Jazz club photographs by noted Jazz photographer Herman Leonard.
Scope and Contents:
This collection consists of 110 black-and-white photographic prints depicting musicians performing at various American and European jazz clubs between 1948 and 1991. The collection contains mounted and unmounted 11" x 14" and 16" x 20" prints made by Leonard. Artists represented among these photographs are Billie Holiday, Charlie Parker, Dizzy Gillespie, Duke Ellington, Frank Sinatra, Lester Young, Louis Armstrong, Miles Davis, and Thelonious Monk. The photographs are organized into three series: Series 1: 11"x 14" prints, Series 2: 16" x 20" prints, and Series 3: Addenda. The series are arranged alphabetically by performer's last name. Unmatted 16" x 20" prints can be found in box 2 but are listed alphabetically by performer.
Biographical / Historical:
Herman Leonard (1923‑2010) was born in Allentown, Pennsylvania and served as a military photographer in Burma during World War II. He earned his Bachelor of Fine Arts Degree in photography from Ohio University and began working with Yousuf Karsh, a Canadian portraitist. Settling in New York in 1949, Leonard began photographing jazz musicians at various jazz clubs on Broadway and Fifty‑Second Streets, and in Harlem for such publications as Cosmopolitan, Esquire, Life, Look, Playboy, and Time. He later to Paris to begin a fashion and advertising business. He also continued photographing jazz musicians. In 1988 Leonard presented his first exhibition, "Images of Jazz," in London. This show established his reputation as a leading photographer of jazz and sparked further shows and publications.
Provenance:
The Herman Leonard Photographs were donated to the National Museum of American History by Mr. Leonard on December 17, 1991 and in 2006.
Restrictions:
Collection is open for research.
Rights:
The Archives Center does not own the rights to the Leonard photographs. All requests for permission to use these photographs for non‑museum purposes must be addressed to: Herman Leonard Photography, LLC, 530 South Lake Avenue #503, Pasadena, CA 91101 (818) 509-8987.
16mm motion picture films, produced in the 1930s and 1940s by various film production companies, documenting performances by jazz and popular music performers, including Cab Calloway, Fats Waller, Lena Horne, the Mills Brothers, and Rosemary Clooney, and others listed below.
Scope and Contents:
Five (5) reels of 16mm motion picture film created in the 1940s by various commercial film production companies, featuring performances by jazz and popular music performers. Individual titles have been assembled into compilation reels by the donor.
Arrangement:
1 series.
Related Materials:
Materials in the Archives Center
Ernie Smith Jazz Film Collection (NMAH.AC.0491)
Smithsonian Jazz Oral History Program Collection (NMAH.AC.0808)
Provenance:
The Ben and Ruth Liman Jazz Film Collection was donated to the Archives Center in 2001.
Restrictions:
No reference copies exist. If their condition allow the films may be viewed.
Rights:
Copyright and related intellectual property rights issues may restrict reproduction.
1 Reel (16mm black and white composite optical track print, 1665 ft.)
Container:
Reel OF 775.2
Type:
Archival materials
Moving Images
Reels
Date:
1940s
Scope and Contents:
Compilation reel created by donor consisting of:
1."Lazy Bones"
Corporate Creator: Soundies Distributing Corp. of America (Official Films)
Copyright: 1941
Performers: Hoagy Carmichael, Dorothy Dandridge, Peter Ray
2. "Virginia, Georgia, and Carolina"
Corporate Creator: Soundies Distributing Corp. of America
Copyright: 1942
Performers: Cab Calloway and His Orchestra
3."The Band Parade"
Corporate Creator: Castle Films
Copyright: 1949
Performers: Tony Pastor and His Band
4. "Musical Film Revue"
Corporate Creator: Official Films
Performers:
5. "The Band Parade"
Corporate Creator: Castle Films
Copyright: 1949
Performers: Tommy Tucker and his band.
6. "Lazy Rhythms"
Corporate Creator: Official Films
Copyright:
Performers: Mills Brothers
7. "Boogie Woogie Dream"
Corporate Creator: Soundies Distributing Corp. of America (Official Films)
Copyright: 1944
Performer: Lena Horne
Collection Restrictions:
No reference copies exist. If their condition allow the films may be viewed.
Collection Rights:
Copyright and related intellectual property rights issues may restrict reproduction.
Collection Citation:
Ben and Ruth Liman Jazz Film Collection, 1930s-1940s, Archives Center, National Museum of American History.
1 Reel (16mm black and white composite optical track print, 1100 ft.)
Container:
Reel OF 775.3
Type:
Archival materials
Moving Images
Reels
Date:
1940s
Scope and Contents:
Compilation reel created by donor consisting of:
1.[No Title]
Corporate Creator: Techniprocess Production
Copyright:
Performers:
2. "Say Si Si'
Corporate Creator: Soundies Distributing Corp. of America
Copyright: 1941
Performers:
3. "Siboney"
Corporate Creator: Soundies Distributing Corp. of America
Copyright: 1943
Performers: Gerald Marks and his orchestra
4. "Sweet Hawaiian Dreams"
Corporate Creator: Movie Newsreels
Copyright:
Performers:
5. "Que Buena es la Conga"
Corporate Creator: Soundies Distributing Corp. of America
Copyright: 1943
Performers: Herbert Curbelo and his orchestra
6. "Jazz and Jitters" [Jiveroo]
Corporate Creator: Soundies Distributing Corp. of America (Castle Films)
Copyright: 1943
Performers: Harry Day, June Taylor dancers, Billy Burt
7. " Breakfast in Rhythm"
Corporate Creator: Soundies Distributing Corp. of America (Castle Films)
Copyright: 1943
Performers: The Three Chefs
8. "Let's Sing a Western Song"
Corporate Creator: Castle Films
Copyright: 1934
Performers:
Song Titles:
"Home On the Range"
"Wagon Wheel"
"Red River Valley"
"Deep In the Heart of Texas"
Collection Restrictions:
No reference copies exist. If their condition allow the films may be viewed.
Collection Rights:
Copyright and related intellectual property rights issues may restrict reproduction.
Collection Citation:
Ben and Ruth Liman Jazz Film Collection, 1930s-1940s, Archives Center, National Museum of American History.
4. "Ain't Misbehavin'"
Corporate Creator: Soundies Distributing Corp. of America
Copyright: 1941
Performer: Fats Waller
5. "Blues In the Night"
Corporate Creator: Soundies Distributing Corp. of America
Copyright: 1942
Performers: Cab Calloway and his orchestra
6. "The Band Parade"
Corporate Creator: Castle Films
Copyright:
Performers: Ted Lewis and his band
Song Titles:
"Sunny Side of the Street"
"Me and My Shadow"
"Three Blind Mice"
"Isn't She Pretty?"
"I'm the Leader of the Band"
7. "The Music Album"
Corporate Creator: Castle Films
Copyright:
Performers: Desi Arnez and his orchestra, Ethel Smith
Song Titles: (selections from the film CUBAN PETE, 1946)
"Tropical Swing"
"The Breeze and I"
Collection Restrictions:
No reference copies exist. If their condition allow the films may be viewed.
Collection Rights:
Copyright and related intellectual property rights issues may restrict reproduction.
Collection Citation:
Ben and Ruth Liman Jazz Film Collection, 1930s-1940s, Archives Center, National Museum of American History.
Recorded by Moses Moon (known at the time as Alan Ribback) and assisted by Norris McNamara during 1963 and 1964, the collection includes audio recordings of interviews with civil rights leaders and participants as well as free-style recordings of mass meetings, voter registration events, and other gatherings organized by Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC). This collection provides a mostly unfiltered documentation of significant moments in the civil rights movement.
Scope and Contents:
This collection consists of 115 reel to reel audio recordings containing interviews, mass meetings, demonstrations, and conversations concerning the civil rights movement, and in particular the voter registration drives organized by SNCC in Alabama and Mississippi in 1963 and 1964. Mass meetings were recorded in Greenwood, Mississippi; Americus, Georgia; Selma, Alabama; Jackson, Mississippi; Danville, Virginia; Washington, D.C.; Hattiesburg, Mississippi; and Indianola, Mississippi. Major demonstrations recorded include the March on Washington in August of 1963, Freedom Day in Selma, Alabama in October of 1963, and Freedom Day in Hattiesburg, Mississippi in January of 1964. Interviews with SNCC workers include Julian Bond, John Lewis, James Forman, Bruce Gordon, Prathia Hall, Ivanhoe Donaldson, Bob Moses, Avery Williams, Willie Peacock, Bruce Boynton and his mother, as well as dozens of others involved in the movement, who are named in the collection inventory. Many of those interviewed were actively involved in strategizing and carrying out SNCC demonstrations and political actions, and many were victims of death threats, beatings, unlawful arrest, police brutality, and torture and abuse in prison. These interviews contain detailed eyewitness accounts and personal testimony regarding these experiences, as well as personal history and thoughts about the movement, the South, and the future.
It is clear from what we know of the dates and locations of these recordings, as well as from documentation of these events in other sources, that many of these recordings are unique documents of important events in American history, which may also contain the commentary of important political and cultural figures who were involved in the movement. For example, an article by Howard Zinn recounts how an unidentified man recorded James Baldwin on October 7, 1963, Freedom Day in Selma, on the steps of the courthouse. Baldwin was furious at the lack of support from nearby federal agents as state troopers advanced on peaceful demonstrators. One of the tapes dated October 7, 1963, originally labeled "courthouse interviews," appears to be this recoding, although Baldwin is not named. The same article (available in The Howard Zinn Reader) recounts the mass meetings which led up to that demonstration, at which actor Dick Gregory gave a rousing sermon as his wife sat in jail for demonstrating in Selma. The Moses Moon Collection may be the only existing audio recording of that sermon as well as many other sermons and speeches.
Moses Moon changed his name after these recordings were made. He is referred to in the finding aid as Alan Ribback because that name is used on the recordings.
Arrangement:
The collection is arranged in two series.Series 1 is in chronological order to the degree recording dates can be determined, and is based on the locations and dates provided by Moon in his description or gleaned from the recordings themselves and other secondary sources. Series 1 contains 17 groups of recordings.
Moon's original numbers are recorded in the column next to the descriptions. Following the first four Greenwood tapes, which are numbered sequentially, Moon's numbering system took the first two letters of the town in which the recordings were made, a one (1), a decimal, and then a tape number. Numbers preceding the town code refer to the recording day. "N" numbers were later assigned by Moon to the 7" reels only, after the original recordings were made, possibly during editing or when the tapes were made available to the Program in African American Culture.
Series 1, Original Tapes
1. Greenwood, Mississippi; Spring 1963; 4 7" reels
2. Chicago, Illinois; August 9, 12, 1963; 2 5" reels
16. Monroe County, Mississippi; August 1, 1964; 4 5" reels
17. Milton, Mississippi; August 16, 1964; 3 5" reels
Series 2, Preservation Masters consists of data DVDs for a portion of the collection.
Biographical / Historical:
Moses Moon was born Alan Ribback in 1928. During the 1950s until 1962, Ribback was the proprietor of the Gate of Horn, Chicago's premier folk music club, which featured performers including Bob Gibson, Odetta, Judy Collins, Joan Baez, Jo Mapes, Peter, Paul and Mary, Lenny Bruce, and Shelley Berman. On December 5, 1962, Lenny Bruce was arrested during a performance at the Gate of Horn along with Ribback, George Carlin, and others. As a result of the arrest and Bruce's subsequent conviction for obscenity, the club was closed by the City of Chicago, and Ribback left Chicago with Norris McNamara, an audio technician, to record folk concerts taking place in the South as part of the growing civil rights movement. From the spring of 1963 until the summer of 1964, Ribback and McNamara recorded demonstrations and mass meetings and interviewed civil rights activists, primarily those involved in the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC). Later, Ribback moved to New York and edited his recordings into an album called Movement Soul. Ribback married Delia Moon in 1971, took her last name and changed his first name to Moses. In 1979, Bernice Reagon Johnson, working with the Program on African American Culture at the Smithsonian, contacted Moon and borrowed the recordings of mass meetings for a 1980 program on the voices of the civil rights movement. In the late 1980s, Moon was stricken with a severe case of Guillain-Barre syndrome, which left him paralyzed. Moon donated the entire collection of original recordings shortly before his death in 1993.
Related Materials:
Materials at Other Organizations
The papers of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee are held by the King Library and Archives in Atlanta, Georgia; archives@thekingcenter.org.
Provenance:
Donated by Moses and Delia Moon in 1995.
Restrictions:
Collection is open for research. Reference copies must be used. Tapes noted in the container list have digital reference copies in the Smithsonian Institution Digital Asset Management System (DAMS).
Rights:
Collection items available for reproduction, but copyright status unknown. Contact Archives Center staff for additional information. Archives Center cost-recovery and use fees may apply when requesting reproductions.
Topic:
African American civil rights workers. Search this
Moses Moon Civil Rights Movement Audio Collection, 1963-1964, Archives Center, National Museum of American History, Smithsonian Institution.
Sponsor:
Partial funding for preservation and duplication of the original audio tapes provided by a National Museum of American History Collections Committee Jackson Fund Preservation Grant.
Names beginning with Ho-Hy: Steve Hobbs to Phyllis Hyman Includes Art Hodes, Johnny Hodges, Billie Holiday, Lightnin' Hopkins, John Lee Hooker (with Bonnie Raitt), Shirley Horn, Lena Horne, Whitney Houston, Freddie Hubbard, Bobbi Humphrey, J.B. Hutto
Collection items available for reproduction, but the Archives Center makes no guarantees concerning copyright restrictions. Other intellectual property rights may apply. Archives Center cost-recovery and use fees may apply when requesting reproductions.
Collection Citation:
W. Royal Stokes Collection of Jazz Musicians' Photographs, ca. 1970-2000, Archives Center, National Museum of American History.
Collection items available for reproduction, but the Archives Center makes no guarantees concerning copyright restrictions. Other intellectual property rights may apply. Archives Center cost-recovery and use fees may apply when requesting reproductions.
The Archives Center does not own the rights to the Leonard photographs. All requests for permission to use these photographs for non‑museum purposes must be addressed to: Herman Leonard Photography, LLC, 530 South Lake Avenue #503, Pasadena, CA 91101 (818) 509-8987.
Collection Citation:
Herman Leonard Photographic Collection, 1948-1993, Archives Center, National Museum of American History.
Reproduction restricted due to copyright or trademark. Other intellectual property rights may apply. Archives Center cost-recovery and use fees may apply when requesting reproductions.
Collection Citation:
Duncan Schiedt Jazz Collection, 1900-2012, Archives Center, National Museum of American History
Sponsor:
Processing and encoding funded by a grant from the Council on Library and Information Resources.
Access to the Ralph Rinzler Folklife Archives and Collections is by appointment only. Visit our website for more information on scheduling a visit or making a digitization request. Researchers interested in accessing born-digital records or audiovisual recordings in this collection must use access copies.
Collection Rights:
Permission to publish materials from the collection must be requested from the Ralph Rinzler Folklife Archives and Collections. Please visit our website to learn more about submitting a request. The Ralph Rinzler Folklife Archives and Collections make no guarantees concerning copyright or other intellectual property restrictions. Other usage conditions may apply; please see the Smithsonian's Terms of Use for more information.
Collection Citation:
Tom Wisner collection, Ralph Rinzler Folklikfe Archives and Collections, Smithsonian Institution.
The collection is open for research. Medical documents, financial materials and some correspondence in Career series are restricted. Use requires an appointment.
Collection Rights:
The Ellis B. Haizlip papers are the physical property of the Anacostia Community Museum. Literary and copyright belong to the author/creator or their legal heirs and assigns. Rights to work produced during the normal course of Museum business resides with the Anacostia Community Museum. For further information, and to obtain permission to publish or reproduce, contact the Museum Archives.
Collection Citation:
Ellis B. Haizlip papers, Anacostia Communityh Museum Archives, Smithsonian Institution, gift of Doris Sanders.
Collection of the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture, Gift of Jo Carole and Ronald S. Lauder in honor of Richard and Laura Parsons, Colin and Alma Powell, and Darren Walker
