One man's garbage...

I received the following email and photos last week from my friend Andy. What a neat find! If any serious collectors or historians out there come across this post, the signs are for sale, but only as a complete set -- all reasonable offers will be considered. You can contact me via my profile page & I can put you in touch with Andy, or you can contact him here. And now I'll turn it over to Andy:

One morning last week, at the corner of Second Avenue and East Sixth Street, on the sidewalk next to a municipal trash can, I came across a collection of hand-painted metal signs advertising a variety of jazz musicians. The signs are of uniform size (30" x 6") with a small hole punch in each end so they can be hung for display.

One sign advertises a band co-led by trombonist Al Grey and saxophonist Jimmy Forrest. Since the latter died 8/26/1980 (Al Grey outlived him by 20 years), it's my guess that the signs date from the second half of the Seventies. There are no other identifying marks to identify the sign painter or to indicate what club the signs came from.

I laid the signs out on a black matte board and took the sometimes-fuzzy digital pictures attached here. Lee Konitz and Kenny Barron will need no introduction but here are a few notes on some of the other advertised artists:

Vera Auer - The Austrian vocalist, born 1919 in Vienna, was the grand-niece of classical violinist/conductor Leonard Auer. In Vienna and later Frankfurt, she worked frequently with expatriate drummer Art Taylor. In 1959, Auer married an obscure American musician, Brian Boucher, and they moved to the US the following year. In her Stateside career, she "was associated not only with boppers such as trombonist J.J. Johnson and tenor saxophonist Zoot Sims, but with a modern breed of blower including trumpeters Cal Massey and Ted Curson. In the late '70s she co-led a group with yet another trumpet player, Richard Williams, resulting in in an album release with the cheerful title of Positive Vibes." (Eugene Chadbourne, AllMusic.com) Vera Auer died 8/2/1996.

Curtis Boyd (Quartet) - Boyd was (is?) a drummer whose AllMusic discography includes dates with Carmen McRae (Bittersweet, '64), Oscar Brown Jr. (...Goes to Washington, '65), Dr. Billy Taylor (You Tempt Me, '85), and Nat King Cole's brother Freddy Cole (Merry-Go-Round, 2000).

Bruce Barnard - If it's the same tenor player, "The Bruce Barnard Trio" backed singer Carrie Wicks last week (!?) on a gig at Egan's, a bar/restaurant in the Seattle suburb of Ballard, Washington.

Chuck Wayne/Joe Puma - Must've been a blast to hear these two fine (and largely forgotten) guitarists as a duo. Chuck Wayne (born 1923) started out as a teenage mandolin player and switched to guitar in the Forties when he began to make the 52nd Street scene. He worked with Woody Herman, Dizzy Gillespie, and Tony Bennett (among others); released a half-dozen albums as a leader, and later taught at Westchester Conservatory in White Plains, NY. Chuck Wayne died 7/29/1997. Joe Puma (born 1927) played on many record dates throughout the Fifties (with Louie Bellson, Artie Shaw, Herbie Mann, Chris Connor) and Sixties (with Bobby Hackett, Gary Burton, Carmen McRae). He recorded as a leader for Bethlehem, Dawn, Jubilee, and Columbia; AllMusic.com states that "during 1972-77 he co-led a duo with fellow guitarist Chuck Wayne..." Joe Puma died 5/31/2000.