If it weren’t for an extraordinary institution located in the heart of New Orleans’ French Quarter, the origins of jazz would seem considerably murkier than they already are.
But thanks to the Historic New Orleans Collection, a sprawling archive that occupies 10 buildings scattered throughout the Quarter, everything from Jelly Roll Morton’s last scores to Bunk Johnson’s private correspondence has been preserved for posterity.
Want to ogle a map of the Crescent City streets where Louis Armstrong and Morton first plied their craft? Need to research the turn-of-the-century blue books that described the brothels where nascent jazz first flourished?
It’s all neatly filed, inventoried and meticulously stored (in temperature- and humidity-controlled vaults) at the Historic New Orleans Collection.
“We get researchers from around the world studying our collection,” says Alfred E. Lemmon, curator of manuscripts at the collection and a speaker at this year’s Chicago Humanities Festival. “It has been decades in the making.”
Or centuries, considering that these archives date to colonial Louisiana.
Lemmon’s presentation at the Chicago Humanities Festival, as part of a two-day exploration of the life and times of Jelly Roll Morton, will give a glimpse of one of the world’s foremost jazz archives.
For jazz researchers, the crown jewel of the archive is the William Russell Jazz Collection, which includes approximately 50,000 items, including musical scores, photographs, sound recordings and newspaper articles. Russell, a self-styled collector who died in 1992 at age 87, spent much of his life snapping up material relating to Morton and his times. Thus the last scores and letters that Morton penned — as well as precious documentation on Bunk Johnson, Baby Dodds, Johnny Dodds and other giants — make the Russell Jazz Collection critical to understanding the birth and evolution of an American art form.
“Mr. Russell obviously was interested in collecting material related to New Orleans music, but because he collected so comprehensively, his materials not only deepen our understanding of early jazz but shed light on the life of the city, as well,” adds Lemmon.
“For example, his photographs show railroad stations, steamboats, city scenes — things that we would not have been able to document without this collection.”
The Russell Jazz Collection, then, not only paints a vivid portrait of the emergence of jazz but also of the city that long has served as one of its primary backdrops.
“William Russell knew exactly what he wanted, but I doubt that any institution could have built such a collection,” says Lemmon, pointing to Russell’s uniquely voracious appetite regarding all things related to Jelly Roll Morton.
“I think we’re all lucky that William Russell devoted his life to saving this material.”
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Alfred Lemmon discusses “Jelly Roll’s Manuscripts” at 3 p.m. Nov. 12 as part of a two-day look at Morton’s life and music, Nov. 11-12 in the Field Museum’s Simpson Theatre.
