“LOOK! This is What You’ve Been Waitin’ For”, Dance Night Featuring The Original Eleven Clouds of Joy

Sedalia, Missouri, 1929. 11 x 18 inches, heavy cardstock. Manuscript note verso reads “Flor Alpino Vals / Vanderbeck”. Some staining and tears, mainly marginal. Overall very good to excellent.. An advertisement for a performance by the Original Eleven Clouds of Joy, likely an iteration—of which there were many—of the popular Kansas City-based swing jazz band Clouds of Joy. The group was formed in 1921 by trumpeter Terrence Holder (1897–1983), and in 1929 was led by saxophonist Andy Kirk (1898–1992), and found success largely due to the arrangements and playing of Mary Lou Williams. They would tour the US through 1948 playing Kansas City-style jazz, had the top song on the Billboard chart in 1938, and the first single to hit number one on Harlem Hit Parade in its inauguration in 1942 with the song “Take It and Git.” Contemporary newspaper accounts list the band as performing under the name “The Original Eleven Dark Clouds of Joy” during this period, though the banner in the photograph here omits the word ‘dark.’ This poster represents an uncommon relic of the band’s early days touring regionally, roughly a decade before they enjoyed national success.