Jazz in Focus

Krivin got into the vocation by pure happenstance when her husband Martin Krivin, then a professor of music at Wayne, N.J.’s William Paterson College (which has since become a university), helped create a succession of jazz concerts which evolved into the long-running Jazz Room Series at the college.

“Believe me, I would never in my wildest dreams have thought that I would do this as a kid,” said Krivin. “But my husband wanted somebody to document it, and he asked me if I would.”

Getting her start working mainly for the college, Krivin benefited from the access she received to the musicians. “I had no sharp deadline, so I could be around all day,” she said. “There was a variety of shots I could take, like things backstage, people milling around, private moments.”

As the years went on, Krivin expanded out from the Jazz Room Series, working for festivals and New Jersey television, and doing free-lance work. Yet rather than expand into other genres and types of pictures, in the end her love of photography stemmed mainly from her love for jazz. “I had all that I wanted with jazz,” Krivin said. “I didn’t want to do other things such as weddings.”

And her dedication to her work led her to photograph hundreds of performers throughout her career, always looking for the intimate moments that set her images apart. “I didn’t always get magic,” she said. “I looked for things that they would do, little habits, and waited until I got that look. A lot of it was not premeditated.”

It is these small, private moments that fill Jazz Studies from beginning to end. A compilation of images spanning her entire career, it comes on the heels of her 2003 book Twenty-Five Years of the Jazz Room at William Paterson University (William Paterson University), which was dedicated solely to her Jazz Room endeavors. “That {previous} book was mainly a promotion for the college,” Krivin said. “I felt it was time to put together the really great shots that I had, so with my husband’s help we went for it.”

Jazz Studies is available through Krivin’s Web site, www.jkrivin.com.

—Dan Rys