Jam Session with Jazz Giants

Helen Oakley, in the light dress, then working for Irving Mills, organized this 1937 jam session at the Brunswick Recording Studio in New York to help launch the Master and Variety record labels. Chick Webb, Artie Shaw, and Duke Ellington all volunteered their time. Milt Gabler kneels behind Ellington; Oakley's British-born future husband, the jazz historian Stanley Dance, stands against the far wall. Jazz: A History of America's Music; by Geoffrey C Ward and Ken Burns