Second generation to master jazz photographers Herman Leonard, Chuck Stewart, Dennis Stock and Bill Gottlieb,
Carol Friedman began photographing jazz musicians in New York in the late seventies. As an art student, she took a job
as a waitress in a jazz club and kept her Leica at the ready, behind the bar. She soon realized that photographing
musicians while they played music held no interest for her. She arranged to photograph Chet Baker in his home, and after
seeing the images, a new direction was hatched. She compiled a hit list of the one-hundred musicians and singers whom she
most revered and set out to take their portraits. Friedman's initial sessions were improvised and often comprised only a few
camera frames. These shoots took place on the streets of New York and in the hallways and dressing rooms of clubs and
concert halls. After 1980, she continued her collection of portraits with sessions in her home and studio in Soho.
Friedman was drawn to her subjects by their genius musicianship and the omnipresent atmosphere that improvisation
and collective respect and camaraderie engendered. The early portrait series began Friedman's life-long documentation of
jazz artists which would come to include several decades of commissions for many now classic album, CD and book covers.
Friedman is at work on several image campaigns and book projects and hopes to complete her feature film documentary on
the life and work of Abbey Lincoln … soon. She frequents the Village Vanguard for continued inspiration.