Mar 24, 2022 - Sale 2598

Sale 2598 - Lot 263

Price Realized: $ 3,000
?Final Price Realized includes Buyer’s Premium added to Hammer Price
Estimate: $ 2,000 - $ 3,000
(ENTERTAINMENT--MUSIC.) Archive of Dizzy Gillespie's audio and video tapes. 50 items in one box; condition varies, a bit musty, a few water-damaged. Various places, 1956-1984 and undated

Additional Details

These tapes were purchased from the estate of the great trumpet player John Birks "Dizzy" Gillespie. We have not listened to them, so we can't guarantee what's on them, or their playability--we can only testify to what's written on the labels, which are enough to be quite intriguing. The lot includes 21 labelled 7-inch reel-to-reel audio tapes, with labels such as "Part 2, Gillespie & Lombardo," "Rehearsal (Woody, Chris, Rudy, Kenny) Begin the Beguine"; "April 21 1963, Dizzy Gillespie, A Negro Looks at Patriotism"; "Sonny Stitt"; ten songs by the Trinidad calypso player Lord Melody; "To Dizzy & Lorraine from Lucille & Satch"; "Woody Rehearsal"; "Talking with Bobby Hackett"; "J.P., Wes, John, Russell (baseball)"; "Dizzy Movie Themes"; "Sao Paulo 8-20-56"; "Aircheck--Penthouse 6-13-62"; and "Lalu, Chuck, Leo, Art." Two with water-damaged cases might still be worth a try: "McIntosh" (likely his 1963 collaborator, trombonist Tom McIntosh), and "Bird."

Also included are 3 VHS video cassettes: "Do I Do, featured guest artist John Gillespie"; "Olympic gala, Dizzy Gillespie Segment with into" dated 4 August 1984; and a later recording of the 1967 Monterey Jazz Festival. A 3-inch tape is labeled "Jack Paar, 13 March 1961," and another reads "Dizzy Gillespie sound tape (audio)." A 9 1/2-inch tape is from Radiotelevisione Italiana and features 5 tracks by Italian trumpeter Nunzio Rotondo. An additional 23 reel-to-reels in various formats are unlabeled, and might contain anything from blank static to the Dead Sea Scrolls.

Provenance: Dawson & Nye's Dizzy Gillespie estate sale, 14 September 2005 (copy of the catalog included with the lot).