While a legend before he moved to New Orleans in 1991, the late Herman Leonard (1923-2010) did not achieve that legendary status as a jazz photographer until later in life.

It was not until 1986—we are told in an introduction to this handsome volume by his friend, novelist Reggie Nadelson—that Leonard (then 63) received “the recognition he’d craved for so long.” That was the result of an unbelievably successful exhibition of his jazz photos in London. The show drew 10,000 admirers, an eight-page spread in The Sunday Times and a BBC documentary. With that success “came a new artistic life and…a new life in the city he loved most of all.”

That city was the Crescent City, a place that suited Leonard and his slightly unconventional lifestyle perfectly. “Maybe it was the ease of life there,” he said. “I’ve never in my life felt more comfortable in my own skin than I did in New Orleans.”

And New Orleans loved him back. It was good for him until August, 2005. His Lakeview home was ravaged by the floodwaters, destroying 6,000 of his prints as well as his detailed exposure records. Fortunately, a colleague managed to save his negatives, storing them in a vault in the Odgen Museum. Later, the photographer discovered many previously unpublished images in his archives. They are reproduced here along with his most famous and widely recognized images.

They’re all here, including probably his most famous, the 1948 shot of Dexter Gordon with cigarette in hand and smoke billowing upwards from it—a signature feature of Leonard’s work. The late ‘40s and early ‘50s were his great period, but this volume includes later examples of his work and his New Orleans period as well.

There have been many great jazz photographers—Charles Peterson, Bill Gottlieb and William Claxton come to mind—but they don’t match Herman Leonard. He raised his craft to the level of a true art form, and this splendid volume bears witness to that.