Recorded Legacy of Concerts Produced by Jazz at Lincoln Center Given to The New York Public for the Performing Arts

Collection Preserves Performances by Such Leading Jazz Artists as Dave Brubeck, Dizzy Gillespie, Betty Carter, Lionel Hampton, Hank Jones, Wynton Marsalis, Brad Mehldau, Joshua Redman, and Wayne Shorter

New York, August 4, 2004 -- The New York Public Library for the Performing Arts will receive a collection of some 1,000 recordings that preserve the 17-year history of performances produced by fellow Lincoln Center constituent Jazz at Lincoln Center. The recordings will be available for listening by the general public in the Rodgers and Hammerstein Archives of Recorded Sound at the Library's Dorothy and Lewis B. Cullman Center at Lincoln Center. The collection is being given to the Library by Jazz at Lincoln Center and preserves hundreds of the original concerts it has produced at Lincoln Center and performed on tour since its origins in 1987.

Among the musicians whose performances are captured in this unique resource are jazz legends Ray Brown, Betty Carter, Ron Carter, Tommy Flanagan, Dizzy Gillespie, Lionel Hampton, Jon Hendricks, Freddie Hubbard, Milt Jackson, Hank Jones, James Moody, Anita O'Day, Cedar Walton, Wayne Shorter, and McCoy Tyner. Also documented is the work of a large group of younger artists including Marcus Roberts, Stefon Harris, Brad Mehldau, Danilo Perez, Maria Schneider, and many others who are defining the state of jazz today. The recordings also trace the artistic leadership of Jazz at Lincoln Center's artistic director Wynton Marsalis including his performances and compositions such as the Pulitzer Prize-winning Blood on the Fields and All Rise and the establishment of the renowned Lincoln Center Jazz Orchestra with Wynton Marsalis and the two-year-old Afro-Latin Jazz Orchestra with Arturo O'Farrill.

"The Library is privileged to preserve this treasury of live jazz performances," said Paul LeClerc, President of The New York Public Library. "It will add rich dimension to our documentation of the history and traditions of this important American art." According to Jacqueline Z. Davis, the Barbara G. and Lawrence A. Fleischman Executive Director of The New York Public Library for the Performing Arts, "the Jazz at Lincoln Center recordings will reside at the Library with such other invaluable materials as manuscripts of compositions by Duke Ellington and Charles Mingus and arrangements written by Fletcher Henderson for the Benny Goodman Orchestra. With these items and thousands of jazz photos, scores, books commercially released recordings, and videotapes our collections capture the history of jazz from its earliest development to today."

"Jazz at Lincoln Center is proud to partner with The New York Public Library for the Performing Arts to offer these historic recordings to the jazz fans old and new," said Derek E. Gordon, Executive Director of Jazz at Lincoln Center. "These recordings are important for the preservation of jazz and will be a vital resource to music lovers. We are delighted to share the spirit of this music in collaboration with our fellow constituent, The New York Public Library for the Performing Arts."

The Library has so far received recordings from concerts in the 2003/2004 season. According to Donald McCormick, Curator of the Library's Rodgers & Hammerstein Archives of Recorded Sound, these recordings have been added to the Library's catalog and are currently accessible. It is expected that the remaining span of concerts from 1987 to 2003 will be available to the public within three years. Performances from future seasons will be added on an annual basis.

Jazz at Lincoln Center has produced concerts that examine jazz in a wide range of styles and instrumental configurations. These have included the music of revered composers and performers like Louis Armstrong, Duke Ellington, Thelonious Monk, and Miles Davis; commissions of new works; reunions of influential groups; trumpet and saxophone battles; and performances by leading contemporary artists. Among the many noteworthy concerts preserved are the reunion of the Joe Henderson Big Band, a group that gave few public performances and never released a commercial recording; and the reunion of the Dave Brubeck Octet. Other noteworthy events include the performance of John Coltrane's A Love Supreme featuring Coltrane's original drummer Elvin Jones who also played an original percussion composition by Coltrane; and the world premiere performance of Wayne Shorter's composition Dramatis Personae, with Shorter on tenor and soprano saxophones.

From the earliest cylinders to the latest digital formats, the Rodgers & Hammerstein Archives of Recorded Sound at The New York Public Library for the Performing Arts preserves a collection of more than 500,000 recordings. These include every musical genre as well as speeches, radio broadcasts, dialects, interviews, and sound effects. Among the noteworthy collection items are the Mapleson Cylinders, which feature the earliest known documentation of Metropolitan Opera performances (1901 to 1903); an unusual set of self-made recordings featuring Tennessee Williams reading his own works, Fiorello La Guardia's "Talks to the People" radio broadcasts, the series of Bell Telephone Hour radio broadcasts from 1941 to 1968, and the Benedict Stambler Memorial Archive of Jewish music and theater.

In relation to jazz the archives' 125,000 78 rpm recordings include many early releases issued on such labels as Brunswick Records, Varsity Records, and Blue Note Records. From the LP era the collection contains virtually complete holdings of recordings issued by Verve, Fantasy, Riverside and other important jazz labels. These collections document American Jazz from the Original Dixieland Jazz Band to Charlie Parker, from Louis Armstrong to Miles Davis, to the present. Special collections of unpublished recordings include the personal collections of live and radio broadcast performances of such popular bandleader-composer-musicians as Lennie Hayton, Raymond Scott, and Leo Reisman, containing many hundreds of recordings. These collections document jazz on the radio from the 1920s to the early 1960s, including popular series such as Lucky Strike Presents Your Hit Parade and The Camel Caravan that featured guest artists like Louis Armstrong and Lena Horne. Two unusual video recording collections in the Archives are the Bill Spilka Collection of Jazz Videorecordings featuring over 200 video tapes of jazz performances and interviews and the Bluestime Power Hour collection of videotapes by blues researcher Cinthea Coleman featuring documentation of such artists as Lady Margaret, Guitar Shorty and Jimmy McCracklin.

The New York Public Library for the Performing Arts houses the world's most extensive combination of circulating, reference, and rare archival collections in its field. Its divisions are the Circulating Collections, Jerome Robbins Dance Division, Music Division, Billy Rose Theatre Collection, and the Rodgers and Hammerstein Archives of Recorded Sound. The materials in its collections are available free of charge, along with a wide range of special programs, including exhibitions, seminars, and performances. The Library is known particularly for its prodigious collections of non-book materials such as historic recordings, videotapes, autograph manuscripts, correspondence, sheet music, stage designs, press clippings, programs, posters and photographs.

Jazz at Lincoln Center is a not-for-profit arts organization dedicated to jazz. With the world-renowned Lincoln Center Jazz Orchestra, the Afro-Latin Jazz Orchestra, and a comprehensive array of guest artists, Jazz at Lincoln Center advances a unique vision for the continued development of the art of jazz by producing a year-round schedule of performance, education, and broadcast events for audiences of all ages. These productions include concerts, national and international tours, residencies, weekly national radio and television programs, recordings, publications, an annual high school jazz band competition and festival, a band director academy, a jazz appreciation curriculum for children, advanced training through the Juilliard Institute for Jazz Studies, music publishing, children's concerts, lectures, adult education courses, film programs, and student and educator workshops. Under the leadership of Artistic Director Wynton Marsalis, President & CEO Hughlyn F. Fierce, Chairman of the Board Lisa Schiff and Jazz at Lincoln Center Board and staff, Jazz at Lincoln Center will produce hundreds of events during its 2004-05 season. This is the inaugural season in JALC's new home -- Frederick P. Rose Hall -- the first-ever performance, education, and broadcast facility devoted to jazz.

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Press contacts:
The New York Public Library - Herb Scher, 212.704.8600, hscher@nypl.org
Jazz at Lincoln Center - Mary Fiance Fuss, 212.258.9829, mfuss@jalc.org