Jazz

Ken Vail, in his Duke’s Diary , gives a breakdown of the performance, which included “Diminuendo in Blue and Crescendo in Blue”, featuring Paul Gonsalves in his fourteenth year reprising the show-stopping performance of the same at Newport in 1956. The show ran from 8:30 pm until 4:00 am, with “Duke until 2:00 am”. The dress code du jour is clearly spelled out: “Gents Wear Collar and Tie. Ladies Wear Your ‘Thing’: Mink – Gowns – Mini or Maxi”. The High Chaparral was “perhaps the city’s most successful black club, and featured more big names than any other” (Pruter, 1991, p. 11). It was run by former Harlem Globetrotter Clarence Ludd, who “strove to maintain a family-oriented atmosphere, even though the place could hold 1,300 patrons” (Cohen, p. 134). The show’s organiser was McKie Fitzhugh, a major player on the Chicago entertainment scene, who, before branching out was, in the 40s, “one of the biggest dance promoters in Chicago”, booking Ellington at the city’s Savoy Ballroom, along with Stan Kenton, Lionel Hampton, and Woody Herman (Pruter, 1996, p. 226). Despite the trumpeting of his appointment by Nixon as a “good will ambassador”, it was under the Kennedy administration that Duke made his first Jazz Ambassador tour, to the Middle East and India, in the summer of 1963. Ellington had turned 70 in April 1969 and was feted at the Nixon White House with a state banquet and the award of the nation’s highest civilian honour, the Presidential Medal of Freedom. This is an outstanding visual memento from Duke’s final decade. Poster (707 × 555 mm), printed in red and black on white-faced card stock, integral halftone portrait of Duke. Slight loss to top left corner, neat staple holes at corners, sides, and one at centre, top right corner a little creased and softened yet this remains in very good condition, clean and bright. ¶ Aaron Cohen, Move On UP: Chicago Soul and Black Cultural Power , 2019; Robert Pruter, Chicago Soul , 1991; Robert Pruter, Doowop: The Chicago Scene, 1996; Ken Vail, Duke’s Diary Part Two: The Life of Duke Ellington 1950–1974 , 2002. £1,250 [149259] 18 ELLINGTON, Duke – GOTTLIEB, William (photo.) Ellington in his dressing room, Paramount Theater, c. September, 1946 – large vintage silver gelatin print, signed by the photographer. New York: William P. Gottlieb, [c.1978] duke – signed by legendary photographer william gottlieb Superb image of Duke captured in the mirror of his dressing room; inscribed lower left-hand corner,

16 DOWN BEAT MAGAZINE. Complete set of Down Beat Jazz Record Reviews. Chicago: Down Beat, 1957–64 essential reading – but so very difficult to assemble Very scarce complete set of this indispensable reference work, all in first edition, first printing. A fascinating panorama of shifting tastes in jazz, which might be crudely bookended by Erroll Garner’s Concert by the Sea (1955) and Mingus’s The Black Saint and the Sinner Lady (1963). Dipping-in is irresistible. Brubeck’s Time Out (1959) was a million-seller but receives just 2 stars and a scathing review from Ira Gitler (“if he [Brubeck] wants to experiment, let him begin with trying some real jazz”); Kind of Blue (1959) was a stone-cold classic from day one (“This is the soul of Miles Davis, and it’s a beautiful soul”); Saxophone Colossus (1957) garners five stars from Ralph Gleason and praise for Rollins’s “gentleness, a delicate feeling for beauty in line, and a puckish sense of humor”; Giant Steps (1960)

17 ELLINGTON, Duke. Original poster for performance at the High Chaparral, Chicago, 1970: Chicago Honoring World’s Greatest Pianist, Appointed by Pres. Nixon as Good Will Ambassador for American Music Abroad. Spend An Evening with Duke … McKie Fitzhugh proudly presents In Person! Duke Ellington and His Big Orchestra. Chicago: McKie Fitzhugh, 1970 “duke until 2:00 am – ladies wear your ‘thing’” Terrifically direct, impressively sized and notably scarce “boxing bill-style” poster – packing a potent visual punch – for a one-nighter at South Side Chicago’s “legendary” High Chaparral ( Chicago Tribune ), coming off the back of the final recordings for the Second Sacred Concert album in Toronto, and followed by another one-nighter, this time at the Frontier Supper Club in Elgin, Illinois.

receives the same rating from Gleason, who states that Coltrane “has managed to combine all the swing of Pres with the virility of Hawkins and added to it a highly individual, personal sound as well as a complex and logical, and therefore fascinating, mind”; the reviewer of Ornette Coleman’s debut Something Else! (1959) is in two minds about the altoist’s “passionate, almost inarticulate” playing but extols his compositional ability and concedes that much of the four-star rating “is inspired by [Coleman’s] excellent writing”. The delightfully hip line illustrations in volume one are credited to the Black artist and writer Cecil Brathwaite, who studied at the School of Visual Arts in New York and was a founder member of the African Jazz-Art Society and Studios. As Elombe Brath he became a prominent Pan-African activist. 8 volumes, octavo. Vols. I-IV in original wrappers, the remainder in variously coloured cloth. Line drawings and other illustrations throughout. Wrappered issues a little rubbed, lower corner of vol. I chipped away, internally a few neat markings in red ballpoint and review clippings from other sources loosely inserted, the casebound issues in excellent condition. £1,250 [143053]

“For Ken, William Gottlieb, ‘78”. This is an imposing double-weight “exhibition” print of one of the finest portraits of Ellington. Bill Gottlieb’s “iconic photos of jazz legends such as Billie Holiday, Duke Ellington and Louis Armstrong helped to define the image of jazz to music fans worldwide” ( Down Beat obituary). This image was published originally in Down Beat (vol. 13, no. 20, 23 September 1946), as part of a series entitled “Through the Looking Glass”. “Fifth in the series of staff lensman Bill Gottlieb’s intimate dressing room

shots of musical celebrities is Duke Ellington, with the mirror reflecting his always present piano, his conservative ties, his 20 suits, his 15 shirts, his suede shoes and his smiling self”. Oversize, double-weight silver gelatin “exhibition” print (483 × 387 mm), mounted on board at the studio, wet stamp verso. Very slight marginal scuffing, backboard skinned in patches from previous mounting, but overall very good. £2,500 [130899]

JAZZ

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

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