Jean Bach (September 27, 1918 – May 27, 2013) was an

American American(s) may refer to: * American, something of, from, or related to the United States of America, commonly known as the "United States" or "America" ** Americans, citizens and nationals of the United States of America ** American ancestry, pe ...

documentary

film director A film director controls a film's artistic and dramatic aspects and visualizes the screenplay (or script) while guiding the film crew and actors in the fulfilment of that vision. The director has a key role in choosing the cast members, pr ...

radio producer A radio producer oversees the making of a radio show. The job title covers several different job descriptions: *Content producers or executive producers oversee and orchestrate a radio show or feature. The content producer might organize music choi ...

and

jazz Jazz is a music genre that originated in the African-American communities of New Orleans, Louisiana in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, with its roots in blues and ragtime. Since the 1920s Jazz Age, it has been recognized as a m ...

aficionado. Bach directed the 1994 documentary, '' A Great Day in Harlem'', based on a 1958 photograph of the same name. Bach was born Jean Enzinger in

Chicago (''City in a Garden''); I Will , image_map = , map_caption = Interactive Map of Chicago , coordinates = , coordinates_footnotes = , subdivision_type = List of sovereign states, Count ...

on September 27, 1918, and raised in

Milwaukee Milwaukee ( ), officially the City of Milwaukee, is both the most populous and most densely populated city in the U.S. state of Wisconsin and the county seat of Milwaukee County. With a population of 577,222 at the 2020 census, Milwaukee i ...

. She made frequent trips to Harlem and the

Apollo Theater The Apollo Theater is a music hall at 253 West 125th Street between Adam Clayton Powell Jr. Boulevard (Seventh Avenue) and Frederick Douglass Boulevard (Eighth Avenue) in the Harlem neighborhood of Upper Manhattan in New York City. It is a ...

as a student at

Vassar College Vassar College ( ) is a private liberal arts college in Poughkeepsie, New York, United States. Founded in 1861 by Matthew Vassar, it was the second degree-granting institution of higher education for women in the United States, closely foll ...

. She became a fixture in New York's jazz scene for the rest of her life. The black-and-white photograph which formed the basis of ''A Great Day in Harlem'' is a portrait of fifty-seven prominent jazz musicians who were photographed in front of a

brownstone Brownstone is a brown Triassic–Jurassic sandstone that was historically a popular building material. The term is also used in the United States and Canada to refer to a townhouse clad in this or any other aesthetically similar material. Type ...

at 17 East 126th Street in the

Harlem Harlem is a neighborhood in Upper Manhattan, New York City. It is bounded roughly by the Hudson River on the west; the Harlem River and 155th Street on the north; Fifth Avenue on the east; and Central Park North on the south. The greater Ha ...

neighborhood of upper

Manhattan Manhattan (), known regionally as the City, is the most densely populated and geographically smallest of the five boroughs of New York City. The borough is also coextensive with New York County, one of the original counties of the U.S. state ...

. Bach learned that jazz bassist Milt Hinton had a home movie from the day of the photo shoot in 1958. She acquired Minton's home movie and used it for archival footage for her own film, '' A Great Day in Harlem'', an hour-long documentary released in 1994. Her film won the top award from the

Chicago International Film Festival The Chicago International Film Festival is an annual film festival held every fall. Founded in 1964 by Michael Kutza, it is the longest-running competitive film festival in North America. Its logo is a stark, black and white close up of the comp ...

and earned an

Academy Award for Documentary Feature The Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature Film is an award for documentary films. In 1941, the first awards for feature-length documentaries were bestowed as Special Awards to '' Kukan'' and ''Target for Tonight''. They have since been best ...

nomination in 1995. Jean Bach died at her home in

on May 27, 2013, at the age of 94. Her husband, Bob Bach, a production coordinator on ''

What's My Line? ''What's My Line?'' is a panel game show that originally ran in the United States on the CBS Television Network from 1950 to 1967, originally in black and white and later in color, with subsequent U.S. revivals. The game uses celebrity panelis ...

'', whom she married in 1948, died in 1985.

References

1918 births 2013 deaths American documentary filmmakers American jazz Vassar College alumni People from Manhattan Filmmakers from Milwaukee Jazz in New York City {{US-music-bio-stub