CENTER FOR JAZZ ARTS AND BRITAIN'S ROYAL ALBERT HALL PRESENT UNIQUE WINDOW INTO LONDON HISTORY December 20, 2005 Los Angeles --- Providing the viewer with a wealth of remarkable insights into the experience and lifestyle of twentieth-century London, Center for Jazz Arts celebrates the rich heritage of one of Britain's most beloved cultural institutions. Created in close cooperation with the archives of London's Royal Albert Hall, the selected programme materials make available to the public a collection of historical documents embodying numerous, rare photos, illustrations, and textual accounts uncovered for the first time in nearly a generation. The featured exhibition "Royal Albert Hall" includes both enduring images and illuminating, personal accounts of such legendary, British and American figures as Florence Mills, Sir Charles Cochran, Johnny Hudgins, Jack Hylton, Duke Ellington, Rodney Friend, Paul Whiteman, John Pritchard, and Santos Casani, as well as of the Gramophone Company's classic, trademarked painting of the British terrier "Nipper," captivated by the sound of "His Master's Voice." Included in the programme of a 1926, Royal Albert Hall "Charleston Ball and Competition" featured in the exhibition, a remarkable sampling of personal accounts by both the American and British, celebrity judges in attendance reveals a fascinating survey of "early jazz theory" in both the U.S. and Britain. When providing his thoughts on "The Origin of the Charleston," American stage promoter Lew Leslie explained "It happened in my Plantation Revue six years ago when I hired a bow-legged coloured boy from Charleston, South Carolina. I found similar steps in his routine and developed the dance from these. We called it the "Hoo-Te-Toot," later renaming it after the boy had become known as Charleston." In an account accompanying Leslie's, as well as those of three other judges for the evening's events, British choreographer Max Rivers explains, "This dance has been credited to nearly every part of the world except to that from which it really sprang. I believe the British Sailor, of some four hundred years ago, was its originator, for it is obvious to anyone with a knowledge of the Charleston to see that all its principal steps and ninety percent of the minor movements are nothing more than adaptations from the Sailor's Hornpipe." Beginning in 1851, with Prince Albert's earliest vision for a series of new, London, arts facilities to be built "for the enlightenment of the public," and extending well beyond its memorable reference in the Beatles' classic "A Day in the Life," when explaining "Now they know how many holes it takes to fill the Albert Hall," the long and distinguished legacy of Royal Albert Hall has provided legions of local, national, and international audiences with an unparalleled center of cultural life, and this latest exhibition of unique and one-of-a-kind materials assembled by the Center for Jazz Arts has made possible an extraordinary window into its history. About the CJA: Established in 2004, the Center for Jazz Arts is an international institution devoted to the study and advancement of American jazz culture throughout the visual, literary, and classical arts, around the world. Through its primary operations in Los Angeles, it is building a prominent new platform of engagement for students, artists, educators, and the broader public, from every generation. To contact the CJA: Public Relations Center for Jazz Arts (866) 950-5200 info@centerforjazzarts.com [ back to top ]