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(ENTERTAINMENT--MUSIC.) Letters among a group of prominent Pittsburgh jazz musicians, discussing heroin, military bands, and drag performers. Various places, 1951 14 letters and postcards addressed to Charles Austin, various sizes; generally minor wear.  Charles Edward "Chuck" Austin (1927–2012) was a prominent jazz trumpet player in Pittsburgh. He was later prominent in the musician's union, founded the African American Jazz Preservation Society of Pittsburgh, and was elected to the Pittsburgh Jazz Hall of Fame. This lot includes: 2 letters from saxophone player Frank McCown, formerly of Pittsburgh, 19 April 1951 and undated. "I am quite well known now, not for the bop sounds but for the honking shouts that I am known. . . . If I had a supply of shit, I could make a killing. Heroin is new to them, they don't mess with it." He notes listening to Stan Getz, Sonny Stitt, Dexter Gordon, Oscar Peterson, and Miles Davis, as well as Mary Dee's pioneering radio show; he has launched his own weekly radio show as well, under the name "Frantic Frank." "Say, I got a gig, I think in New Jersey, if I can get a combo from the 'Burg." He complains about the music in his unidentified town, with live acts limited to the likes of R&B singers Little Esther and Amos Milburn ("I at least got high off of his whiskey when he hit town"). He concludes: "I would like to get back on the kick. Bop! That something that I can't quite seem to touch."  7 letters and postcards from friend Adolph D. Cook, 7 March to 10 September 1951. He was a Pittsburgh jazz piano player in the Army as a military policeman in Wisconsin, attempting to get into the military band. 19 March: "The colored man get a chance to soldier now, know more hard work. . . . As far as music gos, this camp is a drag, know sounds at all. . . . My boy who blows tenor blew with [saxophone player] Ike Quebec." 16 April: "They play records at the mess hall every meal, nice sounds too. I found some more musicians laying around cooling it." 8 July, after a transfer to Battle Creek, MI: "At last, some crazy sounds. There's a army band on this fort that blows. I'm not in the band, but I jam with them every day. What kicks." 21 July: "I went down to the 35th Army Band and saw my boy Don Slaughter (trumpet). He knows Youngblood and Tine. . . . He has work with Duke and Dizzy. He has a combo that work at the N.C.O. Club. It sound like Birdland. . . . This is the only band that outswing and sound the big band at home. . . . To get in the band you must know the fingerings and scales of all the basic instruments. The bass is what let me down." On 29 August, "This ragtime 171st has finally got up a jive time combo. . . . The colonel give us three days a week for rehearsals." On 10 September, he reported: "Detroit labor day was swinging. I went to the Flame and saw Big Joe Turner, Maurice King Combo, Mantan Moreland the star." He observes that a drag performer from Pittsburgh was performing in Detroit: "Get this, Little Bee from Little Paris is working right on the main drag. . . . I was at the bar, and I looked up, and there she was, all loud, big, and wrong." Postcard from Merritt [Dalton?] of the 101st Airborne Division training in Kentucky, 2 April 1951: "Took my horn first night we had a session, and I made the band, and learning correct tunes. Every Fri, Sat, Sun we have a study gig. There's a fine trumpet player."  4 letters from mother Beulah, 27 August to 20 September [1951?]. Her 6 September letter describes at length a vacation at the Clearwater Hunting & Fishing Lodge: "I never enjoyed myself in my life so much. We rented a cabin and spent the nite." On 11 September, describes a call from Ruby: "She thinks you'd do better in Chicago. . . . They tell her it's slowing up a bit in New York, says she's going there to get a booking agent, then she's going to Chicago." With--an uncredited photograph of Austin, 10 x 8 inches, inscribed "For Marge, always the best, Charles."