Jazz

Englewood, New Jersey, a short ride from Stewart’s home in Teaneck. These memorialise the recording of two remarkable sessions, A Love Supreme and the recently-released and highly acclaimed Both Directions at Once: The Lost Album (2018). The Love Supreme images include two of Trane with Archie Shepp, who contributed an alternate take of “Acknowledgement”, cut from the version issued. Another shot pictures Pharoah Sanders rehearsing, so this session may date to the recording of either Ascension or Meditations (both 1965). Other outstanding images show Trane lounging on the studio stairs and capture something of his brooding intensity. In addition, there are two excellent publicity shots, one of a smiling Trane and another a particularly fine pensive study of him seated, soprano sax in hand. The three Basie images capture the Count in the studio, two in shirt sleeves and sporting a natty knitted waistcoat, in one of which he is animatedly directing the band, the other a striking profile study seated at the piano, looking quizzical; another strong portrait shows him hatted and sharply dressed. These may have been taken at the Capitol Records studio in 1957. 18 original “10 × 8” (254 × 203 mm) silver gelatin prints; four with studio wet stamp to verso. In excellent condition. £3,000 [137283] 10 THE COTTON CLUB. Smart New York is flocking to the Cotton Club … Truckin’ Contest every Thursday Night … Under the Direction of Ralph Cooper, Harlem’s Renowned Master of Ceremonies. Cash Prizes – You sit as Judge and Jury! All in addition to Ted Koehler’s Cotton Club Parade, 26th Edition. New York: The Cotton Club, 1935 Wonderful piece of previously unrecorded memorabilia for the famous Cotton Club, a window card promoting a dance competition featuring the latest craze, Truckin’, as popularised by the sensational dancer Cora LaRedd, the “Terpsichorean Riot”. Illustrated with a splendid tonal sketch of a dancer strutting his stuff, strongly reminiscent of Miguel Covarrubias’s Harlem sketches. The New Amsterdam News was thrilled with the new edition of the Cotton Club’s long-running revue; “The 26th edition has more talent than you can shake a stick at: Lena Horne a very pleasing ingenue; Butterbeans and Susie, Mantan and Juano Hernandez comedians; Nina Mae McKinney; the soubretting of Cora La Redd;

9 COLTRANE, John, & Count Basie – STEWART, Chuck (photo.) Collection of 18 original silver gelatin prints. New York: Chuck Stewart, [1957 & 1964–65] coltrane captured during the love supreme session Remarkable group of stunning images captured by Chuck Stewart, described by the long- standing New York-based jazz public radio station WBGO as “one of the most prolific and admired photographers in jazz” and one of the few Black lensmen to achieve recognition. A native of Texas, Stewart (1927–2017) majored in photography at Ohio University, graduating in 1949. While in college his friendship with Herman Leonard helped him to make contacts with record companies in New York, a defining moment in a long and distinguished career that spanned more than 70 years. “Stewart shot countless artists in profile and at work, capturing resonant and unguarded images that also tell the story of the music. By his estimate, he shot the cover images for more than 2,000 albums, including a large portion of the Impulse! catalog. He also contributed photographs to a range of publications, including Esquire and the New York Times. ‘In my portraits and improvisational shots, I’ve tried to unveil the soul of the artists I photographed and communicate the essence of their craft,’ Stewart wrote in his official bio. ‘That’s why they trusted me’” (ibid.). Of the fifteen Coltrane images, two show him in performance (one with Paul Chambers), eleven capture him in the Rudy Van Gelder studios in

the legomania of Cook and Brown; the dancing of the 3 Rhythm Queens”, music was provided by Claude Hopkins and Jimmie Lunceford who had recently replaced Cab Calloway. However, the hit of the show does seem to have been LaRedd’s interpretation of the shuffle-swagger move known as Truckin’. Ed Sullivan raved in his “Broadway” column in the Washington Post , “I like best the ‘Truckin’ Down’ number led by Cora LaRedd. ‘Truckin’, in Harlem, is a description of a peculiar slouchy walk, and the new dance has the same contagion of rhythm that made an instantaneous hit of the Black Bottom when Tom Patricola and Ann Pennington brought it to town. With one shoulder hoisted, the dancers do a spraddle-legged walk that finally gives you a terrific yen to try it yourself”. And evidently many did. It’s a great sadness that just a few minutes of film of LaRedd has survived, performing “Jig Time” in a Noble Sissle Orchestra Vitaphone short That’s the Spirit. Window card (153 × 165 mm), printed in sepia on medium-weight glossy card-stock. Sharp crease to the left-hand edge, not touching the text, small patches of glue residue verso from album mounting, very good. £650 [149287]

JAZZ

All items are fully described and photographed at peterharrington.co.uk

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