Mar 10, 2011 - Sale 2239

Sale 2239 - Lot 391

Price Realized: $ 2,640
?Final Price Realized includes Buyer’s Premium added to Hammer Price
Estimate: $ 1,000 - $ 1,500
AN AMAZING GROUP PHOTOGRAPH (MUSIC.) ROBINSON CLARENCE, WILLIAM GRANT STILL, JAMES JOYCE, MANTAN MORELAND, MAN RAY, ET AL. The Christmas Party for Lew Leslie's "Blackbirds of 1928." Silver print photograph, 7-3/4x10 inches (image size) on a larger sheet; some damage to the upper right corner with loss of emulsion, not affecting the group portrait, inscribed "To Marmetta, with love from Authie, Paris, 1929." Stamp of the photographer on the reverse "Reportages Photographiques Ruysdal." with a copy of the program for the Chicago production of Blackbirds. Paris, 1929

Additional Details

A rare and wonderful group photograph of an extraordinary get-together for the Christmas cast party of "Blackbirds of 1928," held in Authie, a suburb of Paris. Included in the photo are: Clarence Robinson, composer William Grant Still, Mantan Moreland, Tim "Kingfish" Moore, Lou Leslie, Man Ray, Ira Gershwin, Guy Belton, "Mistinguet," Adelaide Hall (star of the review), writer James Joyce, Mary Welsh and German composer Kurt Weill. Weill (Three Penny Opera---Mack the Knife) wrote one of the songs in the review, "All by Your Self in the Moonlight." It was debuted by Adelaide Hall who had replaced Florence Mills. Mills was taken seriously ill during rehearsals in Europe, and had to be flown back to the States where she died soon after. Blackbirds, like its predecessor "Shuffle Along" was a tremendous success on both sides of the Atlantic. Parisians who had fallen in love with jazz via James Reese Europe's 369th Infantry (Harlem Hell-fighters) band flocked to Blackbirds. The review played to full houses in Paris for three months.