The publishers at Éditions Naïve clearly had excellent taste. Their record catalogue has long proved it. With the March 2008 release of Eddy Wiggins’s Le Noir et le Blanc, they once again showed their commitment to excellence.
A fine text by Gilles Leroy (winner of the 2007 Prix Goncourt for Alabama Song) accompanies nearly 150 photographs of 1950s Paris taken by Eddy Wiggins.
Having fled segregation in the United States, Eddy Wiggins arrived in Paris in the 1930s. After the war (and two years of internment by the Germans), he became the correspondent for the African-American newspaper the Chicago Defender.
A lover of Parisian nightlife, Wiggins slipped with his Rolleiflex 6×6 into bars and backstage areas of theatres where many American stars performed and where Black and white people—lovers or simply fans—mixed freely… Before his lens passed Armstrong, Basie, Ray Charles, Gillespie and… of course Cab Calloway.
The photograph from the book shown above was most likely taken in May 1958 during Cab Calloway’s series of concerts at the Olympia. Beside Cab you will recognize Jean Cocteau and Jean Renoir—an unlikely gathering that nonetheless bears witness to the shared love of jazz among these great men whose paths were otherwise so different.
Le Noir et le Blanc is a splendid volume, admirably designed and printed. One only regrets the absence of dates and more precise identifications of the pictures.
Le Noir et le Blanc (original publisher’s price €45)
is now (2026) out of print, but you may have a chance to find it online.
All royalties from sales of this book were donated to *BASILIADE*, an association helping people in severe hardship affected by AIDS.
