Jazz Appreciation Month – These Artists ‘Got Their Glasses On!’

In jazz slang, to say you’ve “got your glasses on” means you’re acting a little snooty.
But we think that expression’s jive, man, because we’re all about people getting their glasses on. After all, some of the coolest cats who ever blew an axe literally got their glasses on.

Lisa Simpson playing a saxophone with a cloud image of Bleeding Gums Murphy playing the saxophone behind her.
Don’t have a cow, man. We know Simpsons character Bleeding Gums Murphy wasn’t an actual jazz great. But plenty of real-life jazz musicians sported some pretty rad rims.

So in honor of April’s designation as Jazz Appreciation Month (with the appropriate acronym JAM), we’re taking a look at some of the baddest daddies (and a couple of fine ladies) of jazz who definitely got their glasses on – in a good way.

Composer, lyricist, and ragtime pianist Eubie Blake was one of the fathers of jazz.

Elderly man in suit and glasses playing a piano confidently with a smile.
Blake and his partner, singer-songwriter Noble Sissle, wrote the 1921 Broadway musical Shuffle Along, one of the first written and directed by African Americans. That show gave the world the standard “I’m Just Wild About Harry.” Blake was just wild about horn-rim, square glasses. Check out similar Zenni frame 220421.

Black rectangular eyeglass frames with star and arrow-shaped embellishments on the temples.
Clarinetist and bandleader Benny Goodman’s 1938 concert at New York’s Carnegie Hall was considered jazz’s coming-out party, and as such, one of the most important performances in jazz history.

BENNY GOODMAN. The Famous 1938 Carnegie Hall Jazz Concert. With Harry James, Count Basie, Teddy Wilson, Gene Krupa, Lionel Hampton, Cootie Williams, Bobby Hackett, and many other great Jazz artists. Don’t Be That Way, One O’Clock Jump
The concert climaxed with the immortal “Sing, Sing, Sing,” featuring Lionel Hampton (left) on vibraphone, Gene Krupa on drums and Harry James (not pictured) on trumpet.

Three musicians performing, Vibraphone player on the left, trumpet player in the center, and drummer on the right with "Charlotte Band Trio" on the bass drum.
A big part of Goodman’s image is his rimless eyeglasses.

Man holding a clarinet, wearing glasses and a tuxedo with a white flower on the lapel.
Goodman’s frame is similar to Zenni’s frame 322111, shown with lens shape 232.

Rimless eyeglasses with clear nose pads, thin metal frame, and black rubber temple tips.
If you want to copy Goodman’s style, go with lens shape 224.

Black rectangular eyeglass lenses with a small black rectangular bridge piece in the center.
Thelonious Monk was one of the first modern-jazz, bebop artists.

Man wearing a beret and glasses playing the piano.
He was notable for a percussive style of piano improvisation with abrupt starts and stops. Monk first gained attention performing with Charlie “Bird” Parker and Dizzy Gillespie at Minton’s Playhouse in Harlem, where he was the house pianist.

Minton's Playhouse neon sign lit up at night with musical note symbols on either side.
Monk’s popularity took off when the Thelonious Monk Quartet played the Five Spot Café in New York, in 1957. Along with Monk on piano, the quartet included (from left) John Coltrane on sax, Shadow Wilson on drums, and Ahmed Abdul-Malik on bass.

Jazz band performing with a saxophonist, pianist, bassist, and drummer.
Whether it’s “ ’Round Midnight,” or any time of the day, Monk looks great in his glasses. You’ll look just as cool in Zenni frame 690111.

Black rectangular eyeglass frames with a textured design on the frame and "ZENNI" on the left temple.
Or, to get the Monk look in non-prescription sunglasses, go with Zenni frame A10120421.

Black sunglasses with dark lenses and "ZENNI" text on the inner side of the left arm.
Ella Fitzgerald was known as both the “First Lady of Song” and the “Queen of Jazz.”

Person singing into a microphone with eyes closed and an expressive face.
She was the first African-American woman to win a Grammy, at the first Grammy Awards ceremony, in 1959. She actually won two Grammys that night, Best Female Vocal Performance for Ella Fitzgerald Sings the Irving Berlin Songbook, and Best Jazz Performance for Ella Fitzgerald Sings the Duke Ellington Songbook.

Ella Fitzgerald Sings Irving Berlin & Duke Ellington. The Original Irving Berlin and Duke Ellington Songbooks.
She went on to win 11 more Grammys. Her live version of “Mack the Knife,” recorded in 1960, is one of the landmark jazz performances captured on record.

MACK THE KNIFE, Ella in Berlin, Ella Fitzgerald, recorded live in concert accompanied by The Paul Smith Quartet, at West Berlin's Deutschlandhallen
Although she didn’t wear glasses in performance as a young jazz singer, Fitzgerald wore them in later years.

Person holding a microphone, wearing large glasses and earrings, appears to be singing.
Her oversize, ornamented, full-rim style is similar to these Zenni frames (click on the images to see their specs!):

Cat-eye glasses with a colorful tortoiseshell frame and decorative gold accents on the temples.

Red and green-tinted oversized cat-eye glasses with thick frames.

Multicolored eyeglasses with abstract orange, yellow, and red patterns, featuring rhinestone details.
It’s notable that several of these landmark performances are in the late 1950s and early ’60s. In jazz, 1959 is considered the art form’s peak year, similar to the way film buffs consider 1939 the greatest year in movie history.

Man and woman in vintage formal attire looking into each other's eyes with gentle expressions.

Scarecrow, Tin Man, Dorothy, and Cowardly Lion on the yellow brick road from The Wizard of Oz.

Man in a suit with disheveled hair and an emotional expression, holding multiple papers in a courtroom.
You’ve probably seen those three 1939 movies, which are so famous they need no identification. They are just a few of the many movie masterpieces that year.
Now let’s look at some classic jazz albums that were released in 1959:

John Coltrane Giant Steps album cover, close-up of Coltrane playing saxophone in a blue suit.

The Shape of Jazz to Come, Ornette Coleman.

Blues & Roots album cover featuring Charles Mingus holding a double bass.

MINGUS AH UM/CHARLES MINGUS songs: BETTER GIT IT IN YOUR SOUL, GOODBYE PORK PIE HAT, BOOGIE STOP SHUFFLE, SELF-PORTRAIT IN THREE COLORS, OPEN LETTER TO DUKE, BIRD CALLS,

TIME OUT Featuring TAKE FIVE BLUE RONDO A LA TURK THE DAVE BRUBECK QUARTET. Songs: STRANGE MEADOW LARK, THREE TO GET READY, KATHY'S WALTZ, EVERYBODY'S JUMPIN', PICK UP STICKS. Columbia Records.
Miles Davis playing trumpet on the album cover of "Kind of Blue" by Columbia Records.
Of the jazz greats behind these albums, only bandleaders Dave Brubeck and Miles Davis were frequently seen in glasses.

Smiling man wearing glasses and a suit, leaning on a desk or piano.

Person wearing dark sunglasses and a patterned shirt playing a brass trumpet.
Check out Brubeck (at the piano) with his quartet (from left, alto sax player Paul Desmond, bassist Eugene Wright, and drummer Joe Morello), all of whom are wearing glasses.

Four musicians with instruments: a saxophonist, a double bassist, a pianist, and a drummer.
We love the Take Five cut “Blue Rondo à la Turk,” and the title track, which is so recognizable and popular it could almost serve as jazz’s theme song, although some would argue that John Coltrane’s version of Rodgers and Hammerstein’s “My Favorite Things” deserves that distinction.

As much as we love both recordings, we’re going to go with Brubeck, if only because he and his bandmates all wore glasses.

Brubeck’s signature frame is not unlike Eubie Blake’s square-style horn-rims, but let’s mix it up a bit (you didn’t think we were going to say “jazz it up,” did you?) with a rich-looking, brown square-style frame from Zenni, model 820415.

Brown rectangular glasses with star accents on the temples.
Desmond’s glasses are similar to Zenni frame 614212.

Dark-rimmed, rectangular eyeglasses with solid black temples and small silver accents near the hinges.
Wright is wearing a pair of classic brow line glasses, not unlike Zenni frame 535021.

Rectangular black half-rim glasses with clear lenses and adjustable nose pads.
Morello’s glasses, with a straight-line bridge, are similar to Zenni’s Christmastime tortoiseshell frame 624725.

Tortoiseshell glasses with "Merry Christmas" and holiday graphics on the temples.
Trumpeter Miles Davis’s Kind of Blue brought a new form of improvisation to jazz, using the songs’ scales rather than chords for his riffs. His 1960 album, Sketches of Spain, is just as revered as Kind of Blue, but we’re also extremely fond of a less heralded 1959 album by Davis and Gil Evans, their jazz version of Porgy and Bess, by George Gershwin (music), DuBose Heyward (libretto and lyrics), and Ira Gershwin (lyrics).

When he started wearing glasses, Davis favored oversized frames, like these aviators.

Man playing a trumpet, wearing sunglasses and a striped jacket with decorative buttons.
Davis’s frame calls and Zenni responds, with similar frame 579721.

Black wireframe eyeglasses with adjustable nose pads and thin temples.
When you think of images of one of Davis’s modern-jazz forebears, Dizzy Gillespie, you probably think of two balloon-like cheeks rather than two round eyeglass lenses. But in his early years, the man credited by many as the originator of bebop, also known as modern jazz, wore round, full-rim specs that set off his not-yet “moon cheeks”.

Man playing a trumpet while wearing glasses and a suit.
Pop on similar Zenni frame 6290015, and start blowin’!

Black, round eyeglasses with a minimalistic, modern design and two small silver dots on each temple.
If Thenlonious Monk and Miles Davis are bebop, and Benny Goodman is “prebop,” then Herbie Hancock could be considered “post bop.”

Man with blue-tinted sunglasses and black jacket, speaking into a microphone with a pointing gesture.
Hancock is a true crossover jazz-fusion artist, bringing synthesizers, funk, soul, and modern classical music to his improvisations. His 2007 tribute album to occasional jazz artist Joni Mitchell, River: The Joni Letters, won two Grammys, for Best Contemporary Jazz Album and Album of the Year.

HERBIE HANCOCK RIVER the joni letters
The full-rim, rectangular metal frames shown in his picture and on the album cover are not unlike Zenni’s frame 650312 (in gray) and 650315 (in brown).

Rectangular metal eyeglasses with black frame and double-bar arms. Brand: Zenni.

Rectangular frame eyeglasses with brown metal rims and split design on the temples.
Trumpeter Wynton Marsalis is the first jazz artist to win the Pulitzer Prize for music.

Man wearing glasses and a suit jacket playing a trumpet
A prodigy who was performing in church by age 8, Marsalis won the Pulitzer in 1997 for Blood on the Fields, an oratorio about a couple moving from slavery to freedom.

Blood on the Fields album cover with two stars and a red stain on a gray and white textured background.
With his participation in various PBS programs, including Marsalis on Music and Ken Burns’s Jazz, his several books on jazz, and his artistic directorship of Jazz at Lincoln Center, Marsalis has become the leading ambassador of jazz.

The full-rim rectangular metal frame he’s wearing in his picture is similar to Zenni’s frames 552415 (brown) or 552421 (black).

Bronze rectangular eyeglasses with textured temples and black ear tips.

Rectangular black metal eyeglasses with patterned arms and adjustable nose pads.
Finally, sultry Canadian singer-pianist Diana Krall (shown with bassist Ben Wolfe) is one of the few ladies of jazz who doesn’t mind performing in eyeglasses.

Woman playing piano and singing, man playing double bass in background.
That may be because she is married to Elvis Costello, whose glasses are an indelible part of his appearance.

Two people standing together, one wearing glasses, a hat, and a purple tie; the other has long wavy hair.
Krall’s tinted full-rim rectangular glasses are similar Zenni’s frame 228721.

Black rectangular eyeglasses with a thin frame and straight temples.
Costello’s are close to Zenni’s frame 638821.

Black thick-rimmed eyeglasses with rectangular lenses and small white dots on the upper front corners
Now you’ve got some crazy chops to break it down and find some gone frames in the mix. And that is all that jazz – in eyeglasses.