Herb Snitzer's exhibit of more than 60 photos, including a famous riveting shot of jazz great Louis Armstrong wearing a Star of David, closes soon.
By EILEEN SCHULTE
Published January 2, 2004
TARPON SPRINGS - You have just 10 more days to see "In the Moment: Photography by Herb Snitzer" at the Leepa-Rattner Museum of Art. The collection of more than 60 black and white photos on display since November will close Jan. 11.
"It's gotten the best reaction," said Jody Sherman, the museum's public relations coordinator.
"Even the novices like me are really drawn into it. (Visitors) stand in front of it and say, oh, my God, it's the Duke and Duchess of Windsor, Thelonious Monk, Dizzy Gillespie and Louis Armstrong. That's the one that gets people because he was wearing a Jewish star. He was not Jewish."
Snitzer tells a great story about that.
It was 1960 and Snitzer was a 26-year-old freelance photographer in New York, a city undergoing a transformation, "a real changing of the guard," he said.
Metronome Magazine sent him to ride on a bus for the weekend with Armstrong and his musicians as they headed to play in Tanglewood, Mass.
"It was a singular thrill to be on a bus with one of the most famous entertainers in the world," Snitzer said this week from St. Petersburg, where he has lived since 1992.
On the road somewhere in Connecticut, Snitzer saw Armstrong standing in the aisle of the bus and "he just waved and nodded."
Snitzer started taking his photo.
"I noticed the Star of David," he said. "I, too, found it curious. I did some research and (discovered) when he was a little kid in New Orleans, his mom was a prostitute and he never knew his father. He was befriended by a Jewish family, the Karnovskys. They gave him that Star of David."
In Snitzer's famous photo, Armstrong is gazing straight at the camera with a serious expression, his shirt open, very uncharacteristic for the trumpet player.
Later, Snitzer said, Armstrong had to use the bathroom. The bus pulled up at a restaurant and Armstrong went in but came out seconds later, furious. He had been turned away because he was black. One of the most famous entertainers in the world had to relieve himself at a gas station up the road.
It's these kinds of stark, real memories that line the walls of the Leepa-Rattner until Jan. 11.
Son of Ukrainian immigrants, Snitzer got his master's degree in education from Goddard College in Vermont and began working for major magazines, specializing in capturing famous jazz musicians at their finest moments.
He just completed his sixth book, Such Sweet Thunder.
He is married to Carol Dameron, a portrait painter, and has two grown daughters who live in California.
He has long been interested in equal opportunity, and he has documented the civil rights movement, photographing demonstrations in Harlem.
He now works with the NAACP St. Petersburg branch, heading up its economic development committee.
"It's part of my overall philosophy of equality and the struggle for minorities to sit at the same table," he said.
The Leepa-Rattner Museum of Art presents "In the Moment: Photography by Herb Snitzer" through Jan. 11. A documentary and fine art photographer for 45 years, Snitzer has worked for Life, Time, Fortune, Look, the Saturday Evening Post and the New York Times. The Leepa-Rattner Museum of Art is just west of U.S. 19 at 600 Klosterman Road on the Tarpon Springs campus of St. Petersburg College. Museum hours are 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Tuesday through Saturday; evening hours are 5 to 9 Thursdays; Sunday hours are 1 to 5 p.m. Admission is $5 for adults, $4 for seniors and free for children and students with ID. Free admission Sunday. Docent-led tours are offered at 2 p.m. Saturdays. (727) 712-5226.
