Red Velvet Media ®

Veryl Oakland’s photographs have been featured in thirty jazz books. More than 100 of his images were published in The Encyclopedia of Jazz in the Seventies, by critics Leonard Feather and Ira Gitler, and he was the sole photographer chosen to illustrate The Great Jazz Pianists, by Len Lyons. An active photojournalist for more than a quarter of a century, he closely collaborated with the renowned German critic/producer Joachim-Ernst Berendt on many of his jazz projects, plus regularly contributed works to the major worldwide jazz publications, including Swing Journal, (Tokyo, Japan), Jazz magazine (Paris, France), and Down Beat (United States). Oakland studied cornet for seven years, but never played professionally. He did not own a camera until age twenty-five, and was entirely self-taught. Through both personal stories and stunning photographs captured behind the scenes, lose yourself in this bygone era of jazz that celebrates dozens of the most recognized and formidable jazz artists spanning three decades.