Jean Bach

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It's a famous photograph - 57 jazz greats, posing on the stoop of a Harlem brownstone in 1958. But why they were there and how they came together was a mystery. Jazz aficionado Jean Enzinger Bach, a graduate of Vassar College (1940), knew many of the musicians. Two of her closest friends were in the photo - Roy Eldridge and Lawrence Brown. When they died in 1989, Bach decided to track down as many of the surviving musicians as she could, unravel the mystery of the photograph, and get the story on film. The final result, a documentary titled A Great Day in Harlem, was nominated for an Oscar in 1995.

From Harlem to Hollywood. Vassar College Quarterly (Winter 1997).