many jazz legends who performed at clubs in and around Cleveland and Chicago. “His bread and butter was doing weddings and other events … [but] he would go to see [jazz musicians] whenever they came to town. He collected old 78s that some of these artists had made when they were much younger. For example, he had Louis Armstrong records from the 20s, and he would bring these classics, and Louis would sign in white ink his name, sometimes ‘to Nat’. He had Billie Holiday sign, he had all kinds of other people sign these records” ( New York Times interview with film archivist Joe Lauro, 3 September 2013). We believe that this image dates to late June or early July 1948, when Holiday played a week at Café Tia Juana in Cleveland, one of that city’s most popular and stylish nightspots, a venue which hosted such jazz luminaries as Erroll Garner, Ella Fitzgerald, Nat “King” Cole, and Sarah Vaughan. The clarinettist accompanying Billie in this portrait is Tony Scott. Holiday recorded with Scott in June 1956 (for Verve) and the reedman was part of the group (along with Roy Eldridge, Buck Clayton, Coleman Hawkins and Al Cohn) who accompanied her at her celebrated Carnegie Hall appearance on 10 November of that year. Original silver gelatin print (image 245 × 195 mm, overall 340 × 290 mm), attractively framed and glazed. A couple of small spots within the area of Billie’s dress, but overall very good. ¶ Ken Vail, Lady Day’s Diary: The Life of Billie Holiday 1937–1959 , 1996. £9,500 [125299] 28 JAZZ CLUB EPHEMERA; SLUGS’ IN THE FAR EAST. Original poster for performances by Joe Henderson, Yusef Lateef, McCoy Tyner and others. New York: Royal Offset Company, Inc., 1971 Attractive record of a superb series of residencies at notorious New York jazz club Slugs’ in the Far East, with Joe Henderson, Milt Jackson, Yusef Lateef, McCoy Tyner, and flautist Jeremy Steig all featured. Opening its doors at 242 East 3rd Street in 1964, the club began as a neighbourhood bar known as Slugs’ Saloon, the location having previously been home to a Ukrainian restaurant and bar. By early 1965, despite having a capacity of just around 100 people, it began to morph into one of the key jazz clubs of the city as local musicians convinced the owners Robert Schoenholt and Jerry Schultz to feature live music. In time it would come to rival the Five Spot Café as one of the top jazz spots in the East Village. Just a year later in the early hours of the morning of 19 February 1972, Lee Morgan was shot dead by his common-law wife Helen More at Slugs’. The club closed later that year.
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1955 was the year in which this particular amalgam of Messengers were recorded by Blue Note during a memorable date at another great Village club, Café Bohemia. The early history of the Messengers is complicated by the fact that in its infancy the group was recorded as either the Art Blakey or Horace Silver quintets. However, the assemblage of Dorham, Silver, Mobley and Watkins constitutes the first Jazz Messengers outfit to appear under that prestigious banner. In 1953 critic and college-teacher Reisner – “the Village hipster of the jazz critical establishment” (Gennari, p. 312) – decided to “get his hands dirty” by becoming a concert promoter. “Determined to bring modern jazz to the strip of clubs in the Village which otherwise featured Dixieland”, he took over the Greenwich Village club on Sunday nights (Haddix, p. 148). For around two years he successfully presented bills that featured the leading performers of the era. Material for these events was incredibly ephemeral, and now, without exaggeration, beyond scarce; the unintentionally murky images of Blakey reproduced here lending the piece a suitably inchoate appeal. Original cream-coloured display card printed in black (303 × 228 mm,) two integral half-tone images of Blakey at the kit. Closed tears to top and right edge, three repaired on verso with archival tape, one just encroaching on the image, chip at left edge, tidemark at lower left corner touching the numbering in the club’s address, some marginal creasing and rumpling, yet overall clean and still very presentable. ¶ John Gennari, Blowin’ Hot and Cool: Jazz and Its Critics , 2006; Chuck Haddix, Bird: The Life and Music of Charlie Parker , 2013. £850 [147827]
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Poster (558 × 356 mm), printed in white on black and white-faced medium stock card, integral Slugs’ logo of an upturned trumpet on a chair with a heart-shaped back. Neat annotation in purple marker pen to panel at top, identifying the date as 1971 (the “1” carefully masked with correction fluid); very slightly toned otherwise in excellent condition. £500 [149531] 29 JAZZ MESSENGERS. Display card for early appearance at the Open Door: Bob Reisner presents The Greatest in Modern Jazz – Jazz Messengers … At the door concert, Sunday, June 26th, 1955, evening 9 p.m. to 3 a.m. at Open Door, 55 West 3rd Street, New York City. New York: Open Door, 1955 the first messengers Battered but truly evocative, this genuinely scarce survival from the famed Greenwich Village club dates from the early days of the Jazz Messengers, the lineup featuring Kenny Dorham (trumpet), Horace Silver (piano), Hank Mobley (tenor), Doug Watkins (bass) and, of course, Art Blakey (drums).
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27 HOLIDAY, Billie – SINGERMAN, Nat (photo.) Superb signed photograph of Lady Day at the microphone. Cleveland, OH: Nat Singerman, 1948
stunning signed image of billie holiday Superb, previously unseen photograph of the legendary jazz singer in her prime – boldly signed in white ink at the left – showing her in a club setting, listening, waiting for her cue at the microphone,
wearing an elegant, long white dress with trademark gardenia in her hair. From the collection of Nat Singerman, a professional photographer and co-owner of the Character Arts Photo Studio in Cleveland, Ohio, during the 40s and 50s – a period during which he met and befriended
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JAZZ
All items are fully described and photographed at peterharrington.co.uk
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