ELLA FITZGERALD, DIZZY GILLESPIE AND OTHERS

Four national tour programmes for Norman Granz’ Jazz at the Philharmonic series, 1952-55, comprising: JATP 12^th National Tour, 1952, signed at their portraits by trumpeter Charlie Shavers, pianist Oscar Peterson, drummers Buddy Rich and Gene Krupa, and tenor saxophonist Flip Phillips; JATP 13^th National Tour, 1953, signed at their portraits by Gene Krupa and bassist Ray Brown; JATP 14^th National Tour, 1954, signed at their portraits by Ella Fitzgerald, Oscar Peterson, Dizzy Gillespie, Flip Phillips, and drummer Louie Bellson; and JATP 16^th National Tour, 1955, unsigned; each wire-stitched in original pictorial wrappers designed by David Stone Martin; the largest 305 x 230 mm; together with an original black and white photograph of Ella Fitzgerald’s arrest by Houston police during the 16^th National Tour on 8 October 1955, vintage gelatin silver press print, with stamped ‘Associated Press’ credit, date stamp, red pencil annotations and original news clipping verso, 207 x 191 mm; and a three-record album portfolio Norman Granz’ Jazz at the Philharmonic vol 9, Mercury Records, 1949, signed in ink on the front pastedown by Ella Fitzgerald, pianist Hank Jones, trumpeter Fats Navarro, bassist Ray Brown – with additional doodle of a double bass, and inscribed by impresario Norman Granz ‘To Di – a very nice jazz fan, I hope you like this album – Norman Granz’, original cloth-backed portfolio, lacking two of the three original 10-inch shellac discs in manilla sleeves, 265 x 305 mm.

The 15th National Tour was renamed the 16^th National Tour just weeks before the tour started, making this a straight run of programmes. The Jazz at the Philharmonic series began with a concert organised by jazz impresario Norman Granz at Los Angeles’ Philharmonic Auditorium on 2 July 1944. The ever-changing group recorded and toured extensively, with Granz producing some of the first live jam session recordings to be distributed to a wide market. After several JATP concerts in Los Angeles in 1944 and 1945, Granz began producing JATP concert tours, from late fall of 1945 to 1957 in USA and Canada, and from 1952 in Europe. They featured swing and bop musicians and were among the first high-profile performances to feature racially integrated bands. Granz also insisted on integrated audiences and equal treatment for white and black artists.

During the 16^th National JATP Tour in Houston, Texas, in 1955, Granz reportedly removed segregated restroom signs outside the concert auditorium. Between the two shows, Houston police barged in to Ella Fitzgerald’s dressing room, arresting Ella, Dizzy Gillespie and Illinois Jacquet. As per the news clipping on the reverse of the photo, dated 9 October 1955, ‘Ella Fitzgerald, three other members of the “Jazz at the Philharmonic troupe,” and the producer Norman Granz were free today on $10 bond each after having been charged last night with shooting dice backstage during the performance.’ Granz biographer Tad Hershorn wrote of the incident: ‘As in 1954, JATP’s 1955 tour included a racial incident in a southern city that was provoked by Granz’s integrationist policy: in this case, a trumped-up gambling arrest backstage at Houston’s Music Hall during an October 7, 1955, double-header that made headlines internationally. Granz later said he wanted to challenge segregation in the South even more than he wanted to deliver good music, and Houston’s wealth and power made it an especially tempting target’. Hershorn, 244-6.