52nd Street Research Articles

Swing era New York: the jazz photographs of Charles Peterson

Charles Peterson entered the jazz world of New York as a guitarist but made his true contribution documenting an era and its most notable performers. A photographer whose images captured the passion and intensity of his subjects, Peterson took up the camera in the mid-1930s and transformed himself from a performer on stage to a visual recorder and observer of the stage. Creating a photographic style that combines artistic sensibility and technical skill, became a preeminent New York jazz photographer of the pre-bebop, small combos and Big Band era. A deep love of jazz led Peterson to the legendary clubs of Harlem, 52nd Street, and Greenwich Village; concert halls and ballrooms; jam sessions; recording studios; backstage get-togethers; and private parties. As a jazz scene insider, Peterson had access to all of these formal and informal venues and was often recommended to shoot special events by musicians, record producers, and club owners because, as Eddie Condon once noted, he knows how to handle musicians. He won't bother them when shouldn't bother them and he'll get what you want. And did. Among the countless subjects enshrined on film are Louis Armstrong, Billie Holiday, Duke Ellington, Benny Goodman, Zutty Singleton, Fats Waller, Mildred Bailey, Cab Calloway, Pee Wee Russell, Lester Young, and Jack Teagarden. Peterson's photographs expose a startling contrast between integrated bandstands and audiences and the segregated world, and reveal the determination of those who refused to be confined by such oppressive conventions of the time. They depict musicianship and camaraderie, dancing, and technical innovation, as well as the harsh contrast of an all-too-pervasivealcoholism that interrupted the lives of many in that New York scene. Jazz historian and critic W. Royal Stokes provides commentary, historical and biographical information, and lively anecdotes that connect the musicians featured in Peterson's photographs to each other and to the mus

Grants and Outcomes

Grants and Outcomes

Swinging at the Savoy

With the passing of the Savoy Ballroom, a part of the show business is gone. I feel about the same way I did when someone told me the news that Bill (Bojangles) Robinson died.—Count Basie, 1958. The demolition of Harlem's Savoy Ballroom.Like Bojangles, by 1958 the Savoy had become an institution in the world of entertainment, and like Bojangles, it caught the imagination of thousands upon thousands of people during its 32-year history. The Savoy was a building, a geographic place, a ballroom, and the “soul” of a neighborhood. It personified a community and an era, and became a monument to the music and dance of “swing.” On its huge and shiny mahogany floor, the Lindy Hop was born, a dance that took the world by storm and would become as seminal as the waltz in the history of social dance. The Lindy Hop, together with countless other dances like the Flying Charleston, the Stomp, the Shim Sham Shimmy, Rhumboogie, Suzie-Q, Big Apple, Black Bottom and the Scrontch, were taken to an extraordinary level of performing perfection at the Savoy. Within its inner circle, great dancers and musicians set trends and styles in dance and music that ricocheted throughout the world. There were other ballrooms and clubs—Connie's Inn, Small's Paradise, The Cotton Club, The Lenox Club, The Kentucky Club, and the downtown clubs on 52nd Street—but there was only one Savoy.

Poetic Interpretations of Urban Black Folk Culture: Langston Hughes and the "Bebop" Era

During the early 1940s, a revolutionary new movement in black music was underway that would change the shape and direction of jazz history for an entire decade. Bebop, as the new music was called, was first introduced to the public at Minton's Playhouse, a small nightclub on 52nd Street in Harlem. In the late hours of the night, a group of avant garde black musicians would gather at this unpretentious location to perform their history-making new sounds. Charlie Parker and Dizzy Gillespie are listed by most jazz historians as the chief innovators of this new style of music.2

Visitor Sampling Survey Great Smoky Mountains National Park, Final Analytic Report. Amusement/ Recreation Marketing Services, Inc., 210 East 52nd Street, New York, New York 10022. September 1975. 88p

Visitor Sampling Survey Great Smoky Mountains National Park, Final Analytic Report. Amusement/ Recreation Marketing Services, Inc., 210 East 52nd Street, New York, New York 10022. September 1975. 88p

Refuse Systems in National Recreation Areas. Solid Wastes Management & Refuse Removal Journal, Vol. 14, September 1971, p. 18ff. Solid Wastes Management & Refuse Removal Journal, 150 East 52nd Street, New York, N.Y. 10022. $1

Refuse Systems in National Recreation Areas. Solid Wastes Management & Refuse Removal Journal, Vol. 14, September 1971, p. 18ff. Solid Wastes Management & Refuse Removal Journal, 150 East 52nd Street, New York, N.Y. 10022. $1

Audio‐visual aids

THE MEDIUM IS THE MASSAGE. No. CL 2710. By Marshall McLuhan, Quentin Fiore, and Jerome Agel. Produced by John Simon. 33 1/3 R.P.M. 12 inch record. Cost $4.79. Available through Columbia Records, C.B.S. Inc., 51 West 52nd Street, New York, New York. MEDITATIONS FOR THE MODERN CLASSROOM, No. TC 2029. 33 1/3 R.P.M. Two 12‐inch records. Cost, $11.90. Read by Judith Anderson and Ed Begley. Available through Caedmon Records, Inc., 505 Eighth Avenue, New York, New York. THE SPEECH CHAIN, 16 mm. so minutes. Sound. Color, $85.00. Free rental. Available through Bell Telephone Laboratories, 463 West Street, New York, New York. JUSTICE UNDER THE LAW: THE GIDEON CASE. 16mm. 23 minutes. Color, No. 2471, $265. Black and White, No. 2472, $138. Available through Encyclopedia Britannica Education Corporation, 425 North Michigan Avenue, Chicago, Illinois. OPERATION ABOLITION. 16 mm. 42 minutes. Sound. Black and White. Rental, $30. Available through Cinema 16 Film Library, Inc., 80 University Place, New York, New York 10003; AUTOPSY ON OPERATION ABOLITION. 16 mm. 60 minutes, 2 parts. Sound. Black and White, $50.00. Available through Catechetical Guild Educational Society, 262 East 4th Street, St. Paul, Minnesota. THREE SISTERS by Anton Chekhov, No. TRS 325. 33 1/3 R.P.M. Three 12 inch records. Cost, $18.95. Produced by the Theatre Recording Society. Available Through Caedmon Records, Inc., 505 Eighth Avenue, New York, New York. AND NO BELLS RING. 16 mm. 30 minutes. Sound. Black and White, $120.00; THE QUIET REVOLUTION. 16 mm. 30 minutes. Sound. Black and White. $200.00. Both available through National Education Sales Service, Publications Sales Section 87, 1201 Sixteenth Street, N.W., Washington, D. C. THE NEW TRUCK DILEMMA. 16 mm. 24 minutes. Sound. Color. Cost, $275.00. Available through BNA, Bureau of National Affairs, 1231 24th Street, N.W., Washington, D. C.

A Contribution to the Taxonomy and Distribution of the American Freshwater Calanoid Crustacea

Journal Article A Contribution to the Taxonomy and Distribution of the American Freshwater Calanoid Crustacea Get access A Contribution to the Taxonomy and Distribution of the American Freshwater Calanoid Crustacea. Kincaid Trevor. 74 pages, 5 plates. The Calliostoma Company, 1904 East 52nd Street, Seattle, Washington. ( 1953) $1.50 AIBS Bulletin, Volume 4, Issue 2, April 1954, Page 16, https://doi.org/10.1093/aibsbulletin/4.2.16-a Published: 01 April 1954

Orient and Occident: An Opinion Study

*This article is a summary of a ninety‐two‐page document submitted to the Research Committee of the American Group, Institute of Pacific Relations, June, 1927. Complete data are now on file at the office of the American Group, 129 East 52nd Street, New York City.