Mentions:
Michelle Vignes ~ Photographs
Dionne Warwick ~ Go With Love
Angela Davis - 1968
photographer unknown
Showing posts with label Michelle Vignes. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Michelle Vignes. Show all posts
October 30, 2021
Angela Davis articles/mentions
Mentions:
Michelle Vignes ~ Photographs
Dionne Warwick ~ Go With Love
July 28, 2021
July 22, 2021
Harold “Slim” Jenkins ~ the "Mayor" of West Oakland
Today is the birthday of Harold “Slim” Jenkins who was born on July 22, 1890, in Monroe, Louisiana, and moved to Oakland shortly after World War I,
where he found work as a waiter. He was a successful businessman,
owning and operating several West Oakland restaurants, liquor stores,
and night clubs which earned him the title of the "Mayor" of West
Oakland and whose Slim Jenkins Cafe was popular in that area from the
1930s to the 1960s.
Jenkins opened his club at 1748 - 7th Street in West Oakland on December 5, 1933, the day Prohibition was repealed with the passage of the 21st Amendment.
E. F. Joseph Photograph Collection
photo: African American Museum &
Library at Oakland
dare & photographer unknown
dare & photographer unknown
For
many years, it was the premiere nightclub in Oakland and called the
"Harlem of the West". From the thirties and into the
forties, the
Club featured many musicians including Bob Lewis (bass), Jimmy Buchanan
(sax), Earl Watkins (drums), Eric Miller (guitar), Commodore Lark
(bass) and Norvell Randall (piano).
photos: African American Museum and Library at Oakland
Buchanan, Watkins, Randall, Miller & Lark
date & photographer unknown
Miller, Lewis and Randall
date & photographer unknown
Miller, Lewis and Randall
date & photographer unknown
saxophone players
date & photographer unknown
In the fifties and sixties it featured black musical icons such as Nat King Cole, Aretha Franklin, B.B. King, the Ink Spots, Earl Hines, Louis Jordan, Linda Hopkins, Dinah Washington performing for the racially mixed middle class audience. President Franklin D. Roosevelt visited Slims, and William Knowland, publisher of the Oakland Tribune, was a frequent customer at the supper club.
Harold “Slim” Jenkins was a charter member of the Port of Oakland Community Club, and a member of the Men of Tomorrow, the Oakland Chapter of the NAACP and the Boys Club of Oakland. He was also active in a number of social and civic organizations.
French photographer Michelle Vignes shot many of the musicians performing in the West Oakland night clubs in the sixties and published, The Blues (link below), a book of those and other amazing images of America, which was published by artist/photographer, Lon Clark, Jr. (link below).
The Seventh Street district was forever altered during the 1960s when the United States Postal Service
demolished twelve blocks of property to erect a new postal facility and
even more was destroyed in the 1970s, through eminent domain, with the arrival of BART, Oakland’s public transit system.
It is interesting that after destroying a whole way of life and culture; the directors of BART
renamed the West Oakland station, Oakland West (to make it sound more
aristocratic or high-toned, maybe?) This raised the hackles of Oakland
residents who protested the name, created a furor and the signs on the
station were changed back to West Oakland.
After the Slim Jenkins Cafe in West Oakland was razed in 1962, Jenkins opened Slim Jenkins Cafe
at 310 Broadway, also in Oakland, which he ran until his death in 1967.
Viewfinder links:
Michelle Vignes ~ The Blues
Net links:
African American Museum at Oakland ~ Collection
Black Past ~ Harold “Slim” Jenkins
Calisphire ~ Slim Jenkins Cafe patrons
Geoffreys Live ~ Slim Jenkins, Oakland Black Entrepreneur
Local News Matters ~ ‘Harlem of the West’
Styrous® ~ Thursday, July 22, 2021
September 22, 2018
Books & magazines
~
Lon Clark, Jr. ~ Itinerary, a photographic journey
David Grann ~ ~
David Heintz ~ A Backlash Reckoning
Josie Iselin ~ Loving Blind / Seeing Red
Sinclair Lewis ~ It Can't Happen Here
Ruth Reichl ~ Comfort Me with Apples
Nicola Tesla ~ Man Out of Time Carl Van Vechten ~ Negro “Blues” Singers
Michelle Vignes ~ The Blues
The Week ~ The politics of fear
Oprah Winfrey ~ O Magazine: Let's Talk About Hair
Tamotsu Yato ~ Young Samurai: Bodybuilders of Japan
December 12, 2017
December 9, 2017
The San Francisco Civic Auditorium, Motorama & Arthur Fiedler
date & photographer unknown
104 years ago this month, in 1913, ground was broken for construction of the San Francisco Civic Center Auditorium.
San Francisco Civic Center Auditorium - 1914
San Francisco Civic Center Auditorium & City Hall - 1930
The auditorium had a huge pipe organ. The Opus 500 was built for the 1915 Panama Pacific International Exhibition in San Francisco.
Panama Pacific International Exhibition poster - 1915
The organ stood majestically at the World’s Fair
and then the Civic Center Auditorium, until the 1989 Loma Prieta Earthquake,
when it was damaged and dismantled.
Motorama
The General Motors Motorama was an auto show staged by GM from 1949 to 1961. These automobile extravaganzas were designed to whet public appetite and boost automobile sales with displays of fancy prototypes, concept vehicles and other special or halo models. Motorama grew out of the Alfred P. Sloan yearly industrial luncheon at the New York City Waldorf Astoria, beginning in 1931. They were almost invariably held in conjunction with the New York Auto Show, that for many years was held traditionally in the first week of January.
There was a live musical number staged at various times during the day. I remember one year the performance was set in the future with all the gadgets it was imagined we would have. They had no idea how far off but at the same time right on target they were.
This performance had a man and a woman, each on a small raised stage on opposite sides of the main floor of the auditorium. They sang back and forth to each other with what were supposed to be wrist watch radios. As there was no such thing at the time except for in the Dick Tracy comic book . . .
Dick Tracy USA stamp - 1995
🎵"My heart calling your heart, over"🎵
Arthur Fiedler @ the Civic
The other event I remember because I attended many of them and have fond memories of going to the Auditorium in the late fifties, early 60's to hear Arthur Fiedler as he led the San Francisco Pops Orchestra on wild and thrilling orchestral rides.
date & photographer unknown
Most of the music was in the "Pop" vein of classical music: Ravel's Bolero, or the Tchaikovsky "Pop" works: the 1812 Overture (with no cannons) or the Capriccio Italien (links below) . . .
. . . and other chestnuts like the William Tell Overture, Orpheus In The Underworld (which evolves into the notorious but energetic Can-Can at the end), the Sorcerer's Apprentice, the Maple Leaf Rag, orchestral covers of Beatles songs, etc. You get the idea!
He would occasionally break into more serious work; he did perform a pretty spectacular version of the 1924 work for piano and orchestra, Rhapsody in Blue, by George Gershwin: it never failed to bring down the house. One of his concert favorites was Jalousie by Jacob Gade. However, Gade once presented Fiedler with a score for a symphony which Fiedler recalled as "one of the worst pieces of music I ever looked at." More on this Fiedler attitude by his daughter in the "Pop" King entry (link below)
The San Francisco Civic Auditorium
The physical layout of the audience was unique for a concert venue. In the balcony overlooking the main floor of the San Francisco Civic Auditorium (now named the Bill Graham Civic Auditorium) there were typical, permanent theater seats.
During the Fiedler concerts, however, the
main floor was a different story; there were large
tables covered in linen table cloths and napkins, candles and maybe even
flowers (but I'm not certain about that). I tried to find a shot of the main floor during one of his concerts but couldn't. Drinks and dinner
to enjoy during the concert was available. It was tons of fun!
The auditorium was designed by Bay Area architects John Galen Howard, Frederick Meyer and John W. Reid, Jr. and built in 1915 as part of the Panama–Pacific International Exposition.
photographer unknown
In 1992, the San Francisco Board of Supervisors voted to rename the
auditorium after the rock concert impresario Bill Graham, who had died
the previous year in a helicopter crash.
Bill Graham - 1966
Viewfinder link:
Net links:
YouTube links:
Arthur Fiedler & the Boston Pops ~
Tchaikovsky ~ Capriccio Italien
Rosini ~ William Tell Overture
My Fair Lady!
Sound Of Music Medley
Sousa ~ Stars and Stripes Forever
The Beatles ~ Eleanor Rigby
~ Let It Be
Gade ~ Jalousie
Gershwin / Earl Wild piano ~ Rhapsody in Blue - 1959
Sound Of Music Medley
Sousa ~ Stars and Stripes Forever
The Beatles ~ Eleanor Rigby
~ Let It Be
Gade ~ Jalousie
Gershwin / Earl Wild piano ~ Rhapsody in Blue - 1959
All in all, it was a fun time!
July 29, 2017
Lon Clark, Jr. articles/mentions
Lon Clark, Jr. ~ Itinerary, a photographic journey
Lon Clark ~ Itinerary
1985 exhibition catalogue
Copyright © 1985Northbeach Press, San Francisco
photos of catalogue by Styrous®
Copyright © 1985Northbeach Press, San Francisco
photos of catalogue by Styrous®
Mr. Clark is primarily an artist (link below) who has taken beautiful photographs of the everyday things around us.
He has also published a book with photographs by Michelle Vignes entitled, The Blues (link below). They are brilliant photographs of the jazz scene, primarily in the Oakland part of the San Francisco Bay Area, in the 60's - 70's.
He is the son of the New York City actor of stage and radio, Lon Clark, Sr. who had the title role in the radio series, Nick Carter, Master Detective (link below).
Lon Clark ~ Itinerary
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