“FAMOUS FOR GENUINE HICKORY-LOG-BROILED STEAKS AND CHOPS” and for MR. RUSSELL ALSO

Hungry?

Got a match?

And some more ephemera, documenting the New York jazz club The Hickory House (the first photograph is from 1937):

another view:

still another postcard, to mail to the folks back home to show you were having a grand time in the big city:

But that’s mighty thin substance for a jazz blog.  How about this?  (I wish sellers would erase their pencil annotations from holy relics, but that may be just me.)

and the front:

The eBay link is here; the seller’s price is $79.99 “or Best Offer.”  Free US shipping too — who could resist?

The signature looks genuine, and the seller asserts, “Rare Hickory House New York Jazz Club Postcard Signed by Pee Wee Russell. I guarantee the authenticity of the autograph as I discussed it with the wife of the owner who received it from the jazz legend.”

Here‘s a glimpse of the hickory House drink menu . . . although the modern annotator misses the point that a seventy-five cent drink was not “cheap” at all in the Thirties and Forties.

Alas, here is what 144 West 52nd Street looks like (according to Google) now.  I daresay there are no aromas of broiled steaks and chops — for my vegan friends, no baked potato, either.  And I certainly can’t imagine the music of Pee Wee Russell or Joe and Marty Marsala coming out into the street:

But Mr. Russell is always generous with his sounds, and is thus always alive:

That’s what he, Joe Sullivan, and Zutty Singleton sounded like in 1941.  There are, of course, many other samples of Pee Wee’s expansive career on YouTube and elsewhere.  Even if you don’t want to make an offer for the postcard, you could spend many joyous and enlightening hours with him.

May your happiness increase!