Ray Avery

Murray "Ray" Bertrand Avery (born September 28, 1920 in Canada ; † November 17, 2002 ) was an American jazz photographer and dealer of jazz records.

Live and act

Avery was born in Canada; when he was six years old, his family moved to Big Bear Lake , California . As a student at the local high school, he began to build a record collection. His interest in photography arose in 1945 when his father gave him an Argus camera as a pilot in the US Air Force during the Second World War . After his discharge from the Army, he first worked on his family farm before turning to the music business in the late 1940s. In 1947 he opened his first record store, The Record Roundup on La Cienega Boulevard in Los Angeles, which grew to become Ray Avery's Rare Records until it closed in 1986 . The store was located in Glendale , California and became a mecca for collectors of jazz records. At one point, Avery had the largest collection of jazz records and ran mailing list auctions four times a year.

Since many musicians were frequent visitors to his shop, they became friends that led to Avery's first jazz photographs in the early 1950s, in which he featured protagonists of West Coast jazz such as Shelly Manne , Art Pepper ( Modern Art 1954), Jack Wilson ( Ramblin ' ), Wardell Gray ( Memorial ) or Hampton Hawes ( The Sermon ) and others. a. for record covers of Prestige , Contemporary and GNP Records . He also took photos at the Monterey Jazz Festival and the Nice Jazz Festival as one of the official photographers of the Stars of Jazz television series , as well as at the Los Angeles Classic Jazz Festivals , the New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival and the North Sea Jazz Festival in Holland. His photographs have appeared in over a hundred jazz books and on over 150 LP covers. Avery photographed a. a. Art Blakey , Thelonious Monk , Chico Hamilton , Billie Holiday , Charles Mingus, and Sonny Rollins . Many of his photographs experienced a renaissance from the late 1980s with the introduction of the compact disc and the re-publication of historical jazz recordings, for example on Mosaic Records by Bobby Hackett and Johnny Smith . In 1990 Ray Avery founded the Jazz Photographers Association of Southern California , serving as its chairman and later honorary chairman. In 1997, a Stars of Jazz photo book was published and Avery received the Milt Hinton Award for Excellence in Jazz Photography . After his death, the collection was transferred to the UCLA Music Library.

publication

• Stars of Jazz. Omnibus Press, London 2010, ISBN 978-1-84938-493-3 .

Web links

• UCLA Music Library
• Portrait and photography of Ray Avery at CTS Images
• Ray Avery at Discogs (English)

Individual evidence

1. ↑ ^{a b c} Portrait and photographs of Ray Avery at CTS Images ( Memento of the original from February 14, 2012 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. 
2. ↑ ^{a b} K. Heather Pinson: The jazz image: seeing music through Herman Leonard's photography
3. ^ Zan Stewart: Photographer Ray Avery Keeps Greats in Focus (February 16, 1991) in Los Angeles Times
4. ↑ The Complete Capitol Bobby Hackett Solo Sessions at Mosaic Records ( Memento of the original from September 14, 2012 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. 
5. ↑ The Complete Roost Johnny Smith Small Group Sessions at Mosaic Records ( Memento of the original from March 3, 2012 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. 
6. ↑ Milt Hinton Award ( Memento of the original from September 18, 2011 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.