Ole Brask has died

Perusing the latest issue of Jazz Special, an exemplary Danish monthly, I sadly learned that Ole Brask has passed away, just a few days before his 74th birthday.

Ole was not well known in the U.S., but he contributed many memorable photos to the jazz album. I first met Ole almost 50 years ago, when John Tchicai introduced us. John, too, was new to the U.S., working as a chef at Copenhagen Restaurant. Ole was a quiet, unassuming man, but it didn't take him long to get into the right professional circles. His resume grew fast and impressively included: Richard Avedon, Magnum, ABC's 20/20, CBS' 60 Minutes, etc. When his assignments began to take him all over the world, we somehow lost track. In 1863, when I moved to my present apartment, Ole took over my old place on West 81st Street, just off Central Park. It was a $17-a-week room with bath on the top floor of a brownstone, and it had a v-shaped window that allowed one to look up and down the street. I spent many hours in that little window nook.

Here's a picture I took last year, just before they changed the building's facade.

And this is the little window nook from the inside. Ole placed Archie Shepp there for an album cover.

Many of Ole's wonderful photos can be found in Jazz People, a 1976 collaboration with Dan Morgenstern.