Among my collections photography books in my New York City apartment, one of my treasures is a large format limited edition of James Baldwin’s The Fire Next Time with photographs by Steve Schapiro that was published in 2017. Schapiro had followed Baldwin for LIFE magazine, and his work documenting the Civil Rights Movement was published widely and is in numerous museum collections.

Schapiro’s photographs of Baldwin and the Civil Rights Movement have always struck me. He wasn’t the only photographer doing this work, but his photographs have a certain humanity to them. His gaze and his closeness to the subjects makes his photographs unmistakably his.

Dizzie Gillispie, Apollo Theater, New York, 1962 © Steve Schapiro

Eddie ‘Lockjaw’ Davis, New York, 1961 © Steve Schapiro

But before his career as a photojournalist with LIFE, Time, Sports Illustrated and other major publications took off, Shapiro was a young freelance photographer who snagged a gig with Riverside Records, and he began photographing jazz shows, musicians, venues, recording sessions, and gatherings both in New York and Chicago.

According to jazz journalist Richard Scheinin, who wrote the text for the book, Schapiro’s interest in jazz began around 1960 or 1961, when he was hanging out in the loft of photographer W. Eugene Smith in the wholesale flower district of Manhattan, which had become a haunt for jazz musicians.

“Maybe Schapiro was just struck by how interesting these musicians were as people,” Scheinin says. “Whatever it was, his interest was piqued and he wound up blanketing the jazz scene: downtown at the Village Vanguard in Greenwich Village, midtown at Riverside’s recording studio in Rockefeller Center, and uptown at the Apollo Theater in Harlem where he shot beautiful intimate photos of Sonny Rollins, Nina Simone, and many others including Aretha Franklin who was 19 years old and performing as part of Count Basie’s revue.”

Sonny Rollins, Apollo Theater, New York, 1962 © Steve Schapiro

Bill Evans, New York, 1961 © Steve Schapiro

And he continued to photograph jazz right up till the time of his first big assignment photographing Baldwin traveling in the Jim Crow era South, which started in early 1963. The book includes photographs from late 1962, when he photographed Art Blakey and the Jazz Messengers during a recording session for their album Caravan.

It is also not hard to see in this “early” work what also makes his Civil Rights photographs stand out. The intimacy and warmth is there. The closeness and caring are there. And there is more to the connection between the two bodies of work than just Schapiro’s eye.

“Part of the connection has to do with his unique ability to capture those hidden moments. But also, Schapiro was always interested in social justice; it was a theme in his photos right up until the end of his life when he took photos at Black Lives Matter demonstrations,” Scheinin wrote. “My guess is that in the early ‘60s, Schapiro understood that jazz was connected to the fight for civil rights. The music conveyed urgency and passion. It expressed the energy of the times. It was in many ways a soundtrack for the Civil Rights Movement.”

Count Basie (foreground). Back row: Freddie Green (left, wearing black hat), Joe Newman (right, wearing sunglasses), Apollo Theater, New York, 1962 © Steve Schapiro

With the publication of the book Jazz: Best of the Apollo, Village Vanguard, and Riverside Sessions, Schapiro’s remarkable career adds another chapter, one that more fully shows the power of his photography and finally sheds light on work that has not been seen in decades.

Jazz: Best of the Apollo, Village Vanguard, and Riverside Sessions is published by ACC Art Books, and is available for $75.

Steve Schapiro’s Jazz Years: Before Baldwin, Before the Movement