Jazz Resources in the Music & Recorded Sound Division...and Beyond: Digital collections with remote access

(Above) Bunny Berigan and Gene Krupa, c. 1938. From the Otto Hess Photographs. Available in Digital Collections.

Though our jazz-related holdings in Digital Collections are currently somewhat limited, we continue to add newly-digitized items. We encourage you to check back frequently for these additions. Also, some of our Digital Collections items can only be accessed onsite at the Library for the Performing Arts; this limited access is necessary in order to honor the intellectual property rights of the performers and composers.

Digitized jazz-related materials that can be accessed from home include: ​

• Charles Mingus' Epitaph Suite, "Inquisition" movement
• Selections from the Otto Hess Photographs
• Selections from the George Avakian and Anahid Ajemian Papers. Noteworthy among these selections is the full text of a lecture that Avakian gave in a New York University course on jazz in 1948.
• Selections from the Music Iconography Files. These include photos of Louis Armstrong, Benny Goodman, Billie Holiday, Duke Ellington, Ella Fitzgerald, and Willie "The Lion Smith"

For more information about how to request digitization of NYPL materials, as well as how to order prints of items found in Digital Collections, visit the website of our Permissions department.

The Billy Rose Theatre Division (at the Library for the Performing Arts) has sets of photographs by Martha Swope of two New York City Ballet performances that featured a jazz band, both with choreography by George Balanchine.

• "Modern Jazz: Variants" (1961), featuring the Modern Jazz Quartet
• "Concerto for Jazz Band and Orchestra" (1971), featuring Doc Severinsen and his band

The Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture also has several sets of photographs of jazz musicians that are available in Digital Collections:

• New York Jazz Museum Photograph Collection
• Duke Ellington Portrait Collection
• Nat King Cole Photograph Collection

For more information about how to request digitization of NYPL materials, as well as how to order prints of items found in Digital Collections, visit the page of our Permissions department.

Several other institutions offer online collections of primary documentation of jazz musicians and jazz history. Below are a few that we recommend.

• Hogan Jazz Archive (Tulane University): Includes several collections of jazz-related materials, including photographs, sheet music, posters, and an online exhibit on jazz on steamships.
• Felix E. Grant Jazz Archives (University of the District of Columbia): Includes interviews with major artists--from Cannonball Adderley to Phil Woods--originally broadcast on WMAL Radio 630 from 1965-1984.
• William P. Gottlieb Collection (Library of Congress): Includes the photographic work and jazz criticism of William Gottlieb, contributor to Down Beat magazine, among other publications. The collection includes several items not found in our own William P. Gottlieb Photographs collection.
• The Monterey Jazz Festival Collection (Stanford University): Includes digitized recordings from the annual festival, as well as a complete run of festival posters.
• Leonard Feather Blindfold Tests Collection (University of Idaho): Includes recordings of Feather playing jazz recordings for other jazz musicians, asking the listeners to guess the artist on the recording and to talk through their thought process.
• Jazz Oral History Project (Institute of Jazz Studies, Rutgers University): Includes over 100 oral history interviews with jazz musicians who were active between the 1920s-1940s. The interviews were recorded between 1972 and 1983 and include figures like Mary Lou Williams, Charles Mingus, and Teddy Wilson, among others.
• Louis Armstrong House: The Louis Armstrong House holds several rich collections that document not only Louis Armstrong, but also his contemporaries in the jazz world. The site contains many digitized lead sheets, promotional material, photographs and recordings.
• Buffalo Jazz Report (SUNY Buffalo): Includes the full run of the independent publication devoted to jazz, 1974-1978.