Jazz, as Ralph Ellison wrote, \u201cis an art of individual assertion within and against the group.\u201d Each soloist breaks out against the group, and each break reinforces both the individual freedom of the other players and the cohesion of the group.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
To jam, in other words, is to cling\u2014a paradox that only plays out in jazz, unless, as philosopher Terry Eagleton suggests in \u201cThe Meaning of Life,\u201d it also applies to love.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
So it makes perfect sense that on August 12, 1958, photographer Art Kane invited as many jazz soloists as he could to a photo shoot celebrating music\u2019s most collective moment.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The 58 Jazz Musicians Who Finally Became 57<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n In all, 58 musicians (\u201c55 cats and 3 chicks,\u201d as one jazz writer described them) answered a very un-jazz call at 10 a.m. on an outside staircase at 17 East 126th Street in Harlem\u2014yet all 57 found themselves immortalized in Art Kane\u2019s image.<\/p>\n\n\n\n One of them, Whitney Ballet later wrote in The New Yorker, \u201cwas astonished to discover that there were two times when the clock struck 10 every day.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n The great pianist Willie (the Lion) Smith, born in 1897, was tired and sitting on the next step when Kane took his picture.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Watch the video<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n