Photographer Jack Bradley was witness to many of the greatest jazz musicians ever. A new book features his photography in a chronicle of jazz history.

How many times has someone ended a story with the words, “You had to be there.”? When it comes to the world of jazz in the 1950s and ‘60s, those words could apply to Jack Bradley. He was there. 

As a close friend and unofficial tour photographer for Louis Armstrong, the most celebrated jazz musician of all, Bradley was on hand for countless tours of the United States and abroad, one-nighters in small towns and performances in big city concert halls. Bradley was backstage, camera at the ready.

And, because of his close friendship with Armstrong, Bradley had special access to private moments at Armstrong’s home; in the dressing room and unguarded times when Armstrong was simply spending time with friends, who included many fellow musicians.

Michael Persico, a Cape Cod based musician and friend of Bradley compiled the book Classic Jazz Visions: The Photography of Jack Bradley, after Bradley’s death in 2021. Persico had the task of going through the vast archive that included 30,000 photos even after thousands had become part of the Louis Armstrong House Museum collection in Corona, Queens, New York.

What did he find as he went through the images? “A who’s who of jazz from approximately 1959 to 1975,” Persico says. The book, which is being revised to an updated edition, includes previously unpublished images of great musicians including Vic Dickenson, Bobby Hackett, Ella Fitzgerald, Stan Getz and, of course, Louis Armstrong.

One especially striking photo is of Duke Ellington, dressed in stylish casual clothes, photographed on a Harwich beach. “People who see that photo say they never saw Duke look so healthy and also that they never saw him outside,” Persico says. One photo depicts trumpet player Bobby Hackett and pianist Dave McKenna, both of whom became Cape Cod residents, rehearsing a song. Bradley’s camera captured the great singers Anita O’Day and Ella Fitzgerald in performance and he was present as one of two photographers invited to photograph a gathering of 16 trumpet players in Central Park, New York. 

Some photos are just plain fun, such as a 1963 image of trumpeters Nat Lorber and “Wild Bill” Davison seated in a booth at the Bourbon Street nightclub in New York, both playing their horns. Lorber, a little-known musician, also graces the book’s cover in a photo showing him playing enthusiastically, with beer bottles nearby. It’s a glimpse into the world of jazz in the middle of the 20th century. And, of course, the highlights are the images of Armstrong on stage, in the recording studio and at home. These highly recognizable American musical stars never looked better.

So, how did a kid from Cotuit end up hanging around with the man who virtually invented jazz in the early 20th century? It’s a story worthy of a Hollywood film.

As a teenager, Bradley developed two main interests: jazz and photography. In 1954, Bradley and his pal Bob Hayden went to see Armstrong perform at the now-demolished Legion Hall in Hyannis. For Armstrong, it was a routine gig; one of thousands he played in his long career. It was a time when performers, no matter how great, took their show on the road, playing in person for adoring fans often in out-of-the-way places like Hyannis.

Bradley, of course, had his camera with him and took his first photos of Armstrong that night. Neither Bradley nor Armstrong knew it then, but it was the start of, as the famous movie line goes, “a beautiful friendship.” Armstrong’s touring schedule took him to Hyannis regularly and Bradley would return two more times to see Armstrong in concert in Hyannis.

In 1958, after graduating from Massachusetts Maritime Academy in Buzzards Bay, Bradley moved to New York to begin his career in the maritime trades. There, he met Jeann Faillows, who would become his link to Armstrong. Bradley did not know it at first, but Faillows worked for Armstrong doing clerical work and answering mail. Faillows asked Bradley who his favorite jazz musician was and he told her it was Armstrong. At first, she teased him for adoring an old-time jazz musician, rather than a more contemporary artist. This was a time when many of the original jazz greats such as Duke Ellington, Count Basie and Earl Hines were still in the prime of their careers. But they were being challenged for supremacy by relative newcomers like Thelonious Monk, Gerry Mulligan, Dizzy Gillespie, Miles Davis, John Coltrane, Stan Getz and Dave Brubeck among others. Ultimately, Faillows revealed her connection to Armstrong and introduced the two to one another at a party.

Persico says Bradley was frightened to the point of silence when he found himself alone in a room with Armstrong at the party, which took place at Armstrong’s home. But the musician soon put him at ease and the two were able to get to know one another a little. It was the start of a friendship that would last until Armstrong’s death in 1971.

Bradley soon immersed himself in the New York jazz scene, taking photographs in between trips to sea as a merchant mariner. After a while, he gave up going to sea and took a job working ashore for the Grace Line in New York. This gave him more time to work as a jazz columnist and photographer, and as the road manager for pianist Erroll Garner. In this way, he was able to show up just about every place jazz musicians congregated.

During his New York years, Bradley opened the Jazz Museum, and while it ultimately failed as a business, it was an expression of Bradley’s love of jazz and the people who played it. Among the visitors to the Jazz Museum was 14-year-old Loren Schoenberg, now the Senior Scholar at the National Jazz Museum in Harlem, but then an inquisitive kid who had already developed a love of jazz.

“I owe everything to Jack Bradley,” Shoenberg shares, recalling that Bradley allowed him to immerse himself in the music by doing a variety of tasks at the museum. Bradley was never a paid member of Armstrong’s staff, but he was often invited to the home in Corona, Queens, that Armstrong shared with his wife, Lucille, and he was invited along on tours which took Armstrong around the world. The result was an archive of photographs that goes a long way toward documenting American jazz in one of its greatest eras. The photos, and other memorabilia collected by Bradley, are now a major part of the Louis Armstrong House Museum in the home that Armstrong loved. 

“It’s one of the great collections in the entire history of jazz music because of who he took pictures of,” Shoenberg says. “He was apt to get expressions that other people weren’t. Because he knew music, he knew when to snap the camera.” In Classic Jazz Visions that talent for knowing the right moment is apparent. There’s the image of trumpet players Clark Terry and Howard McGhee sharing a laugh with singer Abbey Lincoln, of Armstrong having a cigarette and a cocktail at home, and pianist Earl “Fatha” Hines in a television studio with the great saxophonist Coleman Hawkins. They are all unposed, spontaneous photos that speak to an era that may have otherwise faded away.

Schoenberg says Bradley’s connection to Armstrong gave Bradley a glimpse into the jazz world that few others enjoyed. “He was an intimate of one of the great men of the 20th century,” Schoenberg says.

Ricky Riccardi, Director of Research Collections at the Louis Armstrong House Museum, is in contact with Bradley’s photos and memorabilia on a daily basis, and he is still in awe. “The Jack Bradley Collection is probably the most important acquisition the museum has made since opening its archives to the public in 1994,” Riccardi says. He shares the importance of Bradley’s photos, recordings, books, musical scores, letters and other things, is second only to the tapes, scrapbooks and collages that came directly from Armstrong’s estate. “I think it meant a lot personally to Jack to know that his lifetime collection would be located just a few feet away from Louis’.”

That Armstrong, a proud Black man, let Bradley, who was white, into his world was remarkable at a time when race relations in the United States were fractured. “Jack was free of 90 percent of the racial hangups that white people of his generation had. He loved African-American culture and fell in love with Louis’ music,” Shoenberg says. And, the affection was reciprocal, with Armstrong referring to Bradley as his “white son.” 

“Louis sensed something about Jack,” says Schoenberg. “When I met Jack in ’72, he said he was a disciple of Louis, and I began to realize what he meant. It was just kismet that they met.” Schoenberg believes that part of the reason Armstrong and Bradley got along so well is that Bradley asked nothing of the great trumpet player. “A lot of people around Louis wanted something,” he says. “Jack didn’t.” 

For information on the multi-dimensional, immersive experience of The Classic Jazz Visions tour and upcoming dates, as well as how to purchase Classic Jazz Visions – The Photography of Jack Bradley head to classicjazzvisions.org.

John Basile is the local host of  “All Things Considered” weekday afternoons on CAI, the Cape and Islands NPR station. Prior to that he was for many years the editor of The Register newspaper in the Mid-Cape. He is also the author of Cape Cod Jazz From Colombo to the Columns, published by the History Press.