Source of this footage is Soupy Sales’ late-night TV show in Detroit in 1956. I had a chapter about Soupy ready to go in “Jazz From Detroit” but had to cut it at 11th Hour for space. He found this kinescope of Brownie in his garage in the mid ‘90s. #JazzFromDetroit
https://twitter.com/saladjazz1/status/1492279207690268675
Here are some of the other jazz musicians Soupy had on his show in Detroit between 1953-59: Bird, Monk, Miles, Duke, Armstrong, Lester Young, Hawkins, Milt Jackson, Chet Baker, Getz, Earl Hines, Yusef Lateef, Pepper Adams, Tommy Flanagan.
I know what you’re thinking: Where are the damn tapes? Alas, none survive. The early shows were live & none were saved except for a few shows Soupy paid to have kinescoped to document his comedy characters. One of the shows saved in this way just happened to have included Brown.
Later shows were shot on videotape, but the station reused tape—common practice —and so they were all erased. I spoke with Soupy about all of this in 1996 and he told me some great stories. I wrote it all up for @freep at the time but had expanded that piece for the book ...
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