In 1938 William P. Gottlieb began working for the Washington Post, where he wrote and illustrated a weekly jazz column–perhaps the first in a major newspaper. After World War II he was employed as a writer-photographer for Down Beat magazine, and his work also appeared frequently in Record Changer, the Saturday Review, and Collier’s. During the course of his career, Gottlieb took portraits of prominent jazz musicians and personalities defining what jazz looked like in a time when both early legends and bebop artists ruled the bandstands and airwaves. Artists photographed include Louis Armstrong, Duke Ellington, Charlie Parker, Billie Holiday, Dizzy Gillespie, Earl Hines, Thelonious Monk, Stan Kenton, Ray McKinley, Benny Goodman, Coleman Hawkins, Ella Fitzgerald, and Benny Carter.
Gottlieb died on Sunday at his home in Great NEck, N.Y. He was 89.

View a huge online collection of his work here.