(photo: Jim Pathe/The Star-Ledger)
Paul Ellington, left, grandson of Duke Ellington and leader of the Duke Ellington Orchestra, actress Lynn Whitfield, star of The Josephine Baker Story, and Newark Mayor Cory Booker view movie poster stamps honoring vintage black cinema during a first-day-of-issue ceremony at the Newark Museum.
Nice!
~LT
As great an artist as jazz pianist and composer Duke Ellington was, one of his granddaughters fears his significance in American culture was in danger of being lost.
So Mercedes Ellington was proud and pleased to travel Wednesday to the Newark Museum and take part in a U.S. Postal Service ceremony feting early black films, one of which featured her grandfather, who died in 1974.
"We've become a history-less generation, and I'd like to prevent that if I can," she said. "Events like this will help keep his legacy, and the legacy of others, alive."
The postal service issued five stamps commemorating vintage black cinema and depicting movie posters from the 1920s, 1930s and 1940s. One, "Black and Tan," re leased in 1929, featured three songs by Ellington and his Cotton Club Orchestra.
The other films include "The Sports of Gods" (1921); "Hallelu jah" (1929); "Princess Tam-Tam," starring singer-dancer Josephine Baker (1935) and "Caldonia," featuring singer-saxophonist Louis Jordan (1945).
The museum was chosen to host Wednesday's first-day-of-issue stamp ceremony because it produces the Newark Black Film Festival, the longest-running film festival of its kind in the country. The series began in 1974 and has so far showcased more than 650 films.
Lynn Whitfield, the actress who played Baker in a 1991 HBO movie, served as master of ceremonies of Wednesday's program.
"We're here today to celebrate a unique era in American cultural history and pay tribute to some of the people who defined that period," she said. "I feel fortunate to have followed in the footsteps of these great performers."
Full article link: www.nj.com
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