Seattle Jazz Archive
Preview up to 100 items from this collection below. Explore oral histories of important members of Seattle’s rich jazz community. The collection includes interviews with Seattle musicians, singers and community members who performed and experienced the city’s jazz scene.
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Shai Shotie
Frank Asakichi Kunishige was born in Japan on June 5, 1878. He came to the United States via San Francisco in 1895. After graduating from the Illinois College of Photography, he opened a small photography studio in San Francisco. Kunishige moved to Seattle in 1917. In the same year, he married Gin Kunishige and began working in the studio of Edward S. Curtis where he became acquainted with Ella McBride who he worked for in later years. Kunishige was well known for his use of Pictorialism, a popular painterly style of photography. He developed his photographs on "textura tissue," a paper of his own creation, which allowed him to produce almost dreamlike prints. His work was featured nationally and internationally in exhibitions and publications such as Photo-Era and Seattle's Town Crier. In 1924, Kunishige became one of the founding members of the Seattle Camera Club, a group of local photographers including Kyo Koike, Yukio Morinaga, Iwao Matsushita and Fred Y. Ogasawara who gathered to share techniques and ideas, as well as their deep love of the medium. Although the group was initially solely Japanese, they soon welcomed more members including Ella McBride, their first female member. When World War II struck and the country's Japanese internment policy was put in place, Kunishige and his wife were forced to leave Seattle for Idaho where they were interned at the Minidoka camp. After their release, Kunishige spent two years working at a photography studio in Twin Falls, Idaho but eventually returned to Seattle due to his poor health. Frank Kunishige passed away on April 9, 1960.
Identifier: spl_art_367924_42
Date: 1940
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Workers rigging floats on Space Needle leg and view west, ca. September 12, 1961
Identifier: spl_gg_69670009
Date: 1961-09-12
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Workers waiting outside Space Needle elevator, ca. December 4-7, 1961
Identifier: spl_gg_73680018
Date: 1961-12-04
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Worker painting Space Needle roof Galaxy Gold, ca. late January 1962
Identifier: spl_gg_052
Date: 1962-01
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View up to Space Needle ring girder, ca. November 8, 1961
Identifier: spl_gg_70060008
Date: 1961-11-08
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Workers removing top ring base of Space Needle derrick, ca. December 21, 1961
Identifier: spl_gg_76200007
Date: 1961-12-21
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Elliott Bay from West Seattle, December 25, 1966
Elliott Bay, Christmas morning, December 1966
Identifier:
Date: 1966-12
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Kell (possibly Karen Kelly), of Venus on the Halfshell Boutique on Broadway, circa 1968
Kell
Identifier:
Date: 1968
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Workers on outer ring of Space Needle, ca. December 5, 1961
Identifier: spl_gg_74550006
Date: 1961-12-04
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Workers driving drift pin into place on third Space Needle leg, ca. July 31, 1961
Identifier: spl_gg_68840020
Date: 1961-07-31