"JAZZ PARTY" is my tribute to the musicians of today who admire and play in the idiom of the music made popular by the "BIG BANDS’ of the 30’s and 40’s, Benny Goodman, Tommy and Jimmy Dorsey, Artie Shaw, Woody Herman, Duke Ellington, Count Basie, Jimmy Lunsford, Cab Calloway, Bob Crosby, and others who featured great individual jazz artists, a lot of whom have been active at the Jazz Parties I have attended over the last thirty years. Almost all of these bands had small jazz groups within their organizations, Tommy Dorsey’s Clambake Seven, Bob Crosby's Bobcats, Shaw's Grammercy Five, Goodman's Trio, Quartet, and Sextet. These ensembles are the ones I enjoyed most. At jazz parties these smaller bands are usually featured.

The jazz party idea was started by a New York businessman, Dick Gibson, who moved to Denver in 1960, missed the jazz he had heard in New York, and in 1963 over the Labor Day weekend hired ten world class jazz men to play in Aspen for paying, invited guests. The concept has become so popular that today jazz fans have a choice of over 150 annual jazz parties, some of which star more than 50 musicians. I have loved this music since I was a child, and in 1968 I started photographing my favorite players. My book features a vignette and three photographs of each of these 120 artists.

My hobby evolved from printing photos I had taken at the last party and carrying them to the next party. While there, I would ask each musician to autograph one from me, and as a token of my great esteem, I would give them one. I found this was a wonderful way to break the ice and get to know my heroes. Over the last thirty years I have collected over 10,000 autographed photos selected from over 60,000 negatives. I have been very careful to put the date and location of each photo on its caption so that future jazz researchers can use my book as a reference.

Check the Contents Section for a list of the individual musicians who are profiled in "Jazz Party."