0345 Playback 32 (A/W) 22/11/2004 10:49 am Page 3 The bulletin of the British Library Sound Archive playback SOUND ISSUE 32 Winter 2004 ARCHIVE playback PLAYBACK is the bulletin of the British Library Sound Archive. It is published free of charge twice a year, with information on the Sound Archive’s current and future activities, and news from the world of sound archives and audio preservation. Comments are welcome and should be addressed to the editor. We have a special mailing list for PLAYBACK. Please write, phone, fax or email us, or complete and send in the tear-off slip at the end of this issue (if you have not done so already) if you wish to receive future issues through the post. For further information contact The British Library Sound Archive 96 Euston Road London NW1 2DB T +44 (0)20 7412 7676 F +44 (0)20 7412 7441 [email protected] www.bl.uk/soundarchive SOUND Front cover photograph (left to right): ARCHIVE Victor Feldman, Bill Le Sage and Peter Newbrook, c1953 0345 Playback 32 (A/W) 22/11/2004 10:49 am Page 9 FROM MOULDY FIGGES TO JAM The Peter Newbrook collection by Paul Wilson One of the Sound Archive’s long-term ambitions – to find documenting the new generation of British mainstream and events such as the Paris Jazz Festivals of the late 40s and and preserve all extant British jazz radio sessions – made ‘modernist’ groups of the 1940s and 50s. Esquire’s legacy 50s, where the transatlantic jazz worlds collided. an exponential leap forward recently with the acquisition to jazz in Britain is well known, but the pair’s collection of But the real treasure of the collection is the British radio and of the colossal Peter Newbrook Collection. thousands of unpublished radio and TV-audio broadcasts television audio recordings, the bulk of which may now be It has long been a source of frustration that a vast may prove of equal importance. Both men had independently unique and constitute invaluable artefacts of musical heritage. body of professionally-recorded material – radio and TV acquired professional disc-cutters and as early as 1945 had In addition to the long-running Jazz Club, many other programming effectively documenting an alternative history begun documenting the jazz and blues output of BBC radio, session-based BBC radio series are represented, such as Kenny of jazz in Britain – had apparently been lost. Of over 1,500 a practice which Krahmer would obsessively continue until Baker’s popular Let’s Settle for Music, The Ted Heath Show Jazz Club programmes transmitted from 1947 to the mid- his death in 1976. and Music in the Modern Manner, as well as programmes of 1970s, only a handful remained in the vaults of the BBC. Back in the late 1940s, Krahmer was a voracious collector the BBC’s Overseas Services and Radio London. Many of the The possibility that much of this ‘lost’ history might survive of American imports and radio transcriptions, hosting late- groups featured in these broadcasts never released records in a dusty attic has long intrigued and challenged archivists, night listening sessions at his central London flat, where commercially; some never performed again. rumours persisting of a lock-up garage in Norwich, stuffed many of his musical friends first became acquainted with Krahmer’s catholic taste and objectivity ensured that all to the rafters with tapes and acetate discs dating back to the revolutionary ‘bebop’ sounds being originated across styles were covered, ignoring the war of words between the the mid-1940s. Investigation by past jazz curator Andrew the Atlantic. This period is documented in many British modernists and ‘mouldy figges’ (traditionalists). They range Simons finally bore fruit with the Sound Archive’s acquisition and American Armed Forces Network programmes on from jam sessions by trad revivalists to ambitious ‘third stream’ of the once-mythical Carlo Krahmer recordings. transcription discs, V-Discs and off-air recordings, featuring works for large ensembles and, eventually, explorations of the Newbrook, a film cameraman by profession, and such giants as Duke Ellington and Dizzy Gillespie. There are avant garde and fusion. Finally, a wealth of spoken/interview Krahmer, a virtually-blind jazz drummer, are best known also unpublished recordings of Krahmer’s own groups, one material from magazine-format series such as The Jazz Scene in jazz circles as the 1947 founders of Britain’s earliest featuring a youthful and then-unknown Humphrey Lyttelton adds a vital complement to the Sound Archive’s ‘Oral History independent jazz label, Esquire, which set about on trumpet, and private recordings from important European of Jazz in Britain’ project. 7 Photo: Carlo Krahmer on drums with Claude Bampton’s All Blind Orchestra, 1938 0345 Playback 32 (A/W) 22/11/2004 10:49 am Page 4 WHAT’S HAPPENING ■ In July and August the British Library hosted a series ■ Reflecting the increasing use of the web across all of free weekly concerts of world music in the piazza. Sound Archive activity, we have acquired nine hours The concerts reflected the vast array of world music held of talks and interviews featuring author Colin Wilson, by the Sound Archive, from Kurdish, traditional Irish and by downloading charged MP3s from the web site North Indian music, to Afro-Cuban jazz and cutting-edge of Maurice Bassett Publishing. The majority of these Klezmer. Janet Topp Fargion, the Sound Archive’s curator recordings are unavailable in any other format. of world and traditional music, described the series as ‘a wonderful series of concerts that should encourage ■ An important milestone was reached with the people to come and listen to the music and visit the publication and launch in July of a new DVD in Library’s free exhibition galleries.’ partnership with the South East Film and Video Archive, Wessex Film and Sound Archive, and the South East Museum, Library and Archive Council, as part of the British Library’s ‘Reaching the Regions’ initiative. Entitled Reel Life: Saturdays in Film and Sound, the DVD blends archive film, video, oral history, music and sound effects with new interview material and expert commentary Virginia Berliner presents the Oliver Berliner ‘Maker of the Microphone on the subject of Saturdays over the past century. Rare Award’ to Crispin Jewitt, head of the Sound Archive footage and oral history feature hop-picking in Kent, surfing in the 1930s, the 1972 Reading Rock Festival, ■ It was a great pleasure to receive Oliver Berliner’s roller-skating and family birthdays. The DVD will be ‘Maker of the Microphone Award’ on 20 May. Oliver is distributed free to HE and FE libraries, local history the grandson of Emile Berliner, inventor of disc recording, centres, archives and a selection of secondary schools the microphone, and much else besides. He is patron in the South East. of the City of London Phonograph and Gramophone Society and his wife, Virginia, came to the British Library ■ On 13 May we at St Pancras to present the award, which Crispin Jewitt launched a CD accepted on behalf of the Sound Archive. The annual Summer music in the piazza publication Passionate award recognises excellence in the field of the history ■ The Sound Archive has secured £1 million funding Rationalism: Recollections of sound recordings. from the JISC (Joint Information Systems Committee of Erno Goldfinger, of the Higher Education Funding Council for England) produced in conjunction ■ The Sound Archive was represented at the 2004 to provide on-line playback access for teaching, learning, with the National joint conference of the Association for Recorded Sound and research within the UK higher and further education Trust, at Willow Road, Collections and the Society for American Music held communities. Four thousand hours covering music, Goldfinger’s house in 10-14 March in Cleveland, Ohio. Topical and lively spoken word, and natural sounds will be licensed Hampstead. There was sessions included discussion on music downloading and (where necessary), digitised, and served via the web a good attendance at the event and Alan Powers gave file swapping. Industry and academic representatives to teachers and students authenticated as HE/FE an excellent speech about the value of oral testimony discussed strategies varying from educational initiatives users. The project is scheduled to complete in in architectural history. Copies will be on sale in the and legal action brought against ‘egregious users’, to September 2006. To read more about this visit British Library bookshop and through the National software which can detect and block the transfer of 2 www.bl.uk/collections/sound-archive/archsoundrec.html Trust’s own outlets. copyrighted material. Cleveland’s contribution to early 0345 Playback 32 (A/W) 22/11/2004 10:49 am Page 5 ACQUISITIONS 2003-4 recording science and industry was highlighted by papers ■ World and traditional music on the work of Dayton C. Miller, The U-S Phonograph Company, Ken Hamann, and others. Noel Cohen We were fortunate to fill a gap in our Peruvian holdings this year and Steve Albin described and demonstrated a new with the purchase of over 40 CDs from the Peruvian-based company discographic software programme which is freely IEMPSA, and the donation of a prestigious collection of coastal available from www.jazzdiscography.com. Sam Brylawski Peruvian music made by ethnomusicologist William Tompkins of the Library of Congress discussed the American (C1119) in the 1970s. The collection includes recordings of the Vintage Record Labelography, www.avrl.com, which coastal Afro-Peruvian jarana tradition made in 1958 by the well- is an official ARSC project involving a great number known Peruvian literary scholar Jose Durand Flores. (These recordings of institutions and individuals.