Peter Harrington l o n d o n Peter Harrington l o n d o n
little over a hundred years ago they asked “What is jazz”? To which Louis Armstrong made the timeless reply, “If you have to ask, you’ll never know”. But a perhaps more troubling question still is how do you collect jazz? Jazz is definitionally improvisatory, participatory, in the air, of the moment. So how do you capture that ASMR thrill? How to evoke “the moment” in a physical object? Original recordings offer the obvious way in. Among the standout pieces included here are several genuinely extraordinary discs, among them an original acetate pressing of Billie’s Holiday’s legendary 1939 recording of “Strange Fruit”. That in itself would be a “thing” of considerable evocative power. But this exemplar possesses a more shimmering aura still, having come from the collection of bandleader Artie Shaw. Lady Day toured with Shaw in the late 1930s and was one of the first Black vocalists to be featured
by James N. Seidelle, an amateur lensman from Cleveland. In 1951 Seidelle’s timing was spot on when Charlie Parker, Stan Getz, Roy Eldridge, Zoot Sims, and Johnny Hodges all appeared at Lindsay’s Sky Bar, Cleveland’s hottest jazz spot. Previously unpublished, Seidelle’s images have an immediacy that puts us just where we crave to be, right there in the room. Also offered here is what must surely be the most famous group portrait in jazz, Art Kane’s “A Great Day in Harlem”, in the form of an impressive exhibition-sized print signed by the photographer. In the summer of 1958, Kane captured this extraordinary “class photograph” on the steps of a Harlem brownstone and managed to gather a stellar line-up, including Count Basie, Coleman Hawkins, Lester Young, Thelonious Monk, Dizzy Gillespie, Charles Mingus, Sonny Rollins, and Mary Lou Williams. Ephemera, from impressively sized and beautifully designed concert posters to the most apparently
Ellington cornettist Rex Stewart and Basie altoist Earle Warren, and maintained across a memorable series of insightful and warmly affectionate letters and postcards. Signed and manuscript material is represented here in many guises: recordings, books, and souvenirs. Art Tatum’s signature is a black tulip among jazz autographs and is present here on his eponymously titled 1956 album; Ella Fitzgerald’s autograph may not be such a rarity, but to find it on her Sings the Cole Porter Song Book is really quite special. The signatures of Dizzy Gillespie, Count Basie, and Dexter Gordon feature among 30 jazz luminaries who have appended their names to a very unusual souvenir: a silk tie, evidently worn by its owner to a number of gigs for this very purpose – an autograph album around his neck. Among objects offered here – relics might be a better word – are a trio of exceptional pieces. There is John Coltrane’s 1963 Down Beat Award, recognition for his work on soprano sax, an instrument that had
all items from this catalogue are on display at dover street
writing about jazz is like dancing about architecture t. s. monk
with an all-white band. Another eloquently potent survival is a private test pressing made in Kansas City in the autumn of 1943, which catches the electrifying genius of a fledgling Charlie Parker taking flight on Ray Noble’s notoriously difficult “Cherokee”, Bird’s “favourite practice warhorse” and the tune on which he admitted that he “came alive”, externalizing for the first time his extraordinary interior vision. This time- wracked relic carries a remarkable frisson. Photography is a medium often linked with jazz for its capability decisively to capture “the moment”, and it’s an area in which we always aim to maintain a strong profile. Of particular note here is the wonderful group of 40 live images captured
insignificant and tattered job-printed handbill for an obscure club date, can render a powerful evocation. Among posters we have an almost impossible survival: an exceedingly fragile and visually arresting piece documenting the birth of the blues and the inception of the solo career of the genre’s first headline performer, the “Mother of the Blues”, Gertrude “Ma” Rainey, the original Black diva and a gay icon who took the blues from minstrelsy to authenticity. Jazz club ephemera makes significant appearances among the elements of an emotive and genuinely engrossing archive assembled by musicologist Philip T. “Phip” Young, which charts a young man’s entirely colour-blind love affair with jazz, fostered in particular by his friendship with
not before been employed, pace Sidney Bechet, to such mesmeric effect. An iconic memento of Miles Davis comes in the form of a pair of sunglasses owned by the great trumpeter, typical of the statement shades he affected during the 1980s. And finally, there is a quite heart-stopping survival – a gardenia worn by Billie Holiday, kept and treasured by Billie’s maid and confidante; it is perhaps the only survivor of Lady Day’s trademark flowers, unquestionably among the most powerful emblems in the iconography of jazz. We hope you find something appealing and tempting among this selection of highlights from our extensive jazz holdings.
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glenn @peterharrington.co.uk duncan@peterharrington.co.uk
Front cover image detail of John Coltrane by Chuck Stewart, item 9; rear cover image of Glen Mitchell, senior specialist. Design: Nigel Bents & Abbie Ingleby. Photography: Ruth Segarra. Rear cover photograph: Diandra Galia.
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