Jazz Journalists Association Entrance Gallery Library

Jazz in New York
A Community of Visions


Jeremy Pelt

Jeff Ballard

Salim and Memphis Washington

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Jazz in New York: A Community of Visions is a study of visual urban anthropology that documents how the jazz community lives today in New York City. Exploring jazz from a social, economic, and cultural viewpoint, I portray those individuals in their homes, rendering the spaces they inhabit and the objects with which they surround themselves. At the same time that I am documenting how the contemporary jazz community lives, I am creating a visual record of New York interiors in the first decade of the twenty-first century. My portraits become a method to reflect on social issues. I began this project in 2000 and I have photographed more than 300 people.

Although still ongoing, I have exhibited excerpts from the project (30-60 prints) in several non-profit galleries and educational venues around the country. I have given lectures in two universities, produced a video about it for photographychannel.tv and published two articles with text and images. In 2009, this project will travel as a companion exhibit of The Jazz Loft Project, a multi-faceted documentary project based on 40,000 photographs and 3,000 hours of tape recordings made by renowned photographer W. Eugene Smith in a New York loft between 1957 and 1965.

- Lourdes Delgado

More Delgado photos: at JazzHouse.org , at lourdesdelgado.com , at JazzPortugal.net

Copyright © 2004 Lourdes Delgado

Jazz Journalists Association Entrance Gallery Library