Yet in 1967, just two years into his photography career, his photograph of Rahsaan Roland Kirk performing at San Francisco's Jazz Workshop landed on the cover of DownBeat—his first published work. It would be the beginning of decades of contributions to DownBeat, as well as publications like Swing Journal (Tokyo) and JAZZ (Paris); additionally, his photographs have been featured in over 30 books, numerous music albums, and museum collections.
About Veryl Oakland
For three decades—from the 1960s through the 80s—Veryl Oakland documented jazz's greatest artists with a singular principle: use available light only, no flash. The result is an intimate visual archive of an era, captured by a photojournalist who had both the access and the trust of the musicians themselves.
Oakland studied cornet for seven years but never played professionally. He did not own a camera until age 25, and was entirely self-taught.
In 2018, Oakland published Jazz in Available Light: Illuminating the Jazz Greats from the 1960s, '70s & '80s (Schiffer Publishing, Foreword by Quincy Jones)—a definitive collection of nearly 350 photographs, many published for the first time. The book exists, in part, because of a remarkable archive recovery: After a 1990 flood devastated his home and his life’s work, Oakland spent 20 years away from his work. In 2010, encouraged by his daughter, Alexis Oakland, he began the painstaking process of restoration and cataloging, in the process, discovering that thousands of his negatives were salvageable.
Today, Oakland, his family, and professional team are continuing on this archiving mission, digitizing nearly 80,000 negatives in hi-res, building a searchable database, and preserving what stands as one of the most comprehensive visual records of jazz's golden era.
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