JAZZ.

Inquire · Offered by Peter Harrington

Personnages Principaux du Bar. From the collection of Rolling Stones drummer and jazz aficionado Charlie Watts, with his posthumous bookplate: a delightful and highly unusual illustrated "prospectus" of the requisites for running a successful bar in Paris in the late 1930s. First and foremost, you'll need "un très bon pianiste nêgre" along with "2 barmaids" and of course "2 ou 3 nêgresses à laisser vagabonder dans le bar".There then follow three pages that offer pen portraits of various artists that you might like to include on the bill, along with their contact details. These include "acteurs animant la soirée ou la nuit": character actor and singer Yves Deniaud (1901-1959), Neapolitan sinti jazz guitarist Henri Crolla (1920-1960, "a travaillé avec Djingo Rainart [sic] du Hot-club de France"), "Trois Jeunes - chanteurs s'accompagnant à la guitare et à la flute" including another well-known actor Guy Decomble (1910-1964), and the photographer Pierre Jamet (1910-2000), a close friend of Robert Doisneau and Willy Ronis.The flamboyant impresario Henri Leduc winds up the volume, described as a "personnage comique indispensable à l'atmosphere d'un bar". After the Liberation, Leduc, a native of Montmartre, set up Le Bar Vert on the rue Jacob, "the first café-restaurant to play American music" (Cowan & Steward, p. 234). Our unidentified artist concludes by remarking "We can find for you … absolutely everything that you could possibly need (elephants - naked ladies - non naked ladies

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