Ivan Black collection

1936-1978

Ivan Black (1903-1979) was a publicity agent for nightclubs, musicians, entertainers, visual artists, and Broadway and Off-Broadway productions in New York City from the early 1940s until his retirement in the mid-1970s.

Born in Philadelphia, Black grew up in Trenton, New Jersey, and received his bachelor degree in Renaissance arts and literature from Harvard University in 1924. He worked as an architect in New Jersey and Florida before moving to Boston to work as a reporter for the Boston Evening Transcript in 1928. After a brief return to Philadelphia, where he was an art critic for the Philadelphia Record and The International Studio, and wrote for The Theatre Guild, he moved to New York City in 1932, where he began working for the Works Progress Administration. Black formed and supervised a WPA program for unemployed writers that produced the American Guide series, among other projects. He was made manager of the Federal Theatre Project before being promoted to head of the Division of Information and Publicity for the Federal Theatre Radio Division. That division was dissolved in 1939, by which time Black had so many radio industry contacts that he was able to open his own publicity office.

His first clients were the uptown and downtown locations of the Café Society (whose proprietor, Barney Josephson, was a childhood friend of Black's), the writer-director-producer Arch Oboler, and The Adventures of The Thin Man radio series. After the Café Society closed in 1948, Black worked for corporate clients, such as the Philco Corporation, and the magazines Argosy and True. He returned to nightclub work in the late 1950s with two major Greenwich Village venues, the Five Spot and the Village Gate. He continued working for both clubs into the 1960s, as well as for Basin Street East, Slug's, and, in the early 1970s, Gregory's, Stryker's, Bar None and Larson's. Black sometimes worked directly for entertainers or events, such as Hazel Scott, Miriam Makeba, Erroll Garner, Brooks Kerr, the singer Dardanelle, and the New York Jazz Loft Celebrations of 1976 and 1977. He also retained an interest in visual artists, such as Lumen Martin Winter and Jo Anne Schneider, and occasionally promoted their work.

Black publicized many important performing artists. He discovered the comedian Sam Mostel at a party and launched his career at the Café Society, anointing him with the stage name "Zero" because his career had nowhere to go but up. Other major figures associated with the Café Society whom Black promoted included the musicians John Kirby, Teddy Wilson, Josh White, Edmond Hall, Albert Ammons, Pete Johnson, Benny Morton, Nellie Lutcher, Dorothy Donegan, and the Golden Gate Quartet; the singer Lena Horne; and the comedians Jimmy Savo, Imogen Coca, and the Revuers (which included Judy Holliday, Adolph Green and Betty Comden). Jazz musicians associated with the Five Spot whom Black promoted included Thelonious Monk, Sonny Rollins, Ornette Coleman, Rahsaan Roland Kirk, and Charles Mingus. The Village Gate featured jazz musicians as well, such as Miles Davis, Herbie Mann, Stan Getz, and Art Blakey, but Black also promoted folk singers such as Odetta and Harry Belafonte, the South African musicians Miriam Makeba and Hugh Masekela, and the comedian Dick Gregory, all of whom performed regularly at the Gate in the 1960s. Black publicized many Broadway and Off-Broadway productions, most notably Jacques Brel Is Alive And Well And Living In Paris at the Village Gate, but also plays such as Anna Lucasta, Devil's Galore, and Stalag 17. He also promoted political and social justice causes, including benefits for John Lindsay and for the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee.

Ivan Black died in New York City in 1979.