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Jazz Collection
History of the Collection The New Orleans Jazz Club was founded in 1948 on Mardi Gras by a group of local jazz enthusiasts and musicians, and has been going strong to this day. Almost immediately after it was founded the members began dreaming of opening a Jazz Museum, as many of them were collectors of jazz memorabilia and felt these should be made available to the public. The New Orleans Jazz Museum finally opened its doors in 1961 at 1017 Dumaine Street, and was a success from the start, so much so that it almost immediately began to outgrow the premises. Generous donations began to flood in, and within a few years it became apparent that the cottage on Dumaine Street would not have sufficient space to keep up with the growth of the collection. At about this time, the Royal Sonesta Hotel opened on Bourbon Street, managed by a jazz enthusiast who offered display space on the balcony surrounding Economy Hall, the Hotel's nightclub that featured performances of jazz nightly. The Jazz Museum relocated there in 1969. When the manager, James Nassikas, was transferred to another Sonesta Hotel, the new Management had different plans for that space, and in 1973 the Museum was forced to move to its third location at 833 Conti Street. Despite heroic efforts by the board and membership of the New Orleans Jazz Club, it eventually became financially impossible to keep the Museum open, and the collection was put in storage. The collection with its exhibit potential was as strong as ever, but lacked a building to house it. At about this time, the Louisiana State Museum (LSM) was completing renovation of the Old U.S. Mint at the foot of Esplanade Avenue, which it had acquired from the federal government in a rather decrepit state. When repairs were complete, LSM had a grand old building, but lacked a star attraction exhibit to put in it. So on September 15, 1977, the two organizations solved each others’ problems when the entire collection of the New Orleans Jazz Museum was donated to the people of Louisiana, and became The New Orleans Jazz Club Collections of the Louisiana State Museum. Instruments The Louisiana State Museum has the largest collection in the world of instruments owned and played by important figures in jazz, possessing multiple examples of all the commonly used instruments: trumpet, cornet, trombone, clarinet, saxophone. Some late 19th-century instruments date from the early days of jazz, others were used by local musicians who either never left New Orleans or came back. Notable examples of instruments in the collection are: Armstrong Cornet and bugle. Louis Armstrong was taught to play these when he was a resident of the Municipal Waif’s Home for boys, 1913-14, sent there for shooting off a pistol on New Year’s Eve. Without the encouragement of the staff, and the self-discipline and musical education he acquired there, the most important individual career in the history of jazz probably never would have happened. The objects are not only historically important, but visually distinctive. The cornet has notches in the non-detachable mouthpiece cut by the young Armstrong, in an attempt to aid his embouchure, and who later described them in print long before the instrument had come to light. Bix Beiderbecke Cornet that he used, probably briefly and as a student, and a piano that he used while living in Room 605, 44th Street hotel, New York City, in 1930-31. Edward "Kid" Ory Trombone. Great New Orleans pioneer of "tailgate" trombone, and a member of Louis Armstrong’s Hot Five. Tom Brown. Trombone. Brown is generally credited with taking the first white New Orleans-style band up to Chicago. Larry Shields. Clarinet. Shields played in the Original Dixieland Jazz Band, the first jazz band to record commercially in 1917. This instrument is the only one he used throughout his career. George McCullum Cornet. McCullum was a popular player and bandleader until his death in 1920. He straddled the barrier between "hot" and "sweet", between jazzy players who improvised in honky-tonks and more polite society orchestras who read from arrangements. McCullum’s own bands read from arrangements, his own in fact, but he was a sufficiently "hot" player himself that "sweet" orchestras would hire him to add some spice to their sound. The cornet is visually interesting, with a very old-fashioned 19th-century look to it. George Lewis. Clarinet Lewis was the preeminent clarinetist of the New Orleans Revival, from the early 40's through his death in 1969. (The so-called Revival was not really a revival of the music itself, it was a revival of interest in New Orleans jazz by outsiders, who finally took notice of what had been going on in New Orleans all along.) Lewis’s most famous piece is "Burgundy Street Blues," and he first recorded it in 1944 on this instrument, which is unusual in that it’s made of metal. Sidney Bechet Soprano saxophone. Ranks with Armstrong in musical genius. The first and greatest master of the soprano sax, he played this one in the 40s. Dizzy Gillespie Trumpet. Gillespie donated it to the old Jazz Museum after visiting it and being favorably impressed. Has the famous "bent" bell.
Photographs The photo collection consists of around 10,000 photographs, and reflects the fact that the original Jazz Museum drew heavily on the personal collections and donations of the members of the New Orleans Jazz Club, and was therefore shaped by their interests. The bulk of the photos thus feature the local music scene from about 1950 onward, focussing on traditional and Dixieland performers. Outside these categories musicians will be well represented if they came from New Orleans before gaining fame elsewhere, such as Jelly Roll Morton or Sidney Bechet, or if they came through New Orleans when the Jazz Club members were actively taking pictures, as with Duke Ellington’s visit to Jazzfest 1970. Plus, of course, Louis Armstrong. Some of the most interesting photos are from the earliest eras of jazz, with examples of most of the best-known early photos, in many cases the originals. The collection is particularly strong on photos of early white musicians, especially bands that were popular locally. Popular jazz histories tend to make the mistake of overlooking white musicians. Beyond musicians, the Louisiana State Museum has numerous photos of locations that were important to jazz, nightclubs and bars and the like. These sometimes were taken decades after the buildings had played their part in jazz history, often when they were about to be torn down in the 50's and 60s. Also included are numerous photos of street parades and funerals, especially funerals of notable musicians, dating from the 1950s to the 1990s. Some notable specifics: Louis Armstrong A major section of several hundred photographs. One notable original is of Armstrong returning in triumph to the Waif’s Home in the early thirties, posing with Mr. and Mrs. Jones, who ran it, and Peter Davis, his teacher. Armstrong is grinning and holding the cornet that is now on exhibit. Also included is a large original print of Louis Armstrong’s Hot Five, a recording group during the 20s whose importance cannot be overemphasized, autographed by four of the five members, as well as numerous publicity photos from the thirties. The collection has several photos of Armstrong as King Zulu at Mardi Gras in 1949, including some recently discovered snapshots previously unknown, and a large number of photos from his visit to New Orleans and the Jazz Museum on Oct. 31, 1965. Original Dixieland Jazz Band This band made the first jazz record in 1917, and it sold over a million copies, helping to launch the craze for jazz. The collection has several good period photos of them, both in their original form in the teens and when they regrouped in the 1930s. Superior Orchestra Several members of this band went on to become legends, such as Bunk Johnson and George Bacquet. The photo, from about 1910, has been widely copied, and this is the original, a period print that is much clearer than most reproductions.
Recordings The Jazz Collection has close to 10,000 recordings in virtually every format ever used, from piano rolls to digital tape. Recordings were vitally important to the development of jazz, as they enabled it to find a widespread audience, without which it would have died out. The collection has about 4,000 78 rpm records ranging in condition from superb to broken and in date from about 1905 to the mid-1950s, when they stopped being made, several thousand 12-inch 33-1/3 rpm LP records, and hundreds of 10-inch LPs and 45 rpm records. Like the photos they tend to run toward New Orleans traditional and Dixieland jazz. Reel-to-reel tapes, about 1,400 of them, fall into three groups, New Orleans Jazz Club radio programs, taped interviews, and music. The latter, typically tapes of concerts or private jam sessions, are again New Orleans traditional and Dixieland.
Film The bulk of the film holdings is several hundred rolls of various sizes donated in 1978 by local TV news cameraman Don Perry. While some film is out-takes from assignments for his station, WDSU, much of it he shot pursuing his own interests, and as he was a co-founder of the New Orleans Jazz Club, much of it relates to jazz. The time covered is about 1970-76. The jazz-related films feature concert and nightclub footage, funerals and parades, footage concerning the Jazz Museum, and the first two Jazz & Heritage Festivals. Unfortunately, very little of this material has sound. The Jazz Collection also has film from other sources, notably Mel Leavett at WWL. He was a jazz fan, and during the 60s he would occasionally get used footage from the evening news shows routed to the Jazz Museum, film that otherwise would have been thrown away. Most of the film dates no earlier than about 1960, including footage of the opening of the original Jazz Museum in November of `61, with one notable exception: Jean Goldkette Orchestra Goldkette was a bandleader and entrepreneur, who did not play jazz but hired those who did and put them together into bands under his name. The star of the top Goldkette band in 1926-27 was Bix Beiderbecke. We have one 3-½" reel of silent, black & white film of this group taken on tour in New England, and donated to the Jazz Museum in the 1960s. As far as can be seen, it has shots of the band standing around before boarding the bus, several bandmembers engaging in horseplay for the camera, and the band doing a publicity stunt, playing jazz for the animals at the Bronx Zoo. It is often dark, grainy, and hard to see, but unique and totally unknown footage of a legendary ensemble. Pictorial The pictorial collection consists primarily of posters, plus paintings and other artworks. Many posters are from the New Orleans Jazz Club, and pertain to the concerts they have been staging since 1950. Many posters are from other countries, mostly from the many jazz festivals that have been held around the world since the early 60s. And of course the collection has many posters relating to the annual New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival, both the "collectibles," high quality silk-screened prints signed and numbered by the artist, and ordinary street posters for advertising.
Sheet Music The Jazz Collection has hundreds of examples of sheet music, from late 19th-century ragtime to popular songs of the 40s and 50s. Included are examples of 19th century music not directly related to jazz or ragtime, but composed and published locally, giving documentary evidence to aspects of the local New Orleans musical culture out of which jazz grew. This collection contains first edition examples of many pieces that became jazz standards, such as Chinatown, Tin Roof Blues, and Alexander’s Ragtime Band.
Miscellaneous Finally, the Jazz Collection has over time picked up many odds-and-ends pertaining to jazz, some of it clearly of value, some close to worthless. Much of this is not considered part of the collection proper, but is kept for reference, as study material, even possibly for future exhibit props. Much of it is ephemera, never intended to last. A jazz concert ticket, for example, has a useful lifespan of a few minutes, from the moment you buy it at the box office to the moment you hand it to the ticket taker. But fifty years later, when the performers have become legends, the stub of that ticket with the particulars printed on it can have remarkable evocative power. The types of object include: letters (including some on very colorful ODJB stationery), telegrams, ticket stubs, contracts, matchbooks, buttons, advertising table cards, concert programs, scrapbooks, newspaper clippings, and so forth. Items worth mentioning: San Jacinto Hall Sign San Jacinto Hall was a dance hall on Dumaine Street, highly popular in the black community and the site of several recording sessions highly important to the New Orleans Revival in the 40s. It burned down in 1967, but the elaborate tin-metal sign above the entrance was saved. Tom Brown’s Typewriter Brown took the first Dixieland group out of New Orleans to Chicago in 1915, for a well documented engagement at Lamb’s Cafe. But as the ODJB was the first to record, in 1917, it generally took credit for being the "first" jazz band. Brown angrily defended his claim to primacy for the rest of his life, with many letters pounded out on this typewriter. |
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