20/09/2026
Bio sometimes I ask who the f**k am I.
Carl Hyde — Photographer
Carl Hyde is a British photographer whose work has documented some of the most significant figures in contemporary jazz, soul and popular music.
His relationship with jazz photography grew from something deeper than simply photographing performers. Over years spent around London’s jazz scene, Hyde became a familiar presence in the clubs and developed friendships and working relationships with many of the musicians he photographed. His images are therefore often less concerned with the spectacle of performance than with the character, concentration and humanity of the people making the music.
From 2014, Hyde became closely associated with Ronnie Scott’s Jazz Club in Soho, photographing there extensively for around eight years. During that period his camera captured an extraordinary roll call of musicians, including George Benson, Pharoah Sanders, Chick Corea, Ron Carter, Roy Hargrove, Stanley Clarke, Marcus Miller, Archie Shepp, Hugh Masekela, Kamasi Washington, Gregory Porter, Steve Williamson, Dee Dee Bridgewater and Nicola Conte, alongside artists from beyond jazz including Jeff Beck, Ronnie Wood and Johnny Depp.
His photographs travelled considerably further than the clubs in which they were made. Hyde’s work has appeared in The Guardian, UK Vibe, London Jazz News and numerous other music publications and artists’ archives. His photography is represented in the National Jazz Archive, while his work has also appeared in record artwork and credits, including Ronnie Wood’s Mad Lad: A Live Tribute to Chuck Berry.
His long association with UK Vibe produced an extensive visual record of Britain’s jazz community. Among it are his photographs of saxophonist Steve Williamson, whom Hyde knows personally, and images documenting musicians including Shabaka Hutchings, Cleveland Watkiss, Omar, Gregory Porter and many others. Decades and years later, those photographs remain online, frequently carrying the simple credit “Courtesy of Carl Hyde.”
Perhaps the most revealing description of Hyde’s approach came inadvertently during an interview with Gregory Porter. While Hyde was photographing him, Porter acknowledged the photographer in the room and joked about his ability to find the photograph nobody else gets.
That instinct runs throughout Hyde’s work.
His book Jazz Noir brings together photographs from these years, characterised by his distinctive monochrome treatment: deep blacks, available light, grain, movement and the atmosphere of the jazz club itself. Rather than attempting to remove the darkness from these venues, Hyde made it part of the photograph.
Photography has taken him considerably beyond jazz. His wider archive encompasses portraiture, musicians, travel, Italy, landscape and the Kent coast, while his recent work has incorporated aerial photography. Yet music — and jazz particularly — occupies a unique place in his photographic life.
Today, what remains is more than a collection of photographs.
It is a first-hand visual record of a remarkable period in British jazz culture, made by a photographer who wasn’t standing outside looking in. Carl Hyde was there!
