NAUM KAZHDAN

KAZHDAN--Naum. A renowned photographer who worked with the New York Times for 23 years, whose other pursuits included those of industrial designer, inventor, and an international ambassador of jazz culture known for his lasting efforts to popularize jazz in the USSR, died on Thursday, June 27th, in Brooklyn, NY, of heart failure. He was 74. His death was announced by his wife of 44 years, Lily Kazhdan. Mr. Kazhdan did not fit most people's image of a typical immigrant from the Soviet Union (he and his wife arrived in the US in 1977). Many fellow emigres considered him unusually acculturated to New York's elegant, jazz era-inspired style. His work, however, belied admitted inspiration from Russian art of the early 20th century, along with multiple other sources. Mr. Kazhdan's photographic work was marked by a lasting humanist influence: ever interested in depicting relations between people and objects in the frame of his camera, he integrated rich psychological drama not only into his countless group portraits, but into his nature morte and cityscape shots. Born in Leningrad (now St. Petersburg), Russia, three years before World War II, Mr. Kazhdan, as a child, lived through the horrendous Siege of Leningrad, the Nazi blockade of the city in 1942-44. Post-war he emerged as a talented young photographer, receiving his first major award at 19, at a Warsaw Poland-based jazz photo contest accompanying the International Jazz Jamboree. Another early and life-spanning passion was jazz: Naum had played double bass in home-grown bands in his early teens. Aged 18, he found himself a founding president of Leningrad's first officially permitted jazz club, D-58, which became the local epicenter of jazz life, and triggered the precipitate spread of jazz culture throughout the USSR. As a photographer, he immortalized some of the historical moments of this eastward jazz invasion, including startling images from Dizzy Gillespie's first concert tour of Russia. Many more star-studded jazz photographs followed, as well as some recognizable jazz record jackets. In 1998 he was instrumental in organizing jazz festivities in St. Petersburg, Russia in commemoration of the 40th anniversary of D-58 where Naum received the first Voice of America's Willis Conover Award. As an industrial art designer, Naum worked at the Leningrad Scientific Research Institute of Shipbuilding. Through his own initiative at the institute he pioneered the development of the first advertizing department for the USSR Ministry of Shipbuilding. After leaving the institute, he used his experience to open his own independent photography studio with which he gained prestigious contracts with the Leningrad House of Fashion, and the entertainment company Lenconcert. Shortly after immigration to the US, he landed a studio photographer's job at the New York Times. Naum made a reputation for himself as a concept photographer capable of breathing life into any content; his unconventional photo illustrations included an iconic image of a butcher's axe accompanying a tax-cutting article. Later in his American career, Mr. Kazhdan did not abandon his Russian roots. In the mid-1990s, he helped launch a festival of Russian jazz in New York; and he participated in multiple projects documenting the history of jazz movement in Russia. Until his last days, he kept close relations with St. Petersburg's jazz community among which he was treated as a revered founding father. His passionate life lived by both sides of the Atlantic was an emblematic precursor of the globally connected cultural world in which we live today. He is survived by his wife Lily, and son Alex.