Pete Howard is a serious collector seeking old (pre-1970) concert posters and music memorabilia, and who pays the very best prices. He lives in San Luis Obispo, Calif. Please contact him at pete@postercentral.com or (805) 540-0020.
BE SURE TO WATCH PART 1 FIRST! A rare, stunning December 1965 Acid Test street advertising poster that features, among others, the Grateful Dead as the musical entertainment.
A really outrageous Fats Navarro concert poster from Harlem, New York in the spring of 1949.
I say “outrageous” because of its unique feature of using red velvet, or felt, on much of the top half of the poster.
This bebop jazz window card has to be seen in person to be believed… you have to run your fingers over it to really appreciate it.
But I do my best in this video to tilt the poster at an angle, toward the camera, to give you a look at its spectacularly unusual 3D effect.
I mean, heck, any Fats Navarro placard from the 1940s would be cool enough, but when you add in the red velvet here, it just hits it out of the park.
I don’t care if this were a circus poster, I think I’d want it framed on my wall. In all my years of poster collecting, I’ve never seen anything like it. Have you?
If you were to have just one bebop jazz show poster in your collection, how could you possibly beat this one?
Sure, Dizzy and Thelonious are bigger names, but the velvet treatment here elevates it to #1 in my book!
It doesn’t even matter that this cardboard Fats Navarro poster board is significantly tattered around the edges… where are you ever going to find another one?
But I would refrain from having it restored by a paper expert… I’d rather just frame it as is, maybe “frame out” or “mat out” the damage, and have it look old.
I’d be inclined to call this a bebop jazz tour poster, but then I realized that it was almost certainly a “one-off,” or one-use-only, poster.
There just isn’t enough flexibility in the pertinent this-night-only information that’s given in several different places on the poster, for it to be a “tour blank.”
That’s a shame, because anyone seeking out old Fats Navarro concert memorabilia would only have this exact show to find this from.
Whereas many other great posters I’ve blogged here have been tour blanks that were used for an entire tour, sometimes over a year or two. Not this one.
Besides using that amazing velvet, this bebop jazz broadside was printed in red and mint green inks… interesting how no black ink was used.
That’s very unusual in itself. Normally, if a printer used two colors like this, they throw in the normal black, too, and then on a white background you’d have a four-color poster.
But all bets are off with this Fats Navarro in-person poster, due to its red-velvet content. Maybe the black ink would’ve proven difficult, and messy, around the velvet.
I’m really hoping a viewer contacts me with news of another poster, somewhere along the line, that used this unique printing feature. Even if it’s a modern-day poster.
OK, I’ve gone on & on about the velvet found on this bebop jazz window poster. Let’s get down to what it tells customers.
The big date right in the middle is highly unusual… you can’t miss it, and for some reason, the “23” is the biggest font used on the poster.
But since this was a Fats Navarro street poster, they really wanted the date to jump out at people walking by… it adds a sense of urgency.
The closer it drew to April 23, the more important that large and velvet “23” was.
Any other bebop jazz concert placard I’ve seen has the date typically printed in at the top, where it also drew lots of attention.
But again, that was for tour blanks that were used for many cities along a national (or regional) tour.
And then this Fats Navarro billboard gives the ticket prices as $1.35 in advance and $1.50 at the door.
That sounds outrageous today, of course, but any collector of vintage concert memorabilia is used to seeing that by now. Heck, lots of Glenn Miller and Louis Armstrong posters have admission as only a buck.
If you’re not a particular Fats fan but you want a vintage bebop jazz ticket poster, this thing rattles off six musicians out of Fats’ trumpet that most will recognize.
Those beboppers would be Kenny Clarke, Milt “Bags” Jackson, Walter Bishop, Curley Russell, Earl Coleman and Allen Eager. With mint-green stars scattered amongst them.
You’ll see in my video that this Fats Navarro window display was made of cardboard and measures the standard 14×22” in size.
But everything else about it is very un-standard… for jazz fans, it’s a beauty, if not a museum piece.
If you’re seeking a bebop jazz tour placard for your collection, you’re probably going to seek out only the 1940s and ’50s… that was the genre’s heyday.
At least these things weren’t lost to the WWII paper drives… which ate up a lot of 1930s big-band posters… because bebop didn’t really come of age until after the war.
I wonder if there was ever a jumbo Fats Navarro show placard made… meaning 22×28” in size.
I’ve seen that size for Louis Armstrong and other postwar jazz and blues artists, so it’s a legitimate question.
We don’t know who printed this particular bebop jazz concert announcement, because the printer’s credit down at the bottom has been obliterated by masking tape.
The tape appears to be as old as the poster itself, so I don’t dare try to lift it off, for fear of tearing up whatever ink is there.
It’s a good bet that Prince & Maxwell printed this Fats Navarro event poster, however, because they also printed many of the other concert posters found in this stash.
So why the cover-up tape job? It’s anybody’s guess… perhaps the person thought that it detracted from the poster’s outstanding design.
The name of the venue for this bebop jazz boxing-style concert poster is part of its appeal, IMHO… I always love a catchy venue name.
And this is a good one: Rockland Palace Ballroom, 155 St. & 8th Ave. That’s at the very northern end of Harlem on the island of Manhattan.
I love the way this Fats Navarro concert sign hints that the music may have run all night. Instead of a customary “9:00 PM to 1:00 AM” or something like that, it says the show started at 10:00 PM and ran until… “?”
So it’s easy to envision a swinging Harlem hot spot where the jazz music played all night long – especially on a Saturday night.
The promoter is listed at the top of this bebop jazz telephone-pole poster, but it’s a bit hard to read their name because the color contrast is not strong.
But right there in the far upper left, it states, “San Juan Hill Assoc. Presents.” It’s easy to miss, compared to all the other writing.
This Fats Navarro tour placard – oops, I mean one-off poster – was exposed to a lot of moisture over the years, contributing to its fragile state today.
Moisture can be an insidious enemy of old paper or cardboard items, so oftentimes it’s best if a restorer treats the item to stop the mildewing process.
This outstanding piece of bebop jazz concert memorabilia is presented today by long-time collector Peter J. Howard, of California’s central coast. I pay the BEST PRICES IN THE HOBBY for vintage concert posters and collectibles like this. I can be written to at pete@postercentral.com, or phoned at (805) 540-0020.
To see a few more delicious examples of vintage, classic jazz concert posters and placards, just slip over to this page here on my site: http://www.postercentral.com/jazz.htm
In this video, I continue to tell you about this fabulous early Beatles Kaiserkeller in-person poster from the fall of 1960.
In Part 1 of my video, I give a lot of basic background info about this poster and its origins. In Part 2 here, I give still more pertinent info, including what all the German words on the poster mean.
This Beatles Hamburg show poster actually features SIX performing, important, full-time members of the world’s most famous band ever. Can you name them all?
Naturally, there’s John, Paul and George; you also have Stuart Sutcliffe in the group; and you have Pete Best on drums. That’s five. Who’s the sixth? Why, it’s Ringo Starr, beating the skins for Rory Storm & the Hurricanes!
I love to point out the fact that this Beatles 1960 concert poster has 10 little red and white stars sprinkled throughout.
And guess how many musicians it was advertising? That’s right, 10… five in the B’s and five in RS & the H’s. Pure coincidence, I’m sure, but a little bit of magic, too.
This Beatles German placard was painted skillfully using a bright yellow background, with red, light blue and black paints superimposed on top of that – plus a white cloud for Rory Storm and his band to sit in.
Rory & Co. were perceived as the headliners when this sign was conceived, but as anybody who was there can tell you, the Beatles rather quickly took over the spotlight.
If you’re a condition freak (and I’m not), you might have noticed a couple of missing notches on the left side of this Beatles Kaiserkeller window poster.
Some collectors would want to immediately fix those; they could easily be filled in and color-matched, becoming unnoticeable. But I, personally, like the way it was left unfixed; I like my vintage concert posters to look that way – old, used and vintage.
Did you know that this Beatles Hamburg broadside represents the very first time the name “The Beatles” was used on an advertising concert poster?
That’s right… in fact, they had only settled on their final name a few months before. I’ve seen photographic evidence of a “Silver Beetles” concert poster from earlier in ’60, but this is the first with the name they finally settled on.
I like the way artist Erwin Ross equally spread out the color elements on his Beatles German billboard, seemingly giving about equal time to each of them.
And I love the way he chose blue color for both the all-important “Rock ’n Roll” and “und the Beatles” – the two most important sets of words on the poster!
It’s funny how neither he nor promoter Koschmider knew that they were creating a collector’s masterpiece with this Beatles 1960 window card. To them, it was a disposable nothing that could be thrown away the day after the final show ended.
But that’s what makes this hobby fun… all vintage concert posters were designed to last for just a few weeks, and then be torn down and thrown away.
It would be years before the world fully realized the long-term importance of a Beatles Kaiserkeller appearance poster.
Remember, when the group hit it big in 1963 (U.K.) and 1964 (U.S.), they were still considered just a teenage flash-in-the-pan… probably here today, gone tomorrow. It wasn’t until beginning in the 1970s that their historical importance would really start to be appreciated.
It would have been awesome if they had made a Beatles Hamburg window display for either of the clubs the boys played at before landing at the Kaiserkeller in the fall of ’60.
They actually started off at the Indra Club in the summertime, followed by the more prestigious Top Ten Club, before moving on to the Kaiserkeller. There’s never been a trace, however, of any advertising materials involving the B’s from either of those first two venues.
The only way you could eclipse a Beatles German concert placard would be to find one advertising The Quarry Men – as you know, the group name which John, Paul and George used first.
They carried that name from 1957 through 1959, and played a lot of small, informal gigs around Liverpool, but there’s never been a poster spotted with that name on it. That would truly be a holy grail.
Which would you take, if you had a choice between a Quarry Men piece or a Beatles 1960 poster board?
A lot of collectors would opt for the Quarry Men poster… but then, you’d have to explain it to almost everyone who walked in your house and saw it, unless they happened to be rock historians.
Not so with this Beatles Kaiserkeller street poster. There would be little or no explaining necessary before people would suck in their breath and go, “Wow!”
It’s interesting to see the back of this Beatles Hamburg show placard. It looks very old and weathered, just like you’d want it to be.
Personally, I hate it when I get a vintage poster and the back of it is all clean & shiny, maybe even attached to a new backing board. I like both sides of my poster to be vintage, even the blank back!
Should I apologize for taking two YouTube videos to show you this particular Beatles German event poster? No! I didn’t want to scrimp on important information, editing myself to down under 10 minutes.
This was not unprecedented… I’ve done two-part YouTube video blogs before, in fact several times. If a poster’s too good, like this one, then I’m just gonna spread it out over two, and not shortchange you.
If you were able to secure a Beatles 1960 street poster like this for your collection, it would then be possible for you to have Beatles concert posters for seven straight years.
Because 1961’s are rare but much easier than this one; 1962’s are also very tough to find, but doable; and so forth, right up until they ceased touring in 1966.
Now that you know about this cardboard Beatles Kaiserkeller poster, you know that any paper one you’re offered is not the genuine article. That’s helpful to know.
It wasn’t until the Beatles’ February 14, 1961 show at the Cassanova Club that a paper concert poster was printed on a printing press. An image of that poster appears in several Beatles history books; it’s a beaut.
This Beatles Hamburg street sign managed to survive, undiscovered, in a trunk for 54 years before it saw the light of day. That’s amazing to realize.
It also makes you wonder how many other potentially valuable concert posters lurk in trunks, dark closets and storage areas that are even older than this one. How many Elvis posters from the 1950s?
Of course, almost none of them would be as cool as this vintage Beatles German concert sign. Because the Fabs are, of course, the biggest phenomenon in music business history!
But I’ve always pined for a 1954 Elvis, a 1920’s Louis Armstrong or a 1930’s Billie Holiday concert poster. Fat chance, but one can always dream!
But I digress. This piece of Beatles 1960 concert memorabilia is the living end, and would reside right at the top of my want list – period.
It just doesn’t get any better than this. You can almost smell the German beer, hear the sailors fighting and see our boys up on stage, complete with Stuart Sutcliffe.
It’s been an amazing honor and pleasure showing you this Beatles 1960 street sign. I’m Pete Howard, and I can be reached through pete@postercentral.com or by phoning (805) 540-0020. And please always know that I pay the VERY BEST PRICES, period, for the oldest and coolest Beatles concert memorabilia.
To see a few more very early Beatles pieces – although not as early as this – just click on this page here on my web site: http://www.postercentral.com/beatles.htm
A very rare Beatles Hamburg concert poster dating to the fall of 1960 for their two-month residency at the Kaiserkeller club.
This poster is historic for a number of reasons, not the least of which is that it’s the earliest known advertising poster for live music by “The Beatles.”
This Beatles Kaiserkeller poster board is a hand-painted original, not something that was printed on a printing press.
It is the only one known of this size… the other two known specimens are large, paper door signs, much bigger than this.
19 by 26 inches is the approximate size of this Beatles German window card, making it perfect for framing as a standard-sized poster.
It was painted on cardboard, not paper, and done by local graphic artist Erwin Ross.
Finding any Beatles 1960 in-person poster is a supreme challenge for collectors; they’re all one-off’s, because of the hand-done aspect.
As of the time of this writing, there are several known printed 1961 Fab Four concert posters, but zero from 1960; thus the challenge I speak of.
This Beatles Kaiserkeller broadside is delightfully eye-catching with its bright yellow, red, light blue, black and even white coloring. It’s hard to imagine walking by this and not stopping to look.
It’s unknown if this was posted inside the club, outside the club in perhaps a window box, or elsewhere around the city, to draw patrons to the establishment.
But who would want to take down & save a Beatles Hamburg placard back then? The Fabs were totally unknown, as was Rory Storm & The Hurricanes, so their genre of music (“Rock ’n Roll”) got top billing.
I’ll tell you who would save one: the musicians, the band members. Each group had five musicians, so right there, there’s 10 chances somebody’s gonna save one.
And as a matter of fact, Hurricanes guitarist Ty Brian is the one who saved this particular Beatles German show poster.
Sadly, Mr. O’Brien passed away in the late 1960s. But his relatives kept a trunk of his containing music mementos, and this poster was made public for the first time in 2014.
Up until then, the only Beatles 1960 window display we knew of were actually door displays, as I’ve mentioned. So it was electrifying to find this more “normal-sized” item, very frame-worthy, after all those decades.
Actually, the door signs can be displayed in a frame as well, they’re just more unwieldy due to their size. You really need a large wall space.
In my video, you’ll notice that this Beatles Kaiserkeller billboard is already museum-quality framed. It’s the perfect framing job.
It was framed in “floating style,” not matted, so you can clearly see all of the poster’s edges, on all four sides.
In fact, a piece of this Beatles Hamburg concert placard was detached when it was found by the family in 2014. It was subsequently reattached at the time of framing.
In my video, if you look closely you can make out the area where this chunk had come off… it’s in the lower left, mostly involving the word “Rory.”
It’s funny how this Beatles German window poster says “and his Hurican” under Rory Storm’s name. At first, I thought that was just the German spelling for “Hurricanes.”
But no, it’s not. So I speculate in this video that maybe “Hurican” was an homage to Chuck Berry using that unique word in his song “Rock ’n’ Roll Music,” which surely these bands performed.
But it’s interesting how this Beatles 1960 show placard uses both English and German to get its message across. I’d say there’s an equal number of words in both languages.
But most of the words in English are names, so shouldn’t be translated, and most of the words in German carry information the customers had to know.
Unlike the white door sign which has been copied endlessly, this yellow Beatles Kaiserkeller event poster has never been reproduced in any way. Part of that, of course, is due to the fact that it just surfaced in 2014.
Perhaps it’s just a matter of time, but then, there’s no real need with the white one out there with such ubiquity.
Speaking of which, in my video I show you the paper reproduction of the white Beatles Hamburg concert sign. You’ll recognize it right away; it’s been used everywhere for decades now.
It’s the blue one that’s the other rare image, and in my video I show you a photograph of that one, too. Last I heard it was hanging in the Hard Rock Café in Berlin.
To call this Beatles German street sign “seminal” is an understatement. Other than a Quarry Men concert advertisement, it would be hard to find anything from the outset of their career like this.
And if you did, it would be for a drummerless outfit; the Beatles enlisted Pete Best on skins just before departing for their first trip to Hamburg this summer.
The venue, Kaiserkeller, is blasted across the top of this Beatles 1960 appearance poster, in red paint. Translated to English, that literally means “emperor’s basement.”
And then “Tanzpalast der Jugend” translates in English to “dance palace of the young,” or more succinctly, “youth dance palace.” One must remember that rock ’n’ roll was entirely a youth-oriented activity in its first 10 years of existence.
Despite the band’s two-month stay at this venue, it’s not easy to find any Beatles Kaiserkeller concert memorabilia. Tickets were never made, and it appears that handbills were not, either.
Signed pay receipts may be all there is from the boys’ 1960 days in Hamburg, and those are very rare and pricey, of course.
Speaking of a two-month stay… notice how three months are given on this Beatles Hamburg street poster. October, November and December are all listed.
But John, Paul, George, Stuart and Pete were not destined to play here in the month of December… their final show was November 30. They were both disgusted with club owner Bruno Koschmider, and 17-year-old George was deported for being underage.
Notice how promoter Koschmider gave himself a huge credit on his cardboard German Beatles poster. “Presenting Bruno Koschmider,” it proclaims in bold red script.
The trouble is, Koschmider was just the money man behind the scenes, not one of the performers that people would pay to see. But you wouldn’t know it from this poster… I’d say it was a healthy ego move on his part.
The proper wording for this Beatles 1960 concert placard would’ve been, “Bruno Koschmider Presents…” and then list the Rock ’n Roll bands, etc.
Just to be sure of all this, I closely consulted a friend fluent in German to translate the word “Prasentiert” that is found just before Bruno’s name.
One of my favorite aspects of this Beatles Kaiserkeller concert sign is the way it says “England – Liverpool” down at the bottom. In nice black print, the final thing on the poster.
At first I thought that was just for The Beatles… exactly where they hailed from. Then I realized it was for both bands: Rory Storm and the Hurricanes were also from Liverpool, so it totally applies to both.
Some collectors who covet a Beatles Hamburg event poster in their collection might want to opt for the 1962 Star-Club one, which was actually printed on paper so their chances of finding one are greater.
But interestingly, you don’t find any more Fab Four fame on that poster… once again, their name is in tiny print down at the bottom. I’ll eventually blog that poster as well, when I come across an original.
This Beatles German show placard is happily the subject of this video done by me, Pete Howard, a first-generation Beatles fan and long-time serious collector. Please know that I pay the BEST PRICES IN THIS HOBBY, period, for original vintage Beatles concert memorabilia, 1957-66. I can be reached through pete@postercentral.com or called in California / U.S.A. on (805) 540-0020.
And to see more examples of early Beatle concert posters and signs, just head one page away to this treat right here on my site: http://www.postercentral.com/beatles.htm
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