JAZZ CLUBS - AFRICAN-AMERICAN PHOTOGRAPHY.

Inquire · Offered by Peter Harrington

Collection of club photo-folders. An unusually extensive group of these evocative "table photographs," striking records of largely African-American audiences in the glamorous, sociable, and intentionally inclusive world of mid-century nightclubs. Shot by in-house photographers, developed on site, and sold for a dollar at the end of the evening, these quick souvenirs now amount to a rare visual history of a poorly documented milieu. As Gold notes, they "turn the camera round": instead of performers, we see the audiences - a critical part of what Jason Moran calls the jazz "ecosystem."The collection offers a nationwide survey of venues from the extravagant to the resolutely down-home. At New York's Café Zanzibar, with its spectacular floor shows and "Zanzibeauts," the audience was integrated but largely white, prompting Langston Hughes's caustic observation about the seating hierarchy - an impression borne out by the image here. Detroit's Gay Bar Lounge, another "black and tan" joint, catered to a mostly Black clientele and offered a rougher edge: in 1947 the barkeep famously shot two stick-up artists with the.38s kept beneath the cash register.Equally compelling are the histories of Black enterprise that surface. Oakland's Athens Elks Cocktail Lounge, home to Lodge 70 of the Improved Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks of the World, stood at the centre of West Oakland's vibrant musical scene, hosting countless jam sessions and serving as the informal checkpoint for touring

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