Another Adventure, Part 1: Ornette, Monk, Dee and Me
I owe you all a story.
It started last Halloween. A new commenter on Jazz Collector, who identified herself as Dee Dee, submitted the following:“I am Ornette’s stepdaughter – raised with Monk in the house frequently. I’m needing now to part with his and my mother’s vinyl collection, AND my original silver gelatin art photography – an AUTOGRAPHED edition of one single print of these historic musicians:
Count Basie
Miles Davis
Dizzy Gillespie
Horace Silver
Art Blakey and Billy Higgins
Gil Evans
Gerry Mulligan
Cecil Taylor and Tony Williams
Abbey Lincoln
Gato Barbieri
Pharaoh Sanders
Charlie Haden
Ernie Andrews
Mal Waldron
Steve McCall
Charlie Rouse
Freddie Greene
Bobby Bradford
Bela Fleck
Buster Williams
Chico Freeman and Pacquito d’Rivera
Eddie Palmieri
Eddie Gomez
Milton Nascimento
Djavan
Joao Bosco
Ivan Lins
Airto Moreira
Jose “Cheo” Feliciano
Francisco Aguabella
Willie Colon
Yomo Toro
Dave Valentin
Papo Lucca
Yolanda Rivera”
Intrigued? So was I. I sent Dee Dee an email.
Yes, she had a vinyl collection to sell.
Yes, she was a jazz photographer.
Yes, she had autographed prints by Miles, Dizzy, Horace Silver and all of the other artists listed above.
Yes, she was interested in selling.
Two weeks later, I’m in my car driving from my home in The Berkshires to Dee’s home in rural Vermont, about four hours. I am not necessarily looking to buy the entire collection. I went to see what she has, buy a few records for my own collection, and give her advice on the value of the records and maybe some tips on where and how to sell them. As intriguing as the signed photos were, I wasn’t really interested in them, only because I know myself too well. If I start collecting photographs and autographs now, there’s no telling where it will all end. But, I can say for sure, it wouldn’t end in a good place either for myself or my wife, known affectionately to all of you as The Lovely Mrs. JC.
I will continue this story in upcoming posts and tell it in as much detail as possible, but I will cut to the chase on one aspect: The photos that Dee has are absolutely gorgeous and one of a kind. She has been invited into the permanent collection of The Smithsonian Institution to donate this 55-year archive, but would rather sell them for the first time. The unusual edition of original silver gelatin prints (just one each) she’d asked musicians to autograph are of high value to collectors.
Because of her familial relationship with Ornette, she had unprecedented access to a lot of great musicians and a later professional and personal friendship with many of them. All of her photos are candid and, to my knowledge, apart from some choice album covers, most have never been published. The three autographed photos accompanying this story are examples. I will provide more details about the photos, and more pictures of them as I unfold the story, but I am hoping that one of you, or several of you, from the Jazz Collector world is interested. In addition to the photos, she also has tee shirts of Ornette featuring her photograph of him, as well as photo portfolio books she may be interested in selling.
If you are interested, send me an email and I will put you in touch with Dee. Her web site is creativemusicphotography.com and you can see more and contact her through it directly, or on facebook.com/creativemusicphotography
In the meantime, stay tuned for Part 2 of this four-part series
Miles
Basie
Basie
Basie
The thing is, every single image has a story!!!
Happy Sunday, as of last posting I was going crazy as I inadvertently listed a Loise Armstong and his All stars, Duke Ellington and his Orchestra at Newport, recorded in performance at the American Jazz Festival during a 2 day session in July, 1956, on eBay as a “buy now” listing, priced (by eBay) for less than $20. Quelle Dommage (French for OMG!). For those of you who know listing on eBay then you know, changing your listing platform is nothing short of a bit#h. However, the old proverbial saying, there’s more than one way to skin a ? cat prevailed. While viewing the listing, with a double sigh, one because of my boo boo and two because even at this ridiculously low price, no one has made an offer, I noticed three little dots in the upper right hand corner. Hmmm. What’s a girl to do other than click and voila, an option to completely remove the listing appeared; which undoubtedly I did. Whew! That was a close one. Why I think this LP is so special is that side A is completely featuring Louis Armstrong and side B completely featuring Duke Ellington. Cover and LP are, how do you say, VG++.
Al, what an incredible story! I look forward to hearing more about the sale of the records and photos. I can only imagine that within the vinyl collection are test pressings and more!
Daryl – as a matter of fact, there are TWO gorgeous Test Pressings not listed, both of my friend and teacher, Mongo Santamaría.
“Drums And Chants” was his seminal work outside of the ‘pop’ he was always encouraged by agents and record executives to promote, and relates more to his deeply Afro-Cuban roots of his heart, and transports the drumming collaboration to levels unheard even in his “jazz” best! One is a “studio pressing”, the other a ‘Test Pressing’, and I shall leave the finer delineations to you collectors.
BOTH are in unplayed condition, one has the normal cover, but the album label itself is hand-written.
BOTH STILL AVAILABLE – contact our Al for details, and/or make your reasonable offers for consideration.
Great story and nice to have the creative force of the photography being spoken of, Ms. Dee Dee, actively commenting on this post and site. I
Agree with Al re collecting photos, a wonderful addition to one’s Jazz ephemera, however one runs out of wall space to display them after a while.
I remember that Mongo Santamaria record. It was on Tico if I recall. Was hanging with with eclectic cats in the late ‘60’s and heard this lp. Around that time it seems there was a whole bunch of African/Caribbean drum lps on Latin labels like Tico and on Folkways Records, coming out, voodoo drums, talking drums, mystic drums, etc.
Just to clarify, these photographs both Al and I are mentioning and exhibiting here are distinctly NOT the very common normal mass-produced promotion photos.
They are most accurately referred to – in art photography circles, high-end photography-only galleries, and by the Smithsonian Institution, Library Of Congress, and AUTOGRAPHED art collector-circles as:
Original Vintage Silver Gelatin Prints – made by the photographer, within one year of exposure.
I am also a formally-trained photographer, having studied extensively and personally with one of the most respected and esteemed “jazz photographers”, photo editors (Metronome Magazine) and Life, Family Of Man, (and MUCH more in his own résumé contributions), Herb Snitzer – from 1964 to 1968.
Robert Edwards Auctions would be a good place for her to go. They generally do sports cards and memorabilia, but the people who buy from there are high rollers and they got money. They also do a few odd things outside of sports and I think this would warrant a contact with REA.
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