FYI: it is not widely known then that Marilyn Monroe was largely responsible for breaking down the racism that prevented Ella from working the big time clubs. Marilyn was a massive fan.
Dizzy Gillespie, Mary Lou Williams, Tadd Dameron, Hank Jones, Milt Orent, Dixie Bailey, and Jack Teagarden, Mary Lou Williams' apartment, New York, N.Y., ca. Aug. 1947
Jazz composer Duke Ellington sits with Billie Holiday and pianist and music critic Leonard Feather in this 1945 photo. Holiday starred in a short film with Ellington in 1935 and toured Europe with Feather in 1954.