New Orleans Jazz Pathfinder

Introduction and Scope

This pathfinder is meant to provide a variety of trusted resources on the topic of New Orleans jazz. Its target audience is anyone interested in learning more about New Orleans jazz and is geared toward those who are new to the subject. The pathfinder is intended to provide historical context, biographical information on key musicians, and audio recordings that provide a good introduction to the sounds of New Orleans jazz.

New Orleans jazz is distinct from Chicago and New York style jazz, swing, cool jazz and bebop. Also known as traditional jazz, hot jazz, ragtime and Dixieland jazz, it had a variety of cultural influences including brass marching bands, minstrals, call and response, parades, military marches, European folk songs, and spirituals, and was marked by improvisation and collaboration (Burns, 2000). It reflected the freedom and resilience of the descendents of slaves and Creoles of color and grew out of the cultural melting pot in New Orleans after the Union occupation and Reconstruction, a time of greater racial integration (Burns, 2000). New Orleans jazz is joyful music and was created for dancing rather than just listening. Some famous musicians to play New Orleans jazz were Jelly Roll Morton, Sidney Bechet, and Louis Armstrong. Every year New Orleans hosts Jazz Fest in the spring, a festival that attracts visitors from around the world for several days of outdoor jazz concerts and celebrations.

Subject Headings and Browsing Areas

Library of Congress
Jazz musicians – Louisiana – New Orleans
Jazz musicians – Louisiana – New Orleans - Interviews
Jazz – Louisiana – New Orleans – History and criticism
African Americans – Louisiana - New Orleans – Music – History and criticism

Glendale and Pasadena Public Libraries
New Orleans (La.) -- Social life and customs
New Orleans (La.) -- Popular culture -- History -- 20th century
Musicians -- Louisiana -- New Orleans
Popular music -- Louisiana -- New Orleans
Jazz -- 1921-1930 -- History and criticism
Jazz -- 1931-1940
Jazz musicians – United States - Biography

Biographies

Biographies provide insight into personalities that can bring an in-depth knowledge to a certain place and time. A biography will include not just the facts of the subject’s life events and experiences, but also reflects the time in which they lived, and the people in their lives (Bopp, 2001). A biography will provide more information than a bibliographic citation or an entry in an encyclopedia but also require a greater time commitment.

Armstrong, Louis. (1954). Satchmo: My Life in New Orleans. Cambridge, MA: Da Capo Press.
[BL: R 780.92 Armstrong, L ARM]
In this short autobiography, Louis Armstrong writes of growing up in New Orleans and getting his start playing in the Brick House, one of the rough clubs in the city in the years before he left to move to Chicago. In simple prose, this book paints a vivid and atmospheric portrait of New Orleans and the early days of jazz with its first-person narrative.

Brother, T. (2006). Louis Armstrong’s New Orleans. New York: W.W. Norton & Co.
[BL: 780.92 BRO]
The premise of this book is that Armstrong was surrounded by the vernacular music of New Orleans from childhood such as blues, church singing, and dance halls, and that shaped the great jazz trumpeter he became. It’s a biography as well as a cultural and musical history.

Chilton, J. (1987). Sidney Bechet: the wizard of jazz. Basingstoke : Macmillan.
[BL: 780.92 Bechet,S]
A biography of the great clarinetist and jazz soloist that describes how he helped shaped traditional jazz in New Orleans. The book gives details of Bechet’s personal life, his recordings and musical influence. John Chilton also wrote a well-regarded biography of Louis Armstrong.

Giddons, G. (1998). Satchmo: the genius of Louis Armstrong. New York: Da Capo Press.
[BL: 780.92 Armstrong,L GID; PAS: 92 ARMSTRONG,L GID]
This book cover Louis Armstrong’s career from the early days in New Orleans to his years as a famed trumpeter and is especially notable for its discography and numerous historical photographs. It includes writings by Armstrong, biographical information and a discussion of his influence on other jazz musicians.

Lomax, A. (2001). Mister Jelly Roll: the fortunes of Jelly Roll Morton, New Orleans creole and
"inventor of jazz." Berkeley, CA: University of California Press. [BL: 785.42 M889Lo]
This classic of jazz literature follows the dramatic rise and fall of flamboyant jazz pianist Jelly Roll Morton and includes discussions of Creole culture, voodoo, and New Orleans jazz, as well as a discography, bibliography, scores and chronology of Morton’s jazz compositions.

Dictionaries and Encyclopedias

Dictionaries are generally used to look up a definition of a word or to check on the spelling of a word (Bopp, 2001). A specialized dictionary will expand on a certain topic (Bopp, 2001). There are many different kinds but they are all rooted in language and the meaning of words (Bopp, 2001). Encyclopedias will provide concise , general information on any given topic (Bopp, 2001). They are an essential ready reference tool and provide a great deal of information to a patron in the short period of time it takes to read an entry.

Kernfeld, B. (Ed.). (2002). New grove dictionary of jazz. London: Macmillan.
[BL: 785.4203 NEW 2002; PAS: R 781.6503 NEW 2002]
This three-volume book is an authoritative source of information on jazz and includes biographies, jazz groups, jazz styles and forms, and jazz instruments. It is a highly recommended source on the one true American art form. The entries on New Orleans jazz and New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival of concise and informative and give terms for further searching, such as traditional jazz and Dixieland.

Feather, L. (1993). The encyclopedia yearbooks of jazz. New York: Da Capo Press.
[BL: 785.42 FEA]
This book contains biographies of artists, chapters on favorite songs, jazz fans, best records and where to hear jazz.

Feather, L. & Gitler, I. (1999). The Biographical Encyclopedia of Jazz. New York:
Oxford University Press. [BL: R 780.992 FEA]
Arranged alphabetically by last name, lists birth and death dates and locations, instruments played, gig dates, musicians they played with, and their place in jazz history.

Indexes and Abstracts

An index is a brief listing of content, while an abstract is a summary of content (Bopp, 2001). Many now are available in electronic form (Bopp, 2001). The RILM Abstracts of Music Literature covers topics such as Western and Eastern classical music, popular music, folk, jazz, historical musicology, ethnomusicology, instruments and voice, and criticism. International Index to Music Periodicals (IIMP) provides abstracts and full text of articles on music and boasts eighteen journals on jazz alone.

RILM Abstracts of Music Literature. (1967- current). Updated monthly. New York:
City University of New York Graduate School and University Center. Electronic format.
http://www.csa.com/factsheets/rilm-set-c.php. Free for those with a Glendale or Pasadena
Public Library card, or a 30-day free trail.
This is a guide to publications on music from around the world. This can be found under the online resources tab on the Brand Library web site and requires just a simple keyword search.

International Index to Music Periodicals (IIMP). (1874 – current). Updated monthly. ProQuest.
Electronic format. http://iimp.chadwyck.com/marketing.do. Free for those with a
Glendale or Pasadena Public Library card, or a free trail subscription is also offered.
A quick search on New Orleans jazz brought up an impressive list of full text articles from journals such as Down Beat and Popular Music and Society. This index gives users the ability to search journals by subject. There are helpful tabs, clicking one marked jazz showed eighteen journals on jazz. This can be found under the online resources tab on the Brand Library web site and requires just a simple keyword search.

Internet Sources

Internet sources are wonderful reference tools for their accessibility, but reliable sources can be tough to find. I’m certain the entries below weren’t returned in the first few pages of a Google search on New Orleans jazz. Most likely they were found in a bibliography or referred to within a trusted Internet resource. The Internet resources listed below include Smithsonian Jazz, Center for Black Music Research, PBS: Jazz Biographies and the New Orleans jazz radio station WWOZ.

Smithsonian Jazz (n.d.). Retrieved from www.smithsonianjazz.org on August 1, 2009.
Under the Learn It tab, this site has a good brief introduction to jazz called ‘What Is Jazz’ and in a concise paragraph sums up the role New Orleans played in the growth of jazz.

Center for Black Music Research (n.d.). Retrieved from http://www.colum.edu/cbmr/index.php
on August 1, 2009.
This web site from the Center for Black Music Research at Columbia College contains resources and a wealth of information about Black music from around the world.

PBS: Jazz Biographies (n.d.). Retrieved from http://www.pbs.org/jazz/biography on
August 1, 2009.
This web site from PBS, the Public Broadcasting Service, contains almost 100 African-American biographies mainly on jazz from the New Grove Dictionary of Jazz.

New Orleans’ Jazz & Heritage Station. Retrieved from http://www.wwoz.org/ on
August 3, 2009.
The radio stations recordings of live broadcasts was recently donated to the Library of Congress. One can also listen to the station on iTunes radio. It can be found under the jazz listings. This station truly gives voice to the sound of New Orleans jazz in artist interview and songs.

Louisiana Jazz and Heritage Festival (n.d.). Retrieved from http://www.nojazzfest.com/ on
August 1, 2009.
In addition to a music schedule and travel information for this legendary festival, the site contains a page on the history of the event with historical photographs and reproductions of advertising posters.

Guides and Discographies

Guides and discographies provide a variety of information about a topic in one place, albeit a very large book that can be found on a shelf close to the reference desk and can’t be checked out of the library. The guides below will familiarize jazz researchers with artists’ recordings, essays on jazz, and books for further reading.

Cook, R. and Morton, B. (2000). The penguin guide to jazz on CD (5th ed.). New York:
Penguin Books. [BL: R 016.7899 COO 2000]
This comprehensive reference work is already up to a seventh edition. The book is organized by artist and has over 10,000 entries. While it may seem intimidating, the two-column format is easy to read as just as useful for beginners as it would be for more experiences jazz fans. R. Cook is an editor at Jazz Review magazine.

Bogdanov, V., Woodstra, C, & Erlewine, S. T. (Eds.). (2002). All music guide to jazz: the
definitive guide to jazz. San Francisco, CA : Backbeat Books. [BL: R 016.7899 ALL
2002; PAS: 781.65026 ALL 2002]
This book lists the ten essential New Orleans Jazz recordings and essential books on New Orleans Jazz, and has essays on the history of jazz and New Orleans Jazz.

Kennington, D. & Read, D. (1980). The literature of jazz: a critical guide (2nd ed.). Chicago:
American Library Association. [BL: 781.97 K]
This reference guide contains a jazz music bibliography, histories of jazz, lives of jazz musicians, jazz periodicals and even a listing of jazz references in novels.

Audiovisual Materials

Audiovisual materials add a whole other level to understanding to any research on New Orleans jazz. This selection includes the wonderful first episode of the Ken Burns series on jazz, Gumbo, music recorded live at the legendary Preservation Hall in New Orleans, plus two great compellations of music from Putumayo, and an exhaustive interview by Alan Lomax with the verbose Jelly Roll Morton, a fixture of New Orleans jazz who knew, and played with, absolutely everyone.

Burns, K. (Director and Producer), Ward, G. (Writer), & Novick, L. (Producer). (2000). Jazz: a film by Ken Burns (Videorecording). United States: Florentine Films and WETA. [BL: Video-Music JAZZ JAZ (S)]
Ken Burns brings his thorough and engaging documentarian skills to this ten-episode piece on jazz. Though its length of nineteen hours is daunting, the first episode, Gumbo, is of special interest as it starts with a history of jazz and the role of the city of New Orleans in its development.

Morton, J. R., (Speaker). (2006). Jelly Roll Morton: the complete Library of Congress recordings by Alan Lomax [CD]. Cambridge, Mass.: Rounder. [BL: MJ MORT JRM M98CD]
This work features Jelly Roll Morton in jazz music recordings and interviews. Morton was known as a larger than life figure, famous for his singing and piano playing, musical compositions and arrangements, as well as for playing with many of the most famous New Orleans musicians of his time.

Various artists. (2005). Putumayo presents: New Orleans [CD]. Putumayo World Music.
[PAS: CD MJ COLL NO P 32]
This lively survey of old and new talent in New Orleans music showcases classics by Louis Armstrong, the Preservation Hall Jazz Band, and puts traditional jazz in context of other regional sound such as swing, Creole, Spanish and blues. The liner notes are special, with New Orleans photographs by renowned local photographer Michael Smith, a guide to New Orleans music and entertainment with travel tips, and even a recipe for seafood gumbo.

Various artists. (2007). Putumayo presents: New Orleans brass [CD]. Putumayo World Music.
[BL: MJ COLL NOB P70CD]
New Orleans Brass features contemporary New Orleans musicians performing the festive sounds of horns and drums that will place the listener in a Mardi Gras parade. It features songs by the Dirty Dozen Brass Band with Dr. John, and the Preservation Hall Hot Four that showcase the vibrancy and evolution of New Orleans jazz today.

Preservation Hall Jazz Band. (2004). Preservation hall: the best of the early years [CD]. New Orleans, LA: Preservation Hall Recordings. [BL: MJ PRES PH P03CD]
Preservation Hall is a legendary New Orleans venue for jazz; its roots go back to the early days. It draws music lovers from around the world. The songs on this compellation include the classic When the Saints Go Marching In as well as Lonesome Road and Down by the Riverside. The band has a traditional, lively New Orleans sound with cornet, trombone, drums, bass, piano, banjo and clarinet. The music was recorded from 1966-1977.

Various artists. (1995). The Smithsonian collection of classic jazz [CD]. Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Collection of Recordings. [BL: MJ COLL SCC S33CD]
This is a six-disc jazz survey and includes a great representation of New Orleans musicians with recordings by Louis Armstrong, Sidney Bechet, King Oliver's Creole Jazz Band and Jelly Roll Morton and places them within the context of jazz as a whole.

Books

Non-fiction books can offer researchers a large amount of well-researched historical information, and will often contain historical photographs and a good bibliography. Many of the authors, and one photographer, of the works I’ve chosen below are considered to be authorities on the subject of New Orleans jazz, such as Michael Smith, Martin Williams and Samuel Charters. They bring decades of knowledge and experience to their work.

Charters, S. (1984). Jelly Roll Morton’s last night at the jungle inn: an imaginary memoir.
Marion Boyars: New York, London. [780.92 M889 Ch]
The author never heard Jelly Roll Morton play jazz piano, and never met him, so he imagines the stories he would have told if he had met him at the Jungle Inn. The book is a mix of fact and fiction that includes historical photographs.

Martinez, R. (1971). Portraits of New Orleans jazz. New Orleans, LA: Hope Publications.
[785.42 M]
A collection of notes, stories, photographs and history about notable musicians and bands, essays on funerals with music, minstrals, voodoo and the Mardi Gras Indians. It’s a well-rounded portrait of New Orleans and how jazz is a part of so many aspects of life there; it goes far beyond entertainment and is part of the soul of the city.

Smith, M. P. (1991). New Orleans jazz fest: a pictorial history. Gretna, LA: Pelican Publication
Company. [785.4209 SMI]
This book shows several decades worth of black and white photos taken at the New Orleans Jazz Fest. There are candid scenes and portraits of crowds, vendors, musicians and bands performing. It gives a lively sense of the festival, and also reflects its huge growth over the years.

Turner, F. (1982). Remembering song: encounters with the New Orleans jazz tradition.
New York: The Viking Press. [BL: 785.42 TUR]
This book covers the birth of jazz in turn-of-the-century New Orleans and includes chapters on key figures and venues such as Buddy Bolden and Preservation Hall, as well as rare, archival photographs.

Williams, M. (1978). Jazz masters of New Orleans. New York: Da Capo Press.
[BL: R 785.42 WIL]
This book focuses on the biographies of jazz musicians who were key in New Orleans jazz such as Jelly Roll Morton, Sidney Bechet, Louis Armstrong, Buddy Bolden, the Original Dixie-land Jass Band, and the New Orleans Rhythm Kings. The writing includes coverage that is relevant mainly to New Orleans, the city and the style of jazz. Discusses the origins of jazz, and the fascinating social history of New Orleans. There are bibliographies and discographies at ends of chapters.

Archive Materials

Archival materials are available in digital collections on the Internet and are a useful resource for researchers who otherwise wouldn’t be able to have access to these collections. Most often connected to a library, a museum, a university, or a government site (in the case of the Smithsonian and the Library of Congress). I chose the archive materials below for their recordings, information on jazz instruments, photographs, historical essays, and oral histories.

Louisiana State Museum Jazz Collection (n.d.). Retrieved from
http://lsm.crt.state.la.us/collections/jazz.htm on August 1, 2009.
This site has photographs and information on jazz instruments, recordings, photographs and posters, as well as links to other sites for further exploring. Also has quite a few online exhibits and access the Louisiana State Museum Digital Library Jazz Collection which has audio recordings, photographs and information about musical instruments.

New Orleans Jazz National Historical Park (n.d.). Retrieved from http://www.nps.gov/jazz/
on August 1, 2009.
This web site is useful especially to visitors of New Orleans as it includes maps for jazz history walking tours and information on jazz venues. Under the Jazz History link, there are articles on the history of jazz in New Orleans, early bandleaders, and musicians famous for traditional New Orleans jazz. In addition, there are interactive maps showing the history of jazz neighborhoods. Historical photographs can be found on many pages throughout the site.

The William Ransom Hogan Archive of New Orleans Jazz (n.d.). Retrieved from
http://www.tulane.edu/~lmiller/JazzHome.html on August 1, 2009.
This archive is part of Tulane University’s Special Collections and includes oral histories, recorded music, photographs and film, among other resources. There is a link to a beginner’s introduction to New Orleans jazz with historical information and recommendations for further reading.

New Orleans Jazz Pathfinder

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