(ENTERTAINMENT MUSIC) The New Masses Presents An Evening of

Sale 2663 - Lot 211

Price Realized: $ 1,375

?Final Price Realized includes Buyer’s Premium added to Hammer Price

Estimate: $ 2,000 - $ 3,000

(ENTERTAINMENT--MUSIC.) The New Masses Presents: An Evening of American Negro Music, "From Spirituals to Swing." 15, [1] pages including illustrated wrappers featuring a portrait by Hugo Gellert, 12 x 8½ inches; disbound, wrappers detached, somewhat brittle, moderate wear, chipping, and toning. New York, 23 December 1938

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The scarce program for a seminal concert of Black vernacular music given at New York's Carnegie Hall, including important early jazz and blues artists. Performers included the Count Basie Orchestra, Ruby Smith, Big Jim Turner, Sister Rosetta Tharpe, Sonny Terry, Big Bill Broonzy, and many more. The program contains biographical pieces on each artist.

Famous music scout John Hammond was the organizer of the concert, but could only secure financial backing from the magazine New Masses, a leftist publication. The inner wrapper of the program is devoted to fundraising for the antifascist resistance fighters of Spain.

The program is dedicated to the late Bessie Smith, who died the previous year. A short tribute to her appears on page 15, with dramatic tribute to another blues legend by John Hammond: "Robert Johnson was going to be the big surprise of the evening. . . . At the concert we will have to be content with playing two of his records; Johnson died last week at the precise moment when Vocalion scouts finally reached him and told him that he was booked to appear at Carnegie Hall on December 23. He was in his middle twenties and nobody seems to know what caused his death."

A recording of the concert was released in 1959, and then re-released as a CD box set in 1999--with a reproduction of this program included. 3 in OCLC, and none traced at auction.