The Hogan Archive of New Orleans Music and New Orleans Jazz is located in

New Orleans, Louisiana New Orleans ( , ,New Orleans
Merriam-Webster. ; french: La Nouvelle-Orléans , es, Nuev ...

, United States, and is one of the special collections of the

Tulane University Tulane University, officially the Tulane University of Louisiana, is a private university, private research university in New Orleans, Louisiana. Founded as the Medical College of Louisiana in 1834 by seven young medical doctors, it turned into ...

library. The archive specializes in

Dixieland Jazz Dixieland jazz, also referred to as traditional jazz, hot jazz, or simply Dixieland, is a style of jazz based on the music that developed in New Orleans at the start of the 20th century. The 1917 recordings by the Original Dixieland Jass Band ...

, gospel, blues, rhythm and blues, Creole songs, and related musical genres. Its collection includes:

Oral histories Oral history is the collection and study of historical information about individuals, families, important events, or everyday life using audiotapes, videotapes, or transcriptions of planned interviews. These interviews are conducted with people wh ...

, audio and video recordings, photos and other images, sheet music, personal papers, and teaching aids. Originally named the Archive of New Orleans Jazz, the archive is often simply referred to as the Hogan Jazz Archive. As of 2001, the Hogan Jazz Archive was the world's largest jazz archive, with oral histories of more than 500 musicians of the genre.

Founding

In 1958, then Tulane University graduate student Richard B. "Dick" Allen started a project on the oral history of New Orleans jazz. William Ransom Hogan (1908-1971) was a professor in the history department at Tulane University from 1947 until his death in 1971. Hogan obtained grants from the

Ford Foundation The Ford Foundation is an American private foundation with the stated goal of advancing human welfare. Created in 1936 by Edsel Ford and his father Henry Ford, it was originally funded by a US$25,000 gift from Edsel Ford. By 1947, after the death ...

to develop much of the original collection at the archive and to support Allen's graduate thesis project. Allen was adept at interviewing jazz musicians, and he emphasized musicians that were active early in the history of New Orleans-style jazz. His interviews resulted in a collection of oral histories occupying more than 2000 reels of audio tape, which form a core part of the Hogan Jazz Archive. At the time of its founding in 1958, the original goal of the Hogan Jazz Archive was to record the history of the local form of jazz music. The original name of the archive was the "Archive of New Orleans Jazz".

Development

The Department of History at Tulane University had responsibility for management of the archive until the archive was moved to Jones Hall Library of Tulane University in 1965, which houses the special collections of the Howard-Tilton Memorial Library. Grand Soirre Dansante 1909 Economy Hall

Music historian and composer William Russell was the first

curator A curator (from la, cura, meaning "to take care") is a manager or overseer. When working with cultural organizations, a curator is typically a "collections curator" or an "exhibitions curator", and has multifaceted tasks dependent on the parti ...

of the Archive. He was succeeded by Richard B. "Dick" Allen served as curator of the Hogan Jazz Archive from 1965 to 1980. Allen was then succeeded by Curt Jerde, and then by

Bruce Boyd Raeburn The English language name Bruce arrived in Scotland with the Normans, from the place name Brix, Manche in Normandy, France, meaning "the willowlands". Initially promulgated via the descendants of king Robert the Bruce (1274−1329), it has been ...

(

Wikidata Wikidata is a collaboratively edited multilingual knowledge graph hosted by the Wikimedia Foundation. It is a common source of open data that Wikimedia projects such as Wikipedia, and anyone else, can use under the CC0 public domain license. ...

). In December 2019

musicologist Musicology (from Greek μουσική ''mousikē'' 'music' and -λογια ''-logia'', 'domain of study') is the scholarly analysis and research-based study of music. Musicology departments traditionally belong to the humanities, although some mu ...

Melissa A. Weber became curator. Under Russell's direction as curator, the archive emphasized documenting the heritage of older jazz musicians, and so an early history of was

Papa Jack Laine George Vital "Papa Jack" Laine (September 21, 1873 – June 1, 1966) was an American musician and a pioneering band leader in New Orleans in the years from the Spanish–American War to World War I. He was often credited for training many musici ...

who had performed as early as the 1884

World Cotton Centennial The World Cotton Centennial (also known as the World's Industrial and Cotton Centennial Exposition) was a World's Fair held in New Orleans, Louisiana, United States in 1884. At a time when nearly one third of all cotton produced in the United Sta ...

. Another early musician emphasized at the outset of the oral history project was the oral history of Dominic LaRocca who in 1917 founded the

Original Dixieland Jazz Band The Original Dixieland Jass Band (ODJB) was a Dixieland jazz band that made the first jazz recordings in early 1917. Their " Livery Stable Blues" became the first jazz record ever issued. The group composed and recorded many jazz standards, the ...

. From the beginning of the archive, it strived to document the extensive influence of

African-Americans African Americans (also referred to as Black Americans and Afro-Americans) are an ethnic group consisting of Americans with partial or total ancestry from sub-Saharan Africa. The term "African American" generally denotes descendants of ensl ...

and

Creoles of color The Creoles of color are a historic ethnic group of Creole people that developed in the former French and Spanish colonies of Louisiana (especially in the city of New Orleans), Mississippi, Alabama, and Northwestern Florida i.e. Pensacola, Flor ...

in the early development of New Orleans jazz.Fitzgerald, M. (2008). "Jazz Archives in the United States" (Master's thesis, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, United States). Retrieved from th
Carolina Digital Repository
The scope of the archive expanded as the archive developed. By 2022, the archive's collection went beyond oral histories, to include most types of media related to documenting the people important in the musical heritage of the jazz genre, the history of the business of jazz, and the culture that surrounded the musical genre. Some areas of emphasis have included, but are not limited to: post-Civil War military music, African-American

jazz funeral A jazz funeral is a funeral procession accompanied by a brass band, in the tradition of New Orleans, Louisiana. History The term "jazz funeral" was long in use by observers from elsewhere, but was generally disdained as inappropriate by most New ...

s, African-American second-line parades, as well as Italian-American influences such as Sicilian open-air brass performances, funeral corteges, and Catholic Saints' Day processions. Over the years, the name of the archive has changed. William Ransom Hogan died in 1971, and, in 1974, the archive was re-named the William Ransom Hogan Jazz Archive. In 2020, the name of the archive was changed to the Hogan Archive of New Orleans Music and New Orleans Jazz. TulaneU4Nov08JonesHall

Jazz musician Paul Crawford was associate curator of the archive. Music historian and jazz specialist Fred Ramsey served as a

consultant A consultant (from la, consultare "to deliberate") is a professional (also known as ''expert'', ''specialist'', see variations of meaning below) who provides advice and other purposeful activities in an area of specialization. Consulting servic ...

to the Hogan Jazz Archive. Through the archive's history, it has relied on donations of archival material by musicians and others active in the music industry. At times, the archive has received grants, an example being a 2006 grant from the Grammy Foundation. Grants have included financial backing to support the

digitization DigitizationTech Target. (2011, April). Definition: digitization. ''WhatIs.com''. Retrieved December 15, 2021, from https://whatis.techtarget.com/definition/digitization is the process of converting information into a Digital data, digital (i ...

of the archive's holdings. The archive includes a digitized sheet music collection dating to 1838. At times, the Hogan Jazz Archive provides

fellow A fellow is a concept whose exact meaning depends on context. In learned or professional societies, it refers to a privileged member who is specially elected in recognition of their work and achievements. Within the context of higher education ...

ships to

visiting scholar In academia, a visiting scholar, visiting researcher, visiting fellow, visiting lecturer, or visiting professor is a scholar from an institution who visits a host university to teach, lecture, or perform research on a topic for which the visitor ...

s to conduct research at the archives. These include the Louis Prima Research Fellowship and the Björn Bärnheim Research Fellowship, among others.

Collection

Fate Marable's New Orleans Band on the S

The collection of the Hogan Jazz Archive continued to expand through its development. As of 2009, the collection included recordings of more than 700 jazz musicians. There were approximately 80,000 jazz recordings and 60,000 sheets of early jazz music. By early 2022, the collection of the archive included more than 2000 oral histories of jazz musicians and others important in the musical genre, these histories dating to the late 19th century. Many of these are digitized and available on-line. The collection includes sheet music covering the period 1838 to 1938, as well as

rare books Book collecting is the collecting of books, including seeking, locating, acquiring, organizing, cataloging, displaying, storing, and maintaining whatever books are of interest to a given collector. The love of books is ''bibliophilia'', and someo ...

and thousands of photographs,

ephemera Ephemera are transitory creations which are not meant to be retained or preserved. Its etymological origins extends to Ancient Greece, with the common definition of the word being: "the minor transient documents of everyday life". Ambiguous in ...

, and personal papers of Jazz musicians and others involved in the art form. More recent oral histories are often in video format. The scope of the collection by that time also encompassed the full range of

popular music Popular music is music with wide appeal that is typically distributed to large audiences through the music industry. These forms and styles can be enjoyed and performed by people with little or no musical training.Popular Music. (2015). ''Fun ...

of the

New Orleans metropolitan area The New Orleans metropolitan area, designated the New Orleans–Metairie metropolitan statistical area by the U.S. Office of Management and Budget, or simply Greater New Orleans (french: Grande Nouvelle-Orléans, es, Gran Nueva Orleans), is a me ...

''The Jazz Archivist''

The Hogan Jazz Archive had its own journal and newsletter, known as ''The Jazz Archivist'', which was published from 1986 to 2019. The articles were written by members of the archive's staff and also independent music scholars. The complete set of issues of ''The Jazz Archivist'' is available on-line as of early 2022 (ISSN 1085-8415).

References

External links

Official website

Hogan Jazz Archive Photography Collection
at th
Louisiana Digital Library

Columbia University Center for Jazz Studies and Louis Armstrong Jazz Performance Program

Chicago Jazz Archive
of the

University of Chicago The University of Chicago (UChicago, Chicago, U of C, or UChi) is a private research university in Chicago, Illinois. Its main campus is located in Chicago's Hyde Park neighborhood. The University of Chicago is consistently ranked among the b ...