BEBOP - photo 1

BEBOP

Lot 507
29.09.2023 11:00UTC +00:00
Classic
Sold
£ 1 512
AuctioneerCHRISTIE'S
Event locationUnited Kingdom, London
Buyer Premiumsee on Website%
Archive
The auction is completed. No bids can be placed anymore.
Archive
ID 1029158
Lot 507 | BEBOP
Estimate value
£ 1 500 – 2 500
Rare pamphlet What is Be-Bop? by Walter ‘Gil’ Fuller, signed on the front cover by Dizzy Gillespie, 1948, and a concert handbill for ‘Symphony Sid’s ‘Bop’ Concert’ at the Royal Roost, Sunday Afternoon, 10 October, 1948, the line-up featuring bop greats Tadd Dameron, Fats Navarro, Dexter Gordon, Allen Eagers [sic], Max Roach and Art Blakey.

In the late 1940s the Royal Roost, which had originally opened as a fried chicken restaurant, became a key location in the development of bebop when owner Ralph Watkins persuaded New York jazz DJ Sid Torin to present a show from the Roost, beginning 6 April 1948. ‘“Symphony Sid’s Bob Concert” was an immediate success, with an overflow crowd on the very first night,’ writes Paul Combs. ‘On the strength of this, bop performers were added on the weekends starting Friday, April 30’ (Combs, Dameronia, 84). Instrumental in the popularisation of the new jazz style, the Roost began billing itself as ‘The House That Bop Built’ or ‘The Metropolitan Bopera House’. Demand was so great that a weekly Sunday matinee session was added from September 1948. As a guide to the new progressive jazz, Sid and concert promoter Monte Kay asked arranger Gil Fuller – best known for his work with Gillespie – to write this pamphlet, which was offered free of charge: ‘if you’d like to get this wonderful little pamphlet, just drop a self-addressed envelope to your boy Symphony Sid’. The pamphlet opens ‘It is impossible in one session to give a complete and comprehensive picture of Be-Bop… I think I can give you a verbal picture on the subject which will enable you to talk to your musical friends… If you feel something when you hear Be-Bop, you feel something because something is there. No one has ever been quiet about Be-Bop, they either like it or dislike it, violently. They never sit still on the question and I’ll tell you why’.

The handbill 227 x 150 mm, tipped at the corners to mount board 254 x 190 mm. The pamphlet 215 x 139 mm. Provenance: The Norman R. Saks Collection (Vail, pl.248-9). Literature: Driggs & Levine Black Beauty, White Heat: A Pictorial History of Classic Jazz, 1996, p.327 (the handbill illustrated).

[With:] a 1947 Dial Records promotional leaflet bebop Jazz: a catalog of contemporary american music, 229 x 101 mm, folding out to 229 x 406 mm. Ross Russell’s Dial Records was one of the foremost proponents of the bebop craze. Provenance: The Collection of Norman R. Saks.

[With:] a handbill for a one-off Sunday evening jam session at the Downbeat Club, New York, featuring Thelonious Monk, Tadd Dameron, Allen Eager, Red Rodney, Fats Navarro, Art Blakey and others, 19 October 1947, 228 x 102 mm. Provenance: The Collection of Norman R. Saks.

[With:] [DODO MARMAROSA] VON PHYSTER, George (1909-1986). Original pen and ink concept cover artwork by George von Physter for an unidentified record by bebop pianist Dodo Marmarosa on Lyle Griffin’s small but influential Atomic Records label, signed by the artist, c.1946, 282 x 340 mm.

[With:] GRIFFIN, Nard. To Be or not to Bop. New York: Leo B. Workman, 1948. Third printing, with authorial inscription on the title page to jazz historian Rudi Blesh. Octavo (235 x 156 mm). Wire-stitched in the original yellow card pictorial wraps. One of the earliest detailed appreciations of bop and its personnel.

[And:] GILLESPIE, John Birks “Dizzy” (1917-1993) with Al FRASER. To Be or not to Bop. Durden City New York: Doubleday & Company Inc., 1979. First edition, signed and inscribed in black ink by Dizzy Gillespie on the front pastedown ‘To Avi, much, much love, Always, Sholem, Dizzy Gillespie, ‘79’’. The recipient was Avi D’lugoff, wife of Art D’lugoff who ran the Village Gate on Bleecker St., Greenwich Village, for almost 40 years. Octavo. Original cloth backed paper covered boards with dust-jacket; accompanied by six part-printed documents, retained carbon copies of Associated Musicians of Greater New York contracts for engagements at the Village Gate, New York, signed by Chico Hamilton, Yuseef Lateef, Horace Silver, Stan Getz, Ramsey Lewis, and Michael Olatunji, 1959-62, each 280 x 218 mm.
Address of auction CHRISTIE'S
8 King Street, St. James's
SW1Y 6QT London
United Kingdom
Preview
20.09.2023 13:00 – 17:00
21.09.2023 09:00 – 17:00
22.09.2023 09:00 – 17:00
23.09.2023 12:00 – 17:00
24.09.2023 12:00 – 17:00
25.09.2023 09:00 – 17:00
26.09.2023 09:00 – 17:00
27.09.2023 09:00 – 17:00
Phone +44 (0)20 7839 9060
Email
4FQ.AYGKAGLUQ@FO3G@
Buyer Premium see on Website
Conditions of purchaseConditions of purchase

Frequently asked questions

First of all, you should register to be able to purchase at auction. After confirming your email address, enter your personal information in your user profile, such as your first name, last name, and mail address. Choose a lot from the upcoming auction and the maximum amount you want to place on it. After confirmation of your choice, we will send your application by e-mail to the appropriate auction house. If the auction house accepts a request, it will participate in the auction. You can view the current status of a bid at any time in your personal account in the "Bids" section.
Auctions are performed by auction houses and each of the auction houses describes their terms of auction. You can see the texts in the section "Auction information".
The results of the auction are published within a few days after the end of the auction. In the top menu of the site, find the tab "Auctions". Click on it and you will be on the auction catalog page, where you can easily find the category "Results". After opening it, select the desired auction from the list, enter and view the current status of the interested lot.
The information about the auction winners is confidential. The auction winner will receive a direct notification from the auction house responsible with instructions for further action: an invoice for payment and the manner in which the goods will be received.
Each of the auction houses has its own payment policy for the won lots. All auction houses accept bank transfers, most of them accept credit card payments. In the near future you will find detailed information for each case in the section "Auction information" on the page of the auction catalog and the lot.
Shipment of the won lot depends on its size. Small items can be delivered by post. Larger lots are sent by courier. Employees of the auction houses will offer you a wide range to choose from.
No. The archive serves as a reference for the study of auction prices, photographs and descriptions of works of art.