For nearly forty years, a masterwork of photography has sat in obscurity, discussed only by aficionados of photography in reverential tones. It's a work that captures the essence of jazz, the spirit of Renaissance Harlem, and the beauty and simplicity of life. That book is The Sound I Saw, and it is available, finally, now.
Created as a prototype by the photographer Roy DeCarava, best-known for his 1955 collaboration with poet Langston Hughes on The Sweet Flypaper of Life, The Sound I Saw is a series of nearly two hundred black-and-white images of Harlem during a time when jazz exemplified the pulse of a city, and most particularly, a neighborhood. The photographs come in no particular order; and they are threaded along by DeCarava's disarming and evocative poetry. It's apparent that DeCarava was trying to capture in print the spirit and essence of jazz, and in this effort he is eminently successful.
What's important to note is that DeCarava doesn't try to impress a certain point of view on us; on the contrary, his photographic style is so unobtrusive that it makes you forget you're looking at a photograph of an empty street or a group of musicians working out an arrangement. DeCarava wants you to feel as if you've ended up on that street, or perhaps you've taken a wrong turn and stumbled into a rehearsal area backstage. He has a profound appreciation for those delicious moments of solitary discovery, and wants you to experience them as well.
His poetry has the same effect - it doesn't so much paint a picture as try to describe a feeling. It's never flighty or filled with hyperbole; it simply tries to describe the essence of the images it accompanies. We become privy to DeCarava's thoughts without being assaulted by his opinions. You get the impression that DeCarava isn't trying to put forth a certain point of view; he simply wants you stumble in on his ideas the way you would his images, and take away with you whatever speaks to you. As a result, The Sound I Saw achieves an exquisite goal of meaning something different to everyone who reads it.
Perhaps what's most striking about these photos is their utter lack of artifice. One of the plagues of modern photography is the heavy reliance of many photographers upon artifice and alteration in their images; with the exception of photojournalists, it's hard to think of many contemporary photographers who don't rely on heavily staged and contrived shots, props or artificial enhancement of their images in order to achieve a visual and emotional impact. DeCarava achieves a sublime and visceral beauty without any of these. He's succeeded in capturing images with the beauty of pure art but the uncomplicated honesty of photojournalism, and in doing so, has created one of the finest works of photography of our time.
