![Rare concert handbill for Dizzy Gillespie and ‘His Sextet featuring Charley [sic] Parker’ at Town Hall, New York, Wednesday 16 May 1945](https://www.christies.com/img/LotImages/2023/CKS/2023_CKS_21924_0171_008(rare_concert_handbill_for_dizzy_gillespie_and_8216his_sextet_featuring_d6440249092127).jpg?w=1)
![Rare concert handbill for Dizzy Gillespie and ‘His Sextet featuring Charley [sic] Parker’ at Town Hall, New York, Wednesday 16 May 1945](https://www.christies.com/img/LotImages/2023/CKS/2023_CKS_21924_0171_009(rare_concert_handbill_for_dizzy_gillespie_and_8216his_sextet_featuring_d6440249093354).jpg?w=1)
![Rare concert handbill for Dizzy Gillespie and ‘His Sextet featuring Charley [sic] Parker’ at Town Hall, New York, Wednesday 16 May 1945](https://www.christies.com/img/LotImages/2023/CKS/2023_CKS_21924_0171_000(rare_concert_handbill_for_dizzy_gillespie_and_8216his_sextet_featuring_d6440249070152).jpg?w=1)
Charlie Parker and John Birks “Dizzy” Gillespie
Details
Rare concert handbill for Dizzy Gillespie and ‘His Sextet featuring Charley [sic] Parker’ at Town Hall, New York, Wednesday 16 May 1945
Charlie Parker and John Birks “Dizzy” Gillespie
PARKER, Charlie (1920-1955) and John Birks “Dizzy” GILLESPIE (1917-1993).
Rare concert handbill for Dizzy Gillespie and ‘His Sextet featuring Charley [sic] Parker’ at Town Hall, New York, Wednesday 16 May 1945.
A scarce survival from bebop’s first concert presentation, which ‘introduced the new music both to audiences familiar with it and those who had only read about the two bebop stars’ We are unable to trace any other examples of this poster at auction. Myers, 36. Printed in black on thin lightly coated paper, 257 x 161 mm. Provenance: The Norman R. Saks Collection (Vail, pl.121).
[With:] a souvenir concert programme 'Specs Powell gives you ‘BIAJ’ Best in American Jazz', at Town Hall, 23 September 1945, listing an early performance by Charlie Parker, 254 x 177 mm. The event was sufficiently early in Parker’s career for Billboard to give his name as Charles Parker. Provenance: The Norman R. Saks Collection (Vail, pl.4).
[And:] WATTS, Charlie (1941-2021). Ode to a Highflying Bird. London: Beat Publications Ltd, [1965]. First edition, first impression of Charlie Watts’ whimsical tribute to his hero Charlie “Bird” Parker, in the form of a children’s book ‘compiled by one charlie to a late and great Charlie’. Published on the tenth anniversary of Parker’s death, the book was originally conceived as a class project while Watts was at art school. Small octavo. Illustrations in colour throughout by the author. Price label of ‘Seven Shillings’ tipped to front free endpaper. Original white boards, titles to covers in black, portrait of the author to rear cover.
Charlie Parker and John Birks “Dizzy” Gillespie
PARKER, Charlie (1920-1955) and John Birks “Dizzy” GILLESPIE (1917-1993).
Rare concert handbill for Dizzy Gillespie and ‘His Sextet featuring Charley [sic] Parker’ at Town Hall, New York, Wednesday 16 May 1945.
A scarce survival from bebop’s first concert presentation, which ‘introduced the new music both to audiences familiar with it and those who had only read about the two bebop stars’ We are unable to trace any other examples of this poster at auction. Myers, 36. Printed in black on thin lightly coated paper, 257 x 161 mm. Provenance: The Norman R. Saks Collection (Vail, pl.121).
[With:] a souvenir concert programme 'Specs Powell gives you ‘BIAJ’ Best in American Jazz', at Town Hall, 23 September 1945, listing an early performance by Charlie Parker, 254 x 177 mm. The event was sufficiently early in Parker’s career for Billboard to give his name as Charles Parker. Provenance: The Norman R. Saks Collection (Vail, pl.4).
[And:] WATTS, Charlie (1941-2021). Ode to a Highflying Bird. London: Beat Publications Ltd, [1965]. First edition, first impression of Charlie Watts’ whimsical tribute to his hero Charlie “Bird” Parker, in the form of a children’s book ‘compiled by one charlie to a late and great Charlie’. Published on the tenth anniversary of Parker’s death, the book was originally conceived as a class project while Watts was at art school. Small octavo. Illustrations in colour throughout by the author. Price label of ‘Seven Shillings’ tipped to front free endpaper. Original white boards, titles to covers in black, portrait of the author to rear cover.
Sale room notice
Please note that the book included in this lot is a facsimile edition of Ode to a Highflying Bird issued by UFO Records in 1991.
