) and Jazz State of Indiana (1977) a pioneering work on the development of Hoosier jazz.
I spoke with another notable Hoosier jazz photographer Mark Sheldon about Duncan Schiedt's life and work in jazz music.
NUVO: Can you share some of your thoughts with us on Duncan Schiedt as both a person and an artist?
Mark Sheldon: I think most people know Duncan for his work with jazz musicians, but prior to that he did some photography and film work for the armed forces. He was sent to document the atomic bomb tests in the Bikini atoll. He also wrote some books and he was a very good pianist in the traditional swing jazz style.
People throw around the term renaissance man these days without really understanding the definition. But Duncan was really that guy. He was a photographer, a filmmaker, a researcher and a musician. He did a lot of things very well.
NUVO: What makes Duncan's work historically important? Was it purely his technical skill, or his knowledge of jazz guiding him to be at the right place at the right time to capture a moment?
Read more: http://www.nuvo.net/ACulturalManifesto/archives/2014/03/24/remembering-duncan-schiedt
0 Comments:
Post a Comment