The Photographs of Giovanni Piesco: Leroy Jenkins

August 13th, 2024

…..The Naples, Italy native Giovanni Piesco is an Amsterdam-based photographer who since 1985 has taken photographs of the famous and the unknown, in places and in ritual, consistently demonstrating a flair for capturing the essence of human character.

…..Among his passions is jazz music and the musicians who create it. Beginning in 1990, Giovanni began taking backstage photographs of many of the great musicians who played in Amsterdam’s Bimhuis, that city’s main jazz venue which is considered one of the finest in the world.

…..Jerry Jazz Musician will occasionally publish portraits of jazz musicians that Giovanni has taken over the years. This edition is of Leroy Jenkins, free jazz music’s leading voice on the violin. The photos were taken at Bimhuis on January 4, 1999.

All photos © Giovanni Piesco

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…..The Chicago native Leroy Jenkins began playing violin in church at age eight, graduated from Florida A&M University, and returned to Chicago in the 1960’s, teaching in the public school system while also working with the Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians, a modern music collective that included iconic the free jazz musicians Muhal Richard Abrams, Roscoe Mitchell, Malachi Favors, and Anthony Braxton. Ron Wynn of Allmusic describes Jenkins as “Free jazz’s leading violinist [who] has greatly expanded the options and range of sounds and possibilities for stringed instruments in free music. His techniques have included sawing, string bending, and plucking.”

…..His recording debut was on Abrams’s 1967 album Levels and Degrees of Light. He formed a trio with Braxton and Leo Smith, recording an album (3 Compositions of New Jazz) before moving to Paris, where he played with the likes of Archie Shepp, Philly Joe Jones, and Ornette Coleman. In 1970 he moved to New York, living in Coleman’s loft for several months and being introduced to many of the musicians who frequented it. He formed an important avant-garde trio, the Revolutionary Ensemble, and over the years, Jenkins worked with Cecil Taylor, Alice Coltrane, Joseph Jarman, Rahsaan Roland Kirk, Anthony Davis and Andrew Cyrille.

…..He was also a successful composer, whose works included a jazz-rap opera (Fresh Faust); a cantata (The Negro Burial Ground); and the operas The Three Willies and Coincidents. In 2004, he was awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship, and he has held residencies at universities including Harvard, Duke, Brown and Oberlin.

…..Jenkins died from lung cancer on February 24, 2007, in New York City, at the age of 74. At the time of his death he was working on two new operas: Bronzeville, a history of South Side Chicago, and Minor Triad, a music drama about Paul Robeson, Lena Horne, and Cab Calloway.

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Leroy Jenkins
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Listen to the 1978 recording of Jenkins (on violin) performing his composition “The Legend of Ai Glatson,” with Anthony Davis (piano); and Andrew Cyrille (drums). [IIP-DDS]