Rarities and delights and eBay. Oh my!
Someone saved this ticket stub — but went to the dance to hear LOUIS ARMSTRONG, N.B.C. Orchestra (with Red Allen, J. C. Higginbotham, Luis Russell, and Sidney Catlett). I wonder who was admitted to a dance in Texas in 1940, but it doesn’t bear thinking about:
Ten years later, up north in Chicago, at the Blue Note. The All-Stars. But who was Bunny West? I thought — perhaps ungenerously — that she might be a vixen with a stage name, but no leads online.
(This one was purchased for $113.50 in the last seconds it was available.)
And . . . for something marvelous and never-before-imagined. Sometime during the Second World War: a young man, Larry Bennett, unknown to me, Mildred Bailey, Wingy Manone, and George Avakian (blessedly, still with us!). The location? A supper club or a USO canteen? Wingy is equipped, so he was one of the headliners; George is in uniform. And Mildred?:
Wonderful mysteries.
May your happiness increase!
