Research Catalog

Title

Olivia Shipp photograph collection [graphic].

Author

Shipp, Olivia, 1880-1980.

Publication

[192-?]-[195-?]

Items in the Library & Off-site

Details

Additional Authors

Allen, Fred.

Description

• 6 items (.3 lin. ft., 1 box); 28 x 36 cm. and smaller.
• 6 photographic prints : silver gelatin, b&w ;

Summary

The Olivia Shipp Photograph Collection is a limited depiction of her career as a professional musician, from about the 1920s to the 1950s.

Subjects

• Negro Women's Orchestral and Civic Association
• Dance orchestras > New York (State) > New York
• Shipp, Olivia, 1880-1980
• Schyver, Corrine
• Gelatin silver prints > 1920-1959
• Henderson, Leora Meoux
• Seals, Gladys
• Musicians > New York (State) > New York
• African American women musicians
• Sutton, Della
• Group portraits > 1920-1959

Genre/Form

• Group portraits – 1920-1959.
• Gelatin silver prints – 1920-1959.

Note

• Title devised by cataloger.
• Four photographs are duplicates and have photographer's name printed on recto; one duplicate image bears handwritten descriptive information on verso; some images bear handwritten notations on verso.
• The collection contains work by Fred Allen.

Biography (note)

• Olivia Shipp, known primarily as a bass violinist, was born Olivia Sophie L'Ange in New Orleans in 1880.

Call Number

Sc Photo Olivia Shipp Collection

OCLC

NYPG99-F33

Author

Shipp, Olivia, 1880-1980.

Title

Olivia Shipp photograph collection [graphic].

Imprint

[192-?]-[195-?]

Biography

Olivia Shipp, known primarily as a bass violinist, was born Olivia Sophie L'Ange in New Orleans in 1880. As a child she learned to play a pump organ acquired by her family and played for a church choir. Her sister May, an actress, who had previously joined the Black Patti Troubadour Company in New York before forming the Bob and Kemp vaudeville team (under the name May Kemp), invited Olivia to New York around 1900.

In New York, Olivia, who changed her last name to Porter, found employment in vaudeville shows as a pianist. After hearing a cello at a performance, she began learning how to play, taking lessons from various teachers including African-American cellists Wesley Johnson and Leonard Jeter. Through Jeter she began an association with David I. Martin's Martin-Smith School of Music as Jeter's assistant and a member of the school's orchestra. She also played in violinist Charles Elgar's chamber ensembles and, around 1916, studied the bass violin with a Mr. Buldreni of the New York Philharmonic. In the meantime, she had married the son of actor Jesse Shipp, thereby calling herself Olivia Shipp.

About 1917, Shipp joined Marie Lucas's Layfayette Theater Ladies Orchestra as a bassist, and later joined Lucas's orchestra in Baltimore. During the 1920s, she organized an orchestra called Olivia Shipp's Jazz-Mines. Her next orchestra was the New York-based Negro Women's Orchestral and Civic Association, formed with assistance from Local 802 of the American Federation of Musicians, which subsequently became an important performing band during the Harlem Renaissance and furnished musicians for Lil Hardin Armstrong's appearance at the Apollo Theatre in the early 1930s. Shipp would remain active as a free-lance musician in dance bands, chamber emsembles and orchestras until the post-World War II period. She died in New York City in 1980.

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Added Author

Allen, Fred. Photographer

Research Call Number

Sc Photo Olivia Shipp Collection