A Night-Club Map of Harlem

If you haven't seen this amazing illustration before I'm happy to bring it to your attention now. This piece of art is by cartoonist Elmer Simms Campbell and it depicts some of the amazing night life in Harlem in 1932.

I wanted to find a nice quality image of this piece to share with you all and the search produced some interesting results. I first came upon this page:

https://bigthink.com/strange-maps/476-go-late-a-night-club-map-of-harlem/

This page has a nice brief write-up of the map and description of some of its particulars. But then I saw that they credited Lindy Hop's own Mike Thibault, of Rochester, NY with their information. Mike's been dancing for over 20 years and he runs Groove Juice Swing in Rochester as well as Swing out New Hampshire. He is also an avid Lindy Hop & Jazz historian and has contributed some great materials and information to the Lindy Hop History Museum at ILHC, so I contacted him to ask him about it.

Turns out he was searching for the original of this piece over a decade ago, before there were really any high-quality scans of it available online. Check out his brief blog post here:

https://web.archive.org/web/20131011015146/http://www.mikethibault.com/?p=11

Then he found out about an opportunity to purchase the piece at auction. Check out that update here: (tldr: he wasn't able to get it - it went for $80K!)

https://www.facebook.com/mike.thibault/posts/10154629322398238

Lucky for us now there is a super hi-res version that is now available via the Library of Congress. This scan is from the original printing of the cartoon back in the weekly paper, "Manhattan" on January 18, 1933.

Check out the Library of Congress version here:

https://www.loc.gov/item/2016585261/

While it is great to get such a close look at the printed version, from Mike's telling it sounds as it the original piece was even more stunning and nuanced, with shadings and even bits of Campbell's original pencil sketch (which differed in some places) underneath. In any case this is a beautiful time capsule that captures not only names & places, but also a style and an aesthetic of this amazing era in Harlem.

Greg Tate on Michael Jackson

I was reading a bit about Greg Tate, the influential writer & cultural critic who passed away recently and in his obituary I came across a link to his old Village Voice review of "Bad" the album by Michael Jackson. The link I'm sharing includes his review, another piece on Jackson by Guy Trebay and a rather stern rebuttal from the writer Stanley Crouch.

https://www.villagevoice.com/2009/06/26/from-the-voice-archives-greg-tate-on-michael-jackson-in-1987/

It's a fascinating little time capsule in which you can see some really insightful points brought up and some really intense back and forth between writers, both of whom definitely have something truthful and useful to say. Especially when reading this with the knowledge of Jackson's death and the revelations of his sexual assault of kids, it seems that there is so much about this man's life that gets lost (white-washed?) under the heading "King of Pop".

There is some through line for me about the relationship of black cultural forms (jazz, R&B, Hip-Hop) to American culture as a whole. There is always some kind of strain or tension on the most successful black artists (those who crossover into "mainstream" popularity). I think of Duke Ellington's idea that the greatest compliment would be to be considered "beyond category". And in these writings, the authors are struggling with that very concept of category and one's ability/wish to transcend it.

Anyways, I find myself not coming down on either side of this Tate, Crouch debate, but I found it worth the read (and not that long) so I thought I'd share.

-P

Lester Young in Minneapolis

Just wanted to share this great piece about probably my favorite jazz musician of all time, the great Lester Young:

http://collections.mnhs.org/mnhistorymagazine/articles/59/v59i03p096-109.pdf

This is such an interesting piece (especially for those who live in the Twin Cities). Lester Young spent many important and formative years in Minneapolis before joining up with the iconic Count Basie band and this is an illuminating and interesting article about his time there.

Thanks to the author and the MN Historical Society for making it publicly available!

If you read the part about Frankie Trumbauer being one of his inspirations, check this classic song from he and Bix Beiderbecke - it's the one referenced in the article that Young listened to and loved. Enjoy!

-P