[Dixie Jubilee Concert Company]
Ferguson's Dixie Jubilee Concert Company, The Best Company of Colored Talent in the World - RARE SHEET MUSIC & POSTER
Ferguson's Dixie Jubilee Concert Company, The Best Company of Colored Talent in the World. Chicago: W. H. Gage. ca. 1890. Large 4to, original pictorial wrappers printed in black and white and red, 16 pages of printed music with lyrics. A scarce collection of classic spirituals and a few seculuar Southern gems. In fine condition, with one loose central page, small separations at spine head and foot. Only one copy recorded by Worldcat and only one copy having appeared at auction.Together with:
Ferguson's Dixie Jubilee Concert Company, The Best Company of Colored Talent in the World. Rare original broadside poster advertising performances at the Canton Chautauqua, Illinois. "Madame Neale Gertrude Buckner, Prima Donna Soprano, with the Dixies, is without contest given the place as the greatest soprano of her race, while Mr. W.C. Buckner has few if any equals as a singer and director. The management takes great pride in offering this not only the best organization of colored talent in the musical world, but also a band of the most moral, refined and cultured ladies and gentlemen." 9 x 22 inches, printed on heavy poster stock by the Shirley press, Chicago, ca. 1890. Significant and almost full horizontal tear through the center, creases and tears to the edges and corners, with spotting and staining and handling creases.
The Jubilee singing tradition consisted of Black musicians, usually but not exclusively male quartets, who sang plantation songs, spirituals, anthems, operatic selections, and popular ballads. Probably the most celebrated and long-lived such group is the world-famous Fisk Jubilee Singers (founded 1871 and still active), but many others, including Ferguson's Dixie Jubilee, circulated during the years approx. 1870 - 1940. The present broadside advertises an appearance at a Illinois Chautauqua, an adult education movement in the United States, highly popular in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, which brought cultural entertainments to communities around the country and which President Theodor Roosevelt called "the most American thing in America." The assurance that Ferguson's Dixie Jubilee consisted "of the most moral, refined and cultured ladies and gentlemen" is sadly in keeping with the traditional chautaqua practice of assuring their audiences that any ethnic performers had been culturally enlightened, with some later advertisements of this group describing them as "representing the highest type of the college-bred, cultured negro vocalists," accepted by "Christian and cultured people everywhere," and assuring patrons that their leader, W.C. Buckner "has never had to utter a word of apology for either the work or actions of his singer." (12184)
Printed Music Song Poster Culture, Ethnicity & Gender Broadside Ephemera