A Great Day in Harlem
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
A Great Day in Harlem or Harlem 1958 is a 1958 black and white group portrait of 57 jazz musicians photographed on a street in Harlem, New York City.
Art Kane, a freelance photographer working for Esquire magazine, took the picture around 10 a.m. in the summer of 1958. The musicians had gathered on 126th Street, between Fifth and Madison Avenues in Harlem.
Esquire published the photo in its January 1959 issue. Jean Bach, a radio producer of New York, recounted the story behind it in her 1994 documentary film, A Great Day in Harlem. The film was nominated in 1995 for an Academy Award for Documentary Feature.
The photo was also a key object in Steven Spielberg's film, The Terminal. The film starred Tom Hanks as Viktor Navorski, a character who comes to the United States in search of Benny Golson's autograph, with which he can complete his deceased father's collection of autographs from the musicians pictured in the photo.
[edit] Musicians in the photograph
[edit] External links
- http://www.harlem.org/ - about the photo.
- http://www.a-great-day-in-harlem.com - about the documentary.
- http://www.JazzPosters.com - poster available there.
- Online review of documentary

