The Estate Sale Chronicles: "It sure was greatness" -- Jazz At The Philharmonic, San Francisco, 1951-1952

An ad for Jazz At The Philharmonic
in the Berkeley, California Daily Gazette,
14 November 1951

Last fall I had the chance to look through some paper ephemera collected by some extended family members. Two of the items were of particular interest to me: programs and ticket stubs from impresario Norman Granz' famous Jazz At The Philharmonic Concerts series. When they were young, two family members went to the JATP concerts in San Francisco in 1951 and 1952.

Someone else now owns these programs, but I took photographs of some of the pages in an old scrapbook to share here.

Eleventh tour program cover

"We went with Dan & Joyce. I wore my new gray suit. It sure was 'greatness.' Afterwards pizza!" the young concertgoer wrote in her scrapbook underneath the 1951 concert program.

San Francisco Civic Auditorium

What must it have been like to have been young and in love with one another and with music, on a chilly November 1951 evening at the San Francisco Civic Auditorium? The four teenagers must have known they were witnessing greatness, as far as the music was concerned: Ella Fitzgerald, Oscar Peterson, Gene Krupa, Lester Young, Illinois Jacquet, Flip Phillips, Roy Eldridge, Bill Harris, Ray Brown, and Hank Jones performed.

What the young music lovers probably observed, but might not have really grasped at the time, was the nature of the concert series itself. With integrated bands and audiences, Jazz At The Philharmonic concerts (from 1944 to 1957) were part of the slow demise of legalized segregation in the United States.

Impresario Norman Granz (1918-2001)

Today Norman Granz is remembered as a hard-nosed visionary leader in the fight for equal pay for Black artists, and for his refusal to stage concerts for segregated audiences. It sure was greatness, indeed.

The young couple returned, with other friends, for the 1952 concert.

An ad for the 12th season of JATP in the Richmond,
California Independent, 14 November 1952.

The 1952 JATP lineup featured Ella Fitzgerald, Flip Phillips, Lester Young, Buddy Rich, Charlie Shavers, Roy Eldridge, Ray Brown, Barney Kessel, Hank Jones, the Gene Krupa, Willie Smith, and Oscar Peterson. This time, someone went backstage to get autographs from some of the performers.