ADS signed "Charlie Parker," one notebook page, 5 x 3, October 9, 1950. A handwritten IOU note from Parker penned in blue ballpoint: “Received Five ($5.00) dollars (Payment to officer in Forest Ballroom in Detroit).” Signed below by Parker. In fine condition.
The document dates from the time of Parker’s first tour with a strings section in support of his two Charlie Parker with Strings albums. The 11-piece band played a three-day engagement at the Forest Ballroom in Detroit from October 6-8, 1950, indicating that the IOU must have been written in the early hours of October 9th after the final Detroit performance and before the outfit moved on to Philadelphia to open at the Club Harlem that night. There are three similar IOUs from the same period in the Norman Saks collection, one of which was made out to violinist Teddy Blume. Blume was responsible for leading the string section but found himself acting as Parker’s personal manager on the tour, later telling an interviewer that ‘the period had been the most harrowing of his life’ and that ‘Charlie Parker was like having a terrible disease.’
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