A collection of concert handbills, souvenir club photo folders, and other promotional material from the iconic New York City jazz club Birdland, 1950s-1960s.

Birdland, named in honour of sometime headliner Charlie “Yarrdbird” Parker, was opened on 15 December 1949 at the corner of Broadway and 52nd Street in Manhattan. ‘When the owners of Birdland contemplated the idea of naming the club after a practicing jazz musician,’ writes Ross Russell, ‘there had been no one else to consider. Big names of the past no longer held any box office allure. Of the contemporaries none, not even Dizzy Gillespie, possessed Parker’s charisma, or could lend the weight necessary to launch a club that would in fact be the “Jazz Corner of the World” for decades.’ Interviewed by Robyn Flans for Modern Drummer in 1982, Charlie Watts spoke of his love for Birdland ‘When I had the honour to go to New York, that was it! All I wanted to do was go to Birdland and I was lucky enough to get there before it closed and that was it for me. I still walk down 52nd Street. I know it’s not the same anymore, but I do it. It’s just something that really meant something to me as a kid, listening to Charlie Parker, and to think that he lived there and walked down that street and played there.’ Russell, Bird Lives! 275. Watts, cited in Modern Drummer, August 1982.

The collection comprising: three souvenir photofolders with original black and white table photographs, the first with a group photograph of Dizzy Gillespie and family, c.1955, the second with Marlon Brando, c.1950s., the third with two sharp-suited young men, each 241 x 280 mm; a small letterpress handbill for upcoming appearances at Birdland for June-July 1951, including Machito, Charlie Parker, Duke Ellington, George Shearing and Dinah Washington, 162 x 100 mm; a promotional mailer for upcoming appearances at Birdland with Count Basie ‘thru New Year’s Eve’ 1958, followed by Miles Davis and his Sextette and Maynard Ferguson and his Orchestra for a two week residency in January 1959, 219 x 132 mm; a handbill for upcoming residencies at Birdland March-July 1959, including Buddy Rich, Art Blakey, Count Basie, and – notably – the Miles Davis Sextette from 16-29 April, 227 x 173 mm; a handbill for ‘two big weeks’ July to August 1952 featuring Count Basie and Lester Young; another for upcoming residencies November to December 1956 including Duke Ellington, Dizzy Gillespie and Count Basie; a Birdland mailing list card ‘to keep you posted on all future attractions’ completed by Barbara Frantz of Akron, New York, c.1950; a promotional mailer for upcoming appearances at Birdland July-October 1962, including Count Basie and Dizzy Gillespie; and another general promotional fold-out mailer, 1955. Provenance: The Norman R. Saks Collection (Vail, pl.130, 137, 158, 169, 176).