[Sun Ra and His Myth Science Arkestra, Fate in a Pleasant Mood, Saturn SR9956-2-B, 33 1/3 rpm, 1965.]
The Special Collections Research Center’s Chicago Jazz Archive will have a booth at Saturday’s Hyde Park Jazz Festival on Saturday, September 25.
In honor of the festival, Chicago Jazz Archive Curator Deborah Gillaspie provided these jazz facts, which celebrate Chicago jazz-related materials in various repositories around the city and the U.S.Did you know…
1. Herman Poole “Sonny” Blount (later known as Sun Ra) was an arranger for the bands of Red Saunders and Fletcher Henderson here in Chicago? See a web exhibit of materials on Sun Ra’s Chicago years from the Special Collections Research Center at the University of Chicago Library! Sounds From Tomorrow’s World : Sun Ra and the Chicago Years 1946 – 1961
2. There is a now a Library Guide on Chicago Jazz on the University of Chicago Library website? It takes the place of the old CJA website, and can be found at http://guides.lib.uchicago.edu/chicagojazz
3. Many of Chicago’s most celebrated jazz musicians studied with Capt. Walter H. Dyett at Wendell Phillips and Du Sable high schools? Learn more about this legendary musician and jazz educator by examining the finding aid to Capt. Dyett’s papers, which have their home at CPL’s Vivian Harsh Research Collection: http://www.chipublib.org/cplbooksmovies/cplarchive/archivalcoll/dyett.php
4.The Chicago Jazz Archive at the University of Chicago Library contains the large format originals and reprints of the Esquire Jazz Book 1946, which had Chicago jazz as its theme. Paul Eduard Miller edited that volume and did the wonderful end paper map of Chicago jazz clubs; his research collection can be found at the Center for Black Music Research: http://www.colum.edu/CBMR/Library_and_Archives/Archival_Collections/Research_Collections/
5. The American Federation of Musicians Chicago Chapter Files are available for use in the Music Information Center at Chicago’s Harold Washington Library downtown? These include the deceased member files 1940-1979, which can be very useful when researching the lives of jazz musicians.
6.You can search photos from the old Chicago Daily News for free, thanks to the Chicago History Museum and the Library of Congress? There are wonderful jazz images to be found, start at http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/ndlpcoop/ichihtml/cdnhome.html
7.Cab Calloway (b, 1907) had an older sister named Blanche (b. 1902) who was also a musician and bandleader, and that they both worked in clubs in Chicago? Enjoy the Cab Calloway Jive Dictionary online, thanks to the Cab Calloway Estate and the Cab Calloway Orchestra: http://www.cabcalloway.cc/jive_dictionary.htm
8.The Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians (AACM) was founded in Hyde Park? Look up the bio entries of AACM members playing the Hyde Park Jazz Festival at the Chicago and New York websites of the AACM.
9.That while Benny Goodman was from Chicago, his papers are at the Irving S. Gilmore Music Library at Yale University? Learn more about Benny Goodman from the finding aid to his collection: http://webtext.library.yale.edu/xml2html/music.Goodman.nav.html
10.Chicago drummer Barrett Deems played with the Louis Armstrong All-Stars in the 1950’s, and was on Louis’ State Department Tour of Ghana? Learn more about Barrett from the finding aids to his collections:
The Barrett Deems Papers in the Chicago Jazz Archive collections at the University of Chicago Library, and in the Barrett Deems Collection at the Music Information Center, Harold Washington Library. If you’ve ever seen the movie High Society, Barrett is the guy playing the bongos on the bus at the beginning, and he’s the drummer in the band scenes.
Learn more on the Chicago Jazz Library Guide at http://guides.lib.uchicago.edu/chicagojazz
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