Eddie Gale: Overdue Ovation

Eddie Gale (photo: Nick Ruechel)

In the summer of 1958, a freelance photographer named Art Kane, on his first-ever photo assignment for Esquire, assembled 57 jazz musicians in front of a Harlem brownstone along 126th Street for a photo commemorating the golden age of jazz.

The photograph, later dubbed “A Great Day in Harlem,” featured a once-in-a-lifetime gathering of legends including Count Basie, Coleman Hawkins, Lester Young, Charles Mingus, Gerry Mulligan, Thelonious Monk, Dizzy Gillespie, Art Blakey, Roy Eldridge and Horace Silver, among many others.