ELLINGTON, Edward Kennedy ‘Duke’ (1899-1974).

Part-printed document signed by Duke Ellington, an agreement with The Theatre Guild to act in the television adaptation of Ellington and Billy Strayhorn’s musical allegory on the origins of jazz A Drum is a Woman, dated 1 February 1957, together with a first draft copy of the shooting script, dated 27 march 1957, with a few pencilled annotations, and a programme for the Ellington Orchestra’s concert at King’s Hall, Belle Vue, Manchester, 23 October 1958, signed by Ellington on his portrait page.

This version was broadcast on The United States Steel Hour, 8 May 1957. In his DownBeat review, jazz journalist Jack Tracy described the work as ‘the most ambitious project attempted by Duke Ellington in years. It is a capsule history of jazz, it is a history of the [African-American] in America, it is a history of the Ellington orchestra, and it is a folk opera… But more than any of these it is a revealing self-portrait of Duke Ellington’.

Two pages on one leaf of ‘The Theatre Guild, 23 West 53^rd Street, New York’ letterhead, 279 x 216 mm, signed in blue ballpoint pen by Ellington at lower left and countersigned by Armina Marshall, wife of founder Lawrence Langner, on behalf of The Theatre Guild, accompanying a 39pp. carbon copy typescript draft shooting script; the programme wire-stitched in original pictorial wraps; all housed in a modern custom blue cloth solander box with morocco patch label to the front board.

[With:] a vintage black and white press photograph of Duke Ellington in conversation during rehearsals for the recording of the Symphonic Ellington at the Salle Wagram in Paris, 1963, vintage gelatin silver press print, 241 x 179 mm, stamped credits of ‘Paris-Match’ and the Swedish ‘International Magazine Agency, Stockholm’ and pencil annotation verso.