One would expect that, when offering a significant piece of jazz history with a steep starting bid such as USD 250,00, the seller would do some research to give basical background on it or, at least, provide the most essential data right. Well, not always!
This Cotton Club program is offered as from "circa 1929-1933" and, obviously, it is not from that timeframe, but from 1938, as the title of the revue (Cotton Club Parade, Fourth Edition) would lead you if consulting a few volumes of the vast Duke Ellington bibligraphy. Taking a simple look at John Edward Hasse's Ellington biography, Beyond Category. The Life And Genius Of Duke Ellington (Da Capo Press, 1993), on page 213, would be enough.
Although usually listed as having started on March 10, the program actually opened at midnight, March 9, and it ran probably through June 9 (according to Billboard, June 11, 1938, the show "closed last Thursday"). Two additional points: on one hand, for the first time since Blackberries of 1930, Ellington wrote the score; on the other, this would be his final appearance at the Cotton Club, which would close in June 1940.
There will be a Cotton Club program listed on EBAY today if anyone is interested
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