[BITList] A Collect or & An Afficianado

[John Feltham]

 Sunday, May 30, 2010 11:48 AM
Subject: A Collect or & An Afficianado



Collector Shares Mementos and Memories

of Jazz Legend


Earl Wilson/The New York Times
Jack Bradley, a collector of all things Satchmo, at his home on Cape Cod. His collection was

bought by Queens College. 


By NIKO KOPPEL

Published: September 28, 2008
HARWICH, Mass. — Jack Bradley was only 15 when he first heard Louis Armstrong on a 78-r.p.m. record in his family’s living room, an ordinary introduction to a man who would end up having a profound influence on Mr. Bradley’s life.

“I never heard anything like that before,” said Mr. Bradley, who is now 74 and lives in this seaside town on Cape Cod.

Mr. Bradley met Armstrong in the early 1950s, after a mesmerizing performance at the American Legion Hall in nearby Hyannis. He recalls approaching the jazz legend in his dressing room and receiving an autographed photograph and a packet of Swiss Kriss, an herbal laxative that Armstrong endorsed. “My life was never the same; my life became Louis,” he said.



From that brief encounter blossomed a tight-knit relationship that turned Mr. Bradley into one of the foremost collectors of Armstrong memorabilia. He amassed thousands of images of Armstrong, on and offstage, rare recordings, sports coats and slippers, and even a banister from the Colored Waifs’ Home for Boys in New Orleans, where Armstrong was remanded as a teenager.

“You just can’t get involved in the world of Louis Armstrong without coming across the name Jack Bradley,” said Michael Cogswell, the director of the Louis Armstrong House Museum and Archives at Queens College.

The college runs the museum in the house in Corona, Queens, where Armstrong lived for nearly 30 years. The school bought the collection for $500,000 in 2005, and since then a trove of material has been moved from Mr. Bradley’s home to the college.

Mr. Cogswell picked up another shipment this month from Mr. Bradley, which included Armstrong’s mail and correspondence, and rare issues of early jazz magazines. 



When Mr. Bradley was born in 1934 in Cotuit, Mass., Armstrong was already a widely recognized jazz musician. The eldest of five children, Mr. Bradley was raised by his mother, a hairdresser, and his grandparents. In 1958, he moved to New York, where he found work as a cargo manager on the docks while immersing himself in the city’s thriving jazz scene.

While attending jazz shows and rehearsals at the Metropole, a nightclub in Midtown, and the Central Plaza, a downtown dance hall, Mr. Bradley compiled an extensive array of records, which he traded with other enthusiasts. He also wrote and took photographs for publications like Coda, Down Beat and Jazz Journal, as well as for record labels and artist promotions. “I thought these magical moments should be captured,” he said.

He befriended musicians like Buddy Tate, Bobby Hackett, Jo Jones and Buster Bailey. Mr. Bradley also dated a woman who handled Armstrong’s fan mail and who took Mr. Bradley backstage to talk to the musician after his performances.

“I was completely in awe of him,” Mr. Bradley said, recalling that Armstrong often referred to him affectionately as Daddy or Pops. “He was so down to earth and real, he would speak the same to kings and queens as the guy on the street in Harlem.” The two would often meet for hours in Armstrong’s modest house on 107th Street in Corona, where he lived with his wife, Lucille, starting in 1943, near other jazz titans, including Ella Fitzgerald, Count Basie, , Billie Holiday, Lena Horne and Dizzy Gillespie.

With his Voigtländer Prominent camera, Mr. Bradley captured candid moments of Armstrong at home, backstage and at recording sessions. One of his photos became the cover shot for the album “What a Wonderful World.”

Mr. Bradley archived just about anything from Armstrong that he could save — discarded letters, eyeglasses, handkerchiefs, even clothes that did not fit properly after Armstrong lost weight. In addition, he paid Armstrong’s valet and housekeeper for goods and ephemera that the musician gave to them. “It was important to preserve everything that he spoke and he did,” Mr. Bradley said. “He was the genius of the 20th century.”

After Armstrong died in 1971 at the age of 69, Mr. Bradley traveled the country, combing through record shops and antique stores for Armstrong and other jazz memorabilia, which filled his home in Hell’s Kitchen. In 1972, he opened a jazz museum in Midtown, closing it three years later, and soon after moved to Cape Cod.

Explaining why he sold his collection, Mr. Bradley said, “I wanted to have it readily accessible to the public and researchers.” Yale University, the Smithsonian and individuals had also expressed interest in the collection, parts of which are on exhibit at the Louis Armstrong House Museum, though most of the material is still being cataloged and will not be on view until a visitors center scheduled for completion in 2010 is ready.

Amid the thousands of records and jazz periodicals meticulously organized on shelves, Mr. Bradley gazed at a crumbling Western Union telegram and other dog-eared fan mail addressed to “Pops” and “Satchmo,” which he was handing over to the museum. One letter marked “private” in cursive was from a fan named Annetta. It read, “I could never in a million years explain what I have in my heart, just what you mean to me.”

For a moment, Mr. Bradley seemed reluctant to part with the letter, worried about giving up another treasure fraught with memory. “It’s been really traumatic,” he said. “I’m just sorry my mind isn’t as chronological as my collection.”




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