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Valerie Sybil Wilmer (born 7 December 1941) is a British
photographer A photographer (the Greek φῶς (''phos''), meaning "light", and γραφή (''graphê''), meaning "drawing, writing", together meaning "drawing with light") is a person who uses a camera to make photographs. Duties and types of photograp ...
and writer specialising in
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. Its roots are in blues, ragtime, European harmony, African rhythmic rituals, spirituals, h ...
,
gospel Gospel originally meant the Christianity, Christian message ("the gospel"), but in the second century Anno domino, AD the term (, from which the English word originated as a calque) came to be used also for the books in which the message w ...
,
blues Blues is a music genre and musical form that originated among African Americans in the Deep South of the United States around the 1860s. Blues has incorporated spiritual (music), spirituals, work songs, field hollers, Ring shout, shouts, cha ...
, and British African-Caribbean music and culture. Her notable books include ''Jazz People'' (1970) and ''As Serious As Your Life'' (1977), both first published by Allison and Busby. Wilmer's
autobiography An autobiography, sometimes informally called an autobio, is a self-written account of one's own life, providing a personal narrative that reflects on the author's experiences, memories, and insights. This genre allows individuals to share thei ...
, ''Mama Said There'd Be Days Like This: My Life in the Jazz World'', was published in 1989.


Early life

Val Wilmer was born on 7 December 1941 in
Harrogate Harrogate ( ) is a spa town and civil parish in the North Yorkshire District, district and North Yorkshire, county of North Yorkshire, England. Historic counties of England, Historically in the West Riding of Yorkshire, the town is a tourist de ...
,
Yorkshire Yorkshire ( ) is an area of Northern England which was History of Yorkshire, historically a county. Despite no longer being used for administration, Yorkshire retains a strong regional identity. The county was named after its county town, the ...
, England, where her family had been evacuated from
London London is the Capital city, capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of both England and the United Kingdom, with a population of in . London metropolitan area, Its wider metropolitan area is the largest in Wester ...
because of the outbreak of
World War II World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...
. She is the sister of the poet and writer Clive Wilmer (1945–2025). As soon as the war was over, her family returned to living in London. She began her life in the jazz world by listening to prewar recordings of jazz classics, being led to many important recordings through Rudi Blesh's ''Shining Trumpets'', a history of jazz, and ''Jazz'' by Rex Harris. Wilmer became entranced by recordings by
Bessie Smith Bessie Smith (April 15, 1892 – September 26, 1937) was an African-American blues singer widely renowned during the Jazz Age. Nicknamed the "Honorific nicknames in popular music, Empress of the Blues" and formerly Queen of the Blues, she was t ...
("Empty Bed Blues") and the singing of
Fats Waller Thomas Wright "Fats" Waller (May 21, 1904 – December 15, 1943) was an American jazz pianist, organist, composer, and singer. His innovations in the Harlem stride style laid much of the basis for modern jazz piano. A widely popular star ...
– going to the Swing Shop in
Streatham Streatham ( ) is a district in south London, England. Centred south of Charing Cross, it lies mostly within the London Borough of Lambeth, with some parts extending into the neighbouring London Borough of Wandsworth. Streatham was in Surrey ...
, south London, at the age of 12, combing through the jazz records until she found something she wanted to hear.Wilmer 1989, p. 3. Three years after these explorations in sound, Wilmer began writing about Black music, encouraged and inspired by Max Jones,
Paul Oliver Paul Hereford Oliver MBE (25 May 1927 – 15 August 2017) was an English architectural historian and writer on the blues and other forms of African-American music. He was equally distinguished in both fields, although it is likely that afici ...
and others. She attended concerts accompanied by her mother, who believed her too young to go on her own. Wilmer states that it was a “tribute to ermother's tolerance" being allowed to explore her interests so freely, especially during a time when little girls were often informed of the limitations of their own future options: "Little girls, we are often told, want to grow up to be ballet dancers ... I don’t think it ever crossed my mind to consider the usual female options, resolutely opposed as I was to anything that smacked of feminine pursuits and did not involve going places, being and doing."


Writing career

Aware of the earliest records of jazz and blues, Wilmer began to write about jazz and other African-American music, focusing on the political and social messages of the music. Her first article (a biography of
Jesse Fuller Jesse Fuller (March 12, 1896 – January 29, 1976) was an American one-man band musician, best known for his song "San Francisco Bay Blues". Early life Fuller was born in Jonesboro, Georgia, near Atlanta, United States. He was sent by his moth ...
) appeared in '' Jazz Journal'' in May 1959 when she was still only 17. Reflecting on how this piece originated, Wilmer states: "I was an inveterate letter writer, that's how the break with Jesse Fuller came about, me writing to him out of the blue. Woe betide any American musician who was foolish enough to have a contact address published somewhere — I'd find it and fire off a letter. The amazing thing was really, I mean really, that so many would reply! These great musicians and characters from a black culture on the other side of the world writing back to this young suburban white girl in England." Fundamental to Wilmer's work is her keen understanding and insightful expression of the disparity between male and female music writers. Entering this world in 1959, she understood that writing about music was “something that men did. There was a penalty to pay for being a woman in a man’s world… ndfor a white woman to be concerned with something that Black people did meant to experience additional pressure."Wilmer, 1989, p. xiii. Through African-American music Wilmer was able to immerse herself in realities that would have stayed undiscovered had she remained within the margins of her comfort-zone. For her, these experiences were fundamental and life-changing. Her perseverance in this difficult sphere and her devotion to the music led her to a path of self-discovery and personal growth, and the understanding of "the potential for personal change that exists in us all." Through her writing about music, Wilmer was able to provide a voice to a transatlantic, multicultural, and multiracial dialogue, delving into a "part of history, or
hat A hat is a Headgear, head covering which is worn for various reasons, including protection against weather conditions, ceremonial reasons such as university graduation, religious reasons, safety, or as a fashion accessory. Hats which incorpor ...
might very soon be." Since 1959, she has interviewed hundreds of musicians, written previews and criticism. Her work has been cited and used in research for many books, articles and films, including several biographies of major musicians. Her early interviews with Earle Warren, Lee Young, and Paul "Polo" Barnes are cited in Douglas Henry Daniels's biography of
Lester Young Lester Willis Young (August 27, 1909 – March 15, 1959), nicknamed "Pres" or "Prez", was an American jazz tenor saxophonist and occasional clarinetist. Coming to prominence while a member of Count Basie's orchestra, Young was one of the most i ...
. Interviews with
Thelonious Monk Thelonious Sphere Monk ( October 10, 1917 – February 17, 1982) was an American Jazz piano, jazz pianist and composer. He had a unique improvisational style and made numerous contributions to the Jazz standard, standard jazz repertoire, includ ...
, Nellie Monk and
Billy Higgins Billy Higgins (October 11, 1936 – May 3, 2001) was an American jazz drummer. He played mainly free jazz and hard bop. Biography Higgins was born in Los Angeles, California, United States. Higgins played on Ornette Coleman's first records, be ...
are cited in Robin D. G. Kelley's biography of Thelonious Monk. Other examples of the use of Wilmer's early interviews include "Texas Trombone: Henry Coker" in Dave Oliphant's books ''Texan Jazz'' and ''Jazz Mavericks of the Lone Star State''. She was later to gain recognition for her interviews of saxophonists Joe Harriott and
Ornette Coleman Randolph Denard Ornette Coleman (March 9, 1930 – June 11, 2015) was an American jazz saxophonist, trumpeter, violinist, and composer. He is best known as a principal founder of the free jazz genre, a term derived from his 1960 album '' Free Ja ...
, and become a writer, music critic and photographer. Writing in 1965 of the changes in Monk's style, she says: "For the last 10 years or so, Monk's music has become easier to listen to, though it is not necessarily any simpler. What he is doing is as engaging and profound as ever, though seeming to be less provocative than when he was upsetting rules." Her essays and obituaries are notable for their ability to subtly reveal the underlying inequities that Black artists and women faced in the music industry, often using their own words. In a 15 July 1960 obituary in '' Jazz News'', Wilmer quotes
Memphis Slim John Len Chatman (September 3, 1915 – February 24, 1988), known professionally as Memphis Slim, was an American blues pianist, singer, and composer. He led a series of bands that, reflecting the popular appeal of jump blues, included saxopho ...
: "I also wanted to get my own publishing company, but the record men don't want to hire a guy who's got his own publishing company," revealing the difficulty he faced as a black artist. Speaking of her friendship with the influential lyricist, music critic, interviewer and singer Kitty Grime, Wilmer demonstrates her love, respect and admiration, while also revealing the masculine bias in the world of music: "It was during this heady period that we met, at a time when the jazz scene was virtually an all-male preserve...her awareness and knowledgeability were something that most younger commentators would be hard put to emulate". In her writing, she continuously keeps jazz history at the forefront, and presents herself as a devout listener, admirer and lover of music. Nevertheless, she admits to having interviewed the brothers
Albert Ayler Albert Ayler (; July 13, 1936 – November 25, 1970) was an American avant-garde jazz saxophonist and composer. After early experience playing rhythm and blues and bebop, Ayler began recording music during the free jazz era of the 1960s. Ho ...
and Donald Ayler as a journalistic exercise and not a fan, yet eventually she "would come to admire Albert Ayler as the last major jazz visionary". Although Wilmer's forte is jazz and blues, she is versed in the larger movements in music history and reveals her versatility across genres when, for instance, she writes about how
Jimi Hendrix James Marshall "Jimi" Hendrix (born Johnny Allen Hendrix; November 27, 1942September 18, 1970) was an American singer-songwriter and musician. He is widely regarded as one of the greatest and most influential guitarists of all time. Inducted ...
's visit to England in 1966 gave "the floundering local scene a much-needed injection". Wilmer has been a contributor to a vast array of publications, including ''
Melody Maker ''Melody Maker'' was a British weekly music magazine, one of the world's earliest music weeklies; according to its publisher, IPC Media, the earliest. In January 2001, it was merged into "long-standing rival" (and IPC Media sister publicatio ...
'', ''
DownBeat ''DownBeat'' (styled in all caps) is an American music magazine devoted to "jazz, blues and beyond", the last word indicating its expansion beyond the jazz realm that it covered exclusively in previous years. The publication was established in 1 ...
'' (she was its UK correspondent, 1966–1970), '' Jazz Journal'', '' Musics'', ''Double Bassist'', '' Mojo'', '' Jazzwise'', ''
The Wire ''The Wire'' is an American Crime fiction, crime Drama (film and television), drama television series created and primarily written by the American author and former police reporter David Simon for the cable network HBO. The series premiered o ...
'', and regularly contributes obituaries of musicians to ''
The Guardian ''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in Manchester in 1821 as ''The Manchester Guardian'' and changed its name in 1959, followed by a move to London. Along with its sister paper, ''The Guardian Weekly'', ''The Guardi ...
''.


''Jazz People'' (1970)

Wilmer's first book, ''Jazz People'', was one of the first books published by Margaret Busby at
Allison & Busby Allison & Busby (A & B) is a publishing house based in London established by Clive Allison and Margaret Busby in 1967. The company has built up a reputation as a leading independent publisher. Background Launching as a publishing company in Ma ...
in 1970 and is now often referred to as one of the "three or four finest books ever written on jazz" (subsequently issued in the US by
Da Capo Press Da Capo Press is an American publishing company with headquarters in Boston, Massachusetts. It is now an imprint of Hachette Books. History Founded in 1964 as a publisher of music books, as a division of Plenum Publishers, it had additional offi ...
). It features interviews with American musicians who include Eddie "Lockjaw" Davis,
Art Farmer Arthur Stewart Farmer (August 21, 1928 – October 4, 1999) was an American jazz trumpeter and flugelhorn player. He also played flumpet, a trumpet–flugelhorn combination especially designed for him. He and his identical twin brother, doub ...
, Babs Gonzales,
Jimmy Heath James Edward Heath (October 25, 1926 – January 19, 2020), nicknamed Little Bird, was an American jazz saxophonist, composer, arranger, and big band leader. He was the brother of bassist Percy Heath and drummer Albert Heath. Biography Heath w ...
,
Billy Higgins Billy Higgins (October 11, 1936 – May 3, 2001) was an American jazz drummer. He played mainly free jazz and hard bop. Biography Higgins was born in Los Angeles, California, United States. Higgins played on Ornette Coleman's first records, be ...
,
Thelonious Monk Thelonious Sphere Monk ( October 10, 1917 – February 17, 1982) was an American Jazz piano, jazz pianist and composer. He had a unique improvisational style and made numerous contributions to the Jazz standard, standard jazz repertoire, includ ...
,
Archie Shepp Archie Shepp (born May 24, 1937) is an American jazz saxophonist, educator and playwright who since the 1960s has played a central part in the development of avant-garde jazz. Biography Early life Shepp was born in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, but ...
,
Cecil Taylor Cecil Percival Taylor (March 25, 1929April 5, 2018) was an American pianist and poet. Taylor was classically trained and was one of the pioneers of free jazz. His music is characterized by an energetic, physical approach, resulting in comple ...
,
Clark Terry Clark Virgil Terry Jr. (December 14, 1920 – February 21, 2015) was an American Swing music, swing and bebop trumpeter, a pioneer of the flugelhorn in jazz, and a composer and educator. He played with Charlie Barnet (1947), Count Basie (1948� ...
,
Big Joe Turner Joseph Vernon "Big Joe" Turner Jr. (May 18, 1911 – November 24, 1985) was an American blues shouter from Kansas City, Missouri. According to songwriter Doc Pomus, "Rock and roll would have never happened without him". Turner's greatest fa ...
and Randy Weston, and as ''
Kirkus Reviews ''Kirkus Reviews'' is an American book review magazine founded in 1933 by Virginia Kirkus. The magazine's publisher, Kirkus Media, is headquartered in New York City. ''Kirkus Reviews'' confers the annual Kirkus Prize to authors of fiction, no ...
'' noted: "The emphasis is on the people in these fourteen interviews, the personalities behind the jazz, their moods, ambitions, influences....The author observes well and the profiles are short and sharp with high notes for the buff."


''The Face of Black Music'' (1976)

Rated "as important a photographer as she is a writer", Wilmer is the author of the photograph-led ''The Face of Black Music'' (
Da Capo Press Da Capo Press is an American publishing company with headquarters in Boston, Massachusetts. It is now an imprint of Hachette Books. History Founded in 1964 as a publisher of music books, as a division of Plenum Publishers, it had additional offi ...
, 1976), which like ''Jazz People'' is considered a canonical and influential text in music criticism.


''As Serious As Your Life'' (1977)

Wilmer's book ''As Serious as Your Life'', first published in 1977 by Allison and Busby, is considered by some a classic of jazz writing, but not without criticism from others, referencing in its title something said to her by
McCoy Tyner Alfred McCoy Tyner (December 11, 1938March 6, 2020) was an American jazz piano, jazz pianist and composer known for his work with the John Coltrane Quartet from 1960 to 1965, and his long solo career afterwards. He was an NEA Jazz Masters, NEA J ...
: "Music's not a plaything; it's as serious as your life." One of the first accounts of the revolutionary "free jazz" and its practitioners, it also documents women's experiences in relation to the "new jazz" in African-American communities, and deviates from the "masculinist rule of exclusion".Fischlin, David, and Ajay Heble. ''The Other Side of Nowhere: Jazz, Improvisation, and Communities in Dialogue'', 1st edn (Middletown: Wesleyan University Press, 2004), p. 230. Presenting sexual politics in the world of jazz, Wilmer unearthed sexual politics in music criticism itself. In her work, she presents a "superb descriptive journey that moves the reader through a number of seemingly incommensurable communities simultaneously.... This is the vision and possibility of community when the struggle toward freedom recognizes the intersections of sexual difference, gender, and sexuality in addition to race and class, as the basis for improvisational practices". ''As Serious As Your Life'' was reprinted by Serpent's Tail in March 2018 (endorsed on the cover by
Nat Hentoff Nathan Irving Hentoff (June 10, 1925 – January 7, 2017) was an American historian, novelist, jazz and country music critic, and syndicated columnist for United Media. Hentoff was a columnist for ''The Village Voice'' from 1958 to 2009. F ...
as "An exceptionally illuminating book on jazz"), and Michael J. Agovino wrote in ''
The Village Voice ''The Village Voice'' is an American news and culture publication based in Greenwich Village, New York City, known for being the country's first Alternative newspaper, alternative newsweekly. Founded in 1955 by Dan Wolf (publisher), Dan Wolf, ...
'': "During the 1960s and '70s 'counterculture', much of which became a massive cash register, Val Wilmer fixed her strobe lights onto a musical and political landscape that really did in fact run counter to the culture. A shame so few — blacks and whites — were paying attention at the time. But her book, and the work it documented, remains as serious, and necessary, as ever." The name of the music production company Serious, established in the mid-1980s and organizers of the annual London Jazz Festival, is partly inspired by Wilmer's book, according to founder John Cumming: "I recommend that book to anybody interested in the evolution of jazz in the late 20th century. ...that was a book that really made me think. It was a mixture of Val's book, and also that in the eighties 'serious' had become a piece of contemporary slang. People used to come up and say, 'That's a really serious piece of work.


''Mama Said There'd Be Days Like This'' (1989)

Wilmer's autobiography, ''Mama Said There'd Be Days Like This: My Life in the Jazz World'' ( Women's Press, 1989), details her development as an artist/journalist, and includes her coming out as a lesbian in a largely heterosexist musical milieu. In the ''
Feminist Review ''Feminist Review'' is a triannual peer-reviewed academic journal with a focus on exploring gender in its multiple forms and interrelationships. The journal was established in 1979. It is published by SAGE Publishing and is edited by a collective. ...
'', Robyn Archer wrote: "With this book Val has made the courageous decision to tell it like it was. The result is a social history of music like no other, and a no-nonsense account of the development from birth to maturity of a dynamic woman whose documentary arts deserve to be reappraised as a whole in the light of this book."


Other documentation and archival projects

Wilmer has written biographical articles on
Black British Black British people or Black Britons"Black Briton, N." ''Oxford English Dictionary''. Oxford UP. December 2024. https://doi.org/10.1093/OED/1136579918. are a multi-ethnic group of British people of List of ethnic groups of Africa, Sub-Saharan ...
musicians from the 1940s and 1950s, and articles about photography. She was a member of the advisory board for '' The New Grove Dictionary of Jazz'' (2nd edition, 2002), edited by
Barry Kernfeld Barry Dean Kernfeld (born August 11, 1950) is an American musicologist and jazz saxophonist who has researched and published extensively about the history of jazz and the biographies of its musicians. Education In 1968, Kernfeld enrolled at ...
, and the author of 63 entries. Wilmer provided the foreword to John Gray's ''Fire Music: A Bibliography of the New Jazz, 1959–1990''. She has written more than 35 articles for the ''Oxford Dictionary of National Biography''. The British Library Sound Archive contains 35 of Wilmer's interviews with black British musicians and women musicians in its Oral History of Jazz in Britain. Wilmer has amassed a collection of historic photos of black people in Britain, some of which have been on public display (including in Autograph ABP's 2014 exhibition ''Black Chronicles II'' at Rivington Place), and she is working on a project to research the lives of black British musicians, which she has been documenting for many years.


Photography

Wilmer is as important a photographer as she is a writer, having worked with hundreds of singers, jazz musicians and writers, and she has taken noted photographs of artists such as Langston Hughes,
Louis Armstrong Louis Daniel Armstrong (August 4, 1901 – July 6, 1971), nicknamed "Satchmo", "Satch", and "Pops", was an American trumpeter and vocalist. He was among the most influential figures in jazz. His career spanned five decades and several era ...
,
John Coltrane John William Coltrane (September 23, 1926 – July 17, 1967) was an American jazz saxophonist, bandleader and composer. He is among the most influential and acclaimed figures in the Jazz#Post-war jazz, history of jazz and 20th-century musi ...
, and
Duke Ellington Edward Kennedy "Duke" Ellington (April 29, 1899 – May 24, 1974) was an American Jazz piano, jazz pianist, composer, and leader of his eponymous Big band, jazz orchestra from 1924 through the rest of his life. Born and raised in Washington, D ...
. Her photographs were exhibited at the
Victoria and Albert Museum The Victoria and Albert Museum (abbreviated V&A) in London is the world's largest museum of applied arts, decorative arts and design, housing a permanent collection of over 2.8 million objects. It was founded in 1852 and named after Queen ...
(V&A) in the 1973 exhibition ''Jazz Seen: The Face of Black Music'', and form part of the V&A's photographic collection. Her photographs are also held in the
National Portrait Gallery National Portrait Gallery may refer to: * National Portrait Gallery (Australia), in Canberra * National Portrait Gallery (Sweden), in Mariefred *National Portrait Gallery (United States), in Washington, D.C. *National Portrait Gallery, London ...
collection. She has written about photography and interviewed practitioners including Eve Arnold, Anthony Barboza, Roy DeCarava, Terry Cryer, Milt Hinton, John Hopkins,
Danny Lyon Danny Lyon (born March 16, 1942) is an American photographer and filmmaker. All of Lyon's publications work in the style of photographic New Journalism, meaning that the photographer has become immersed in, and is a participant of, the document ...
, Raissa Page (of
Greenham Common Royal Air Force Greenham Common or more simply RAF Greenham Common is a former Royal Air Force station in the civil parishes of Greenham and Thatcham in the English county of Berkshire. The airfield was southeast of Newbury, about west of Lo ...
fame), Coreen Simpson, Beuford Smith and James Van Der Zee. In the 1980s, Wilmer compiled and edited the "Evidence" issue of '' Ten.8'' magazine devoted to the work of African-American photographers. Wilmer's work has often been used in conjunction with music albums, as in the
digipak Optical disc packaging is the packaging that accompanies CDs, DVDs, and other formats of optical discs. Most packaging is rigid or semi-rigid and designed to protect the media from scratches and other types of exposure damage. Jewel case A ...
booklet for Honest Jon's ''London is the Place for Me no. 4'' CD, which includes photographs by her that "are full of warmth and immediacy". With Maggie Murray, Wilmer founded Format, the first all-women photographers' agency in Britain, in 1983. In September 2013, while Ronnie Scott's Jazz Club in Frith Street,
Soho SoHo, short for "South of Houston Street, Houston Street", is a neighborhood in Lower Manhattan, New York City. Since the 1970s, the neighborhood has been the location of many artists' lofts and art galleries, art installations such as The Wall ...
, was undergoing redecoration, a hoarding was erected on the façade with a tribute to its eponymous founder in the form of a massive photograph by Wilmer of him smoking a cigarette outside the club, and one of his legendary one-liners: "I love this place, it's just like home, filthy and full of strangers." Wilmer's work was featured in the ''Esquire Cover Club'', the London Jazz Festival's digital exhibition for 2020. On 2 November 2023, a solo exhibition of her work, entitled ''Blue Moments, Black Sounds – A Retrospective'', opened at the Worldly, Wicked and Wise Gallery in North London, on show until 30 November. Reviewing the exhibition, Richard Williams wrote: "Val Wilmer is one of the most remarkable people I know, and you'll know that too if you've seen her photographs. Whether it's
Muddy Waters McKinley Morganfield (April 4, 1913April 30, 1983), better known as Muddy Waters, was an American blues singer-songwriter and musician who was an important figure in the post-World War II blues scene, and is often cited as the "father of moder ...
playing cards with
Brownie McGhee Walter Brown "Brownie" McGhee (November 30, 1915 – February 16, 1996) was an American folk and Piedmont blues singer and guitarist, best known for his collaboration with the harmonica player Sonny Terry. Life and career McGhee was bor ...
backstage at the
Fairfield Halls Fairfield Halls is an arts, entertainment and conference centre in Croydon, London, England, which opened in 1962 and contains a theatre and gallery, and a large concert hall regularly used for BBC television, radio and orchestral recordings. F ...
in 1964,
Archie Shepp Archie Shepp (born May 24, 1937) is an American jazz saxophonist, educator and playwright who since the 1960s has played a central part in the development of avant-garde jazz. Biography Early life Shepp was born in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, but ...
sitting beneath a
Jimi Hendrix James Marshall "Jimi" Hendrix (born Johnny Allen Hendrix; November 27, 1942September 18, 1970) was an American singer-songwriter and musician. He is widely regarded as one of the greatest and most influential guitarists of all time. Inducted ...
poster in his New York apartment, or a joyful couple whose names we'll never know at a blues dance in Bentonia, Mississippi half a century ago, she finds the essence of the human spirit." The photobook published to accompany the exhibition, entitled ''Deep Blues 1960–1988'', is "a striking collection showing African American blues musicians and their communities".


Collections

Photographic works by Wilmer are held by the Arts Council of Great Britain Collection; the
National Portrait Gallery National Portrait Gallery may refer to: * National Portrait Gallery (Australia), in Canberra * National Portrait Gallery (Sweden), in Mariefred *National Portrait Gallery (United States), in Washington, D.C. *National Portrait Gallery, London ...
;
Victoria and Albert Museum The Victoria and Albert Museum (abbreviated V&A) in London is the world's largest museum of applied arts, decorative arts and design, housing a permanent collection of over 2.8 million objects. It was founded in 1852 and named after Queen ...
; Musée d'Art Moderne, Paris; Fotografiska Museet,
Stockholm Stockholm (; ) is the Capital city, capital and List of urban areas in Sweden by population, most populous city of Sweden, as well as the List of urban areas in the Nordic countries, largest urban area in the Nordic countries. Approximately ...
;
Smithsonian Institution The Smithsonian Institution ( ), or simply the Smithsonian, is a group of museums, Education center, education and Research institute, research centers, created by the Federal government of the United States, U.S. government "for the increase a ...
,
Washington DC Washington, D.C., formally the District of Columbia and commonly known as Washington or D.C., is the capital city and Federal district of the United States, federal district of the United States. The city is on the Potomac River, across from ...
; and the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture (New York Public Library).


Bibliography

*''Jazz People''. London:
Allison & Busby Allison & Busby (A & B) is a publishing house based in London established by Clive Allison and Margaret Busby in 1967. The company has built up a reputation as a leading independent publisher. Background Launching as a publishing company in Ma ...
, 1970; Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill Company, 1970; reprinted Quartet Books, 1977. New edition
Da Capo Press Da Capo Press is an American publishing company with headquarters in Boston, Massachusetts. It is now an imprint of Hachette Books. History Founded in 1964 as a publisher of music books, as a division of Plenum Publishers, it had additional offi ...
, 1991. *''The Face of Black Music: Photographs by Valerie Wilmer''. New York: Da Capo Press, 1976. *''As Serious as Your Life: The Story of the New Jazz''. London: Allison & Busby, 1977. New edition with introduction by Richard Williams from Serpent's Tail, March 2018, . *''Mama Said There'd Be Days Like This: My Life in the Jazz World''. London: Women's Press, 1989, . *''Deep Blues 1960–1988''. Café Royal Books, 2023. *''American Drummers 1959-1988''. Café Royal Books, 2024.


Awards and recognition

In 2009, Val Wilmer was honoured with a Parliamentary Jazz Award for Services to Jazz. In July 2017, she featured in "The Wire Salon: An Audience with Val Wilmer" at Cafe Oto. It has been said that "Wilmer is in every sense as important as the musicians and music she has documented." She is the subject of BBC Radio 3's ''Sunday Feature: A Portrait of Val Wilmer'', produced by Steve Urquhart (featuring contributions from Margaret Busby, Paul Gilroy, Richard Williams, Andrew Cyrille, and Clive Wilmer), which was first broadcast on 4 March 2018. The following week, she was also featured by Robert Elms as a "Listed Londoner" on his BBC Radio London programme. In 2019, Wilmer received the Lona Foote/Bob Parent (photographer), Bob Parent Award for Career Excellence in Photography at the 24th annual Jazz Journalists Association Jazz Awards. In 2020, Wilmer became a Patron of the National Jazz Archive. In October 2023, Wilmer was interviewed by Cerys Matthews for ''The Blues Show'' on BBC Radio 2, featuring musicians whom Wilmer met and photographed such as
Muddy Waters McKinley Morganfield (April 4, 1913April 30, 1983), better known as Muddy Waters, was an American blues singer-songwriter and musician who was an important figure in the post-World War II blues scene, and is often cited as the "father of moder ...
, Buddy Moss and Aretha Franklin. Wilmer had previously appeared with Matthews on a 2018 BBC Four television programme, ''Blues and Beyond'', selecting their favourite blues musicians. In 2024, she was chosen to be featured as a "castaway" on BBC Radio 4's ''Desert Island Discs'' on 4 February.


References


Sources and further reading

*Bayley, Bruno

''Vice'', Vol. 15, no. 5. *''Contemporary Authors: A Bio-Bibliographical Guide to Current Writers in Fiction, General Nonfiction, Poetry, Journalism, Drama, Motion Pictures, Television, and Other Field: 85-88'' (Detroit: Cengage Gale, 1980). *Davies, Sue. ''Contemporary Photographers'', Martin Marix Evans, ed. (New York: St. James Press, 1995). *Fischlin, David, and Ajay Heble. ''The Other Side of Nowhere: Jazz, Improvisation, and Communities in Dialogue'', 1st edition, Middletown: Wesleyan University Press, 2004. *Ford, Robert. ''A Blues Bibliography'' (Bromley: Paul Pelletier Publishing, 1999; 2nd edition, New York: Routledge, 2007). *Gannon, Robert. "Wilmer, Valerie", ''The New Grove Dictionary of Jazz'', Barry Dean Kernfeld, ed. (London: MacMillan Press, 1988), p. 1299; entry revised by B. Kernfeld (2nd edition, 2002). *Gray, John. ''Fire Music: A Bibliography of the New Jazz, 1959–1990'' (Westport: Greenwood, 1991). *Michael Gray (author0, Gray, Michael. ''The Bob Dylan Encyclopedia'' (London: Continuum International Publishing Group, 2006). *McKay, George. ''Circular Breathing: The Cultural Politics of Jazz in Britain'' (Durham: Duke University Press, 2005). *Mathieson, Kenny. ''Encyclopaedia of Blues''. Komara, Edward, ed. (New York: Routledge, 2006). *Oliphant, Dave. ''Jazz Mavericks of the Lone Star State'' (Austin: University of Texas Press, 2007). *Trynka, Paul; photographs by Val Wilmer. ''Portrait of the Blues'' (New York: Da Capo Press, 1997). *Wilmer, Valerie
"Monk on Monk"
''DownBeat'', 3 June 1965: pp. 20–22. *---. "New York is Alive! Report and Photography by Valerie Wilmer". ''Jazz Forum'', 1973: pp. 47–49. *---. "Rock and Roll Genius" [interview with Otis Blackwell]. ''Melody Maker'', 5 February 1977, Vol. 52: pp. 8, 44. *---. "The first preference is pride" [interview with Jayaben Desai], ''Time Out (magazine), Time Out'', 15–21 September 1978, pp. 14–15. *---. "Gilmore and 'Trane: The Sun Ra Link". ''Melody Maker'', 27 December 1980. Vol. 55: pp. 16–17. *---. I'm Happy as All Hell that the Man Took My Songs [interview with Otis Blackwell]. ''Time Out (magazine), Time Out''. 6–12 March 1981, pp. 12–13. *---. "Rudolph Dunbar". ''City Limits (London magazine), City Limits'', March 1986: pp. 84–86. *---. "Mama Said There'd Be Days Like This: Valerie Wilmer Responds to Max Harrison's Review of her Book". ''Jazz Forum'', 4 March 1990: pp. 4–5. *---
"How We Met: Lauderic Caton and Louis Stephenson"
''The Independent on Sunday Review'', 7 February 1993: p. 61. *---. "Jimi Hendrix: An Experience". ''DownBeat'', February 1994: pp. 38–40. *---. "The First Time I Met the Blues". ''Mojo'', September 1995. 22: pp. 84–85. *---. "Spirits Rejoice: Albert and Don Ayler". ''Coda: The Journal of Jazz and Improvised Music'', March–April 1997: pp. 4–7. *---. "Coleridge Goode: Improving with Age". ''Double Bassist'', 2003: pp. 12–15. *---. "Roswell Rudd and the Chartreuse Phantasm". ''The Wire'', Issue 249, November 2004: pp. 28–31. *---. "A Blue Mariner's Legacy". ''Double Bassist'', 2005: pp. 24–26. *---. "Kitty Grime". ''Jazz Journal International'', 2007: pp. 18–19. *---
"Jazz and Blues and Blues and Jazz"
''Vice'', Vol. 16, no. 7, The Photo Issue 2009.


External links

*
"Oral History Excerpt – Val Wilmer"
Four Corners Archive. *Carney, Joh

''Tangents: The Home of Unpopular Culture'' (2006). *Rasheed, Kameelah

''The Liberator Magazine''.
Valerie Wilmer's contributions to Obituaries pages
''The Guardian''.
"Val Wilmer – Journalist, historian and photographer"
Women's Liberation Music Archive, Feminist Music-Making in the UK and Ireland, 1970–1990.
"Blues Britannia – Val Wilmer's photo memories"
(a selection of photographs from BBC Four's ''Blues Britannia'', taken by Val Wilmer), BBC.

''The Independent'', 7 September 1992.
"Val Wilmer"
photograph by Lucinda Douglas-Menzies at National Portrait Gallery, London, 2013.
"Masters of Jazz Photography — Val Wilmer"
Jerry Jazz Musician, 17 April 2015. * Lee, Karen (Weekend Family Music Hour)
"Val Wilmer Is Seriously As Serious As Her Life"
''Freeform Portland'', 15 February 2018.
"Val Wilmer interviewed by John Fordham Oct 2020"
SeriousLive (audio). {{DEFAULTSORT:Wilmer, Val 1941 births Living people 20th-century British photographers 20th-century English women artists 20th-century English women writers 20th-century British women photographers 21st-century British photographers 21st-century English women artists 21st-century English women writers 21st-century British women photographers British music historians British writers about music English LGBTQ writers English music journalists English women journalists English women photographers Jazz photographers Jazz writers LGBTQ people from Yorkshire Photographers from London Women writers about music