Heading: (1887 Rare Waltz by a forgotten African-American composer at Wilberforce University)
Author: Pickett, L.N.D
Title: Rare Waltz by a forgotten African-American composer at Wilberforce University
Place Published: Cincinnati
Publisher:J.C. Groene & Co.
Date Published: 1887
Description:

L.N.D.Pickett, Sweet Mignonette, Waltz Song, as Sung by Mr. Placido R. DeLany (J.C. Groene & Co., Cincinnati, 1887) Dedicated to Wilberforce University (where DeLany, son of civil rights pioneer Martin Delany, was Musical Director).  Original wrappers. 11 x 14 inches. 5pp. of music and lyrics. 

A mystery surrounds the virtually unknown career of Leroy Nicholas Darlington Pickett, one of the few “serious” African-American composers of the late 19th century. As noted in the 1882 listing above, Pickett was Director of “Donovin’s Original Tennesseans” a popular Black Minstrel troupe, before composing three songs: Copies at the Library of Congress of his Forest Roamer (1883) and Among the Lilies (1884) show the drawing of a theatrically-handsome Black man. The sheet music of this 1887 Waltz, possibly his last composition, written while working with the younger DeLany  at Wilberforce, omitted Pickett’s picture and gave no hint that the composer was Black. That same year, according to British press reports, a man calling himself L.N.D. Pickett came to England as organist and singer of a Black troupe of Jubilee singers. In 1891, this man was arrested for sending “libelous, menacing letters” to a white woman, a well-known London singer whom he had never met, threatening, “I will either marry you or kill you.” When brought to trial, the defendant entered a plea of insanity and listed his given name as Charles. The outcome of the sensational trial was not reported, but Pickett supposedly returned to America that year, never to be heard from again, entirely forgotten by history – not even mentioned in Monroe Trotter’s 1878 book on Black musicians. Like all of Pickett’s published compositions, this sheet music, of special interest because of the association with Delany and Wilberforce, is very rare.

fine condition