Rutgers University Libraries
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Collections
| Memorabilia | Musical instruments of jazz greats |
| Audio Recordings, commercial and noncommercial | More than 100,000 recorded works of jazz |
| Photographs of jazz musicians | Database of recorded jazz works |
| Oral histories of jazz greats | Films and videotapes |
| Books on jazz | IJS discography of jazz |
| Journals and Periodicals on jazz | IJS Publications |
| Research files | Music manuscripts |
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Over 100 distinct ARCHIVAL COLLECTIONS comprise personal papers as well as archives of record companies and jazz-related institutions and organizations spanning from 1920 to the present.
Recently, a major musical archival collection, belonging to James P. Johnson, has been donated to IJS by the James P. Johnson Foundation and its executive director, Barry Glover Sr., who is also James P. Johnson's grandson. IJS has become the permanent home of these archival collections of Johnson, the pioneering African-American stride pianist and composer. The collection consists primarily of music manuscripts, along with published piano solos and sheet music, photographs, a piano roll, concert programs, news clippings, and many other items.
Among the other collections, personal papers of such jazz musicians as Mary Lou Williams, Art Hodes, and George Duvivier; writers including Leonard Feather and Charles Edward Smith; and entrepreneurs and managers open a unique window on the creative process, the peripatetic life of a jazz musician, and the maintenance of a career in jazz. Unpublished music manuscripts and recordings anchor these collections but often included are diaries, journals, scrapbooks, personal and family correspondence, travel memorabilia and ephemera that add illuminating detail to an artist's individual biography. Photographs, programs, posters and other graphics illustrate individual performers' lives and capture a portrait of American society from the mid-1920's to the present.
MEMORABILIA and other rare items in the Institute's collection go beneath the surface to capture the imagination and transport us back in time. A green trumpet from Miles Davis, Billie Holiday's plastic gardenia, and an autobiographical sketch in Louis Armstrong's hand are just some of the treasures held at the Institute. Sometimes the materials yield hard information, such as an original musical manuscript by arranger Gil Evans for Miles Davis' Sketches of Spain. In other cases, memorabilia sought for exhibits or projects, such as Ken Burns' 2001 television documentary Jazz are combined with music, images, and other artifacts to present a multi-dimensional portrait of the music and its creators. Among the many instruments are tenor saxophones owned by three of the greatest: Lester Young, Ben Webster and Don Byas. Selected memorabilia are regularly exhibited in the main reading room of the Institute.
The Institute maintains over 100,000 commercial and non-commercial SOUND RECORDINGS. Two of the earliest formats, piano rolls and phonograph cylinders, are represented; but the bulk of the collection consists of 78 rpm discs, 45 rpm singles and extended-lay (EP) discs, 10-inch and 12-inch LP's, and CD's. The collection spans all eras of jazz and includes blues, ragtime, and other jazz-related and jazz-influenced music. Non-commercial recordings include 10-inch, 12-inch and 16-inch lacquer discs, many containing unique performances, transcription discs originally intended for radio play only, thousands of reels of tape, a small number of eight-track tapes, and hundreds of audiocassettes. The non-commercial materials include such items as unissued recordings by trumpeter Frankie Newton and alto saxophonist Benny Carter as well as live recordings by stride piano legend Donald Lambert.
A collection of more than 30,000 PHOTOGRAPHS taken over nine decades, say as much about the artists, venues and recording studios as they do about the changing social, cultural and musical environment of jazz. The photographs are an internationally consulted resource of images for publications and broadcast documentaries. They encompass major artists and bands from the United States and abroad as well as lesser-known but significant contributors to jazz. Photographers represented include such famous names as William Claxton, Herman Leonard, Francis Wolff, Chuck Stewart and Charles Peterson.
ORAL HISTORY MATERIALS have been gathered from many sources. The Jazz Oral History Project of the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) was transferred to the Institute in 1979 with continuing support through 1983. Initiated by the NEA in 1972 and administered for several years by the Smithsonian Institution, the project yielded 120 interviews with elder jazz musicians including such notables as Count Basie, Benny Carter, Roy Eldridge, Milt Hinton, Red Norvo, Mary Lou Williams and key members of the Duke Ellington Orchestra. These interviews were all transcribed, and both transcripts and tape copies are available for research. Other sources for oral history materials include the Duke Ellington Society; writers Ira Gitler, Chris Albertson, Len Lyons and broadcasters Phil Schaap, Loren Shoenberg and James Brown.
The collection of some 6000 BOOKS includes practically every book published on jazz, including rare early works. Also available are many interesting and unusual books on such topics as African, African-American and Caribbean culture and history; cities that played a major role in the development of the music; dance (a specialty of Marshall Stearns); minstrelsy and show business; blues, ragtime, popular music, and country & western; the history of the phonograph and the record industry; jazz-related photography and fine art; and a representative segment of jazz-related fiction and poetry. Books originally owned by Marshall Stearns often contain his interesting and illuminating annotations. The copious reference materials include all major discographies (general, name, label, country), bibliographies and biographical works.
The collection of jazz PERIODICALS is the most comprehensive in the world, due in no small part to the acquisition of the Harold Flakser Collection. The Flakser Collection includes complete or near-complete runs of such pioneering titles as La Revue du Jazz and Jazz Tango Dancing (France) Jazz Wereld (Netherlands), Musique (Belgium), Orkester Journalen (Sweden), Sincopa y Ritmo (Argentina), as well as Melody Maker (Britain). The collection also includes the extremely rare earliest (1934-35) issues of Down Beat, in addition to countless ephemeral publications. These rare materials supplement the nearly 200 periodicals in many languages to which the Institute subscribes, including magazines that cover jazz, other musical genres, and scholarly and discographical journals.
The RESEARCH FILES include clippings from newspapers and general interest publication, press releases and publicity materials, and correspondence. Duke Ellington, Louis Armstrong and Miles Davis have the largest among the thousands of files about individuals. Topics files cover a wide range of subjects, with materials on venues such as festivals and clubs a particular large component. Other files are devoted to record labels and contain catalogs and supplements, fliers, mailing pieces, business correspondence, etc. and serve as a supplemental resource to discographers.
Contracts, recording logs, and legal and other business documents chronicle the record industry, in particular the Gennett and Musicraft labels. Institutional and organizational records, notably those of Collective Black Artists, and memorabilia from jazz festivals and fan societies add another layer of format and include piano rolls, music, programs, posters and rare artifacts.