Cue the trumpets and strike up the band!
A treasure trove of historic jazz items is about to be auctioned off.
More than 450 artifacts, including Benny Goodman’s clarinet and Dizzy Gillespie’s horn, will go to the highest bidders on Sunday.
Other items up for grabs are Charlie Parker’s “Super 20” alto sax, which could fetch as much as $1 million; John Coltrane’s original manuscript for “A Love Supreme,” looking at $300,000; and a profanity-laced, 32-page handwritten letter from Louis Armstrong to his agent, a steal at $200,000.
Another Armstrong note – typed on “Satchmo” letterhead and signed “No Ulcersly Yours” – includes a rude joke about a different agent, and ends with a discussion of the bug-eyed superstar’s digestive tract. Auctioneers did not give an estimate.
A 1961 contract for a young cabaret singer named “Barbara Striechsand” promises to pay the warbler $150 a week for three shows a day, six days a week (minus 10 percent for her agent) at Detroit’s London Chop House.
Newport Jazz Festival founder George Wein – who once paid Coltrane $2,000 for a single gig in Texas in 1966 – said he hoped the sale would go through the roof.
“If it goes well, it will prove that the interest in jazz is stronger than most people think,” he said.
Guernsey’s Auction House said some of the proceeds would go toward helping aspiring jazz musicians.
Officials there estimated that Benny Goodman’s Selmer B-flat clarinet would go for $100,000, a velvet Thelonius Monk smoking jacket for $20,000, Lionel Hampton’s brass vibraphone for $40,000, and a painting by trumpeter Miles Davis for $30,000.
Other lots include Parker’s ashtray and incense burner; a recording contract promising John Coltrane $300 for a single album; an autographed portrait of Billie Holiday; a series of wild geometric cartoon sketches by Miles Davis; and a well-worn pair of brown-suede wingtip shoes made in London for Goodman.
Experts said members and families of jazz royalty had emptied their attics for the sale, which is considered the biggest auction ever devoted to the genre.
The auction will be held at Rose Hall, the new headquarters of Jazz at Lincoln Center, in the Time Warner Center.
Bids can also be made online at e-Bay.