The Music Division was saddened to learn that legendary jazz broadcaster Edward Beach passed awayon Christmas Day. Beach was the host of “Just Jazz,” a radio program which ran in New York City from the early 1960s to the mid-1970s. The Library of Congress is home to the Edward Beach Collection, which consists of his broadcast …
The discovery five years ago of the Thelonious Monk-John Coltrane 1957 Carnegie Hall concert tapes focused attention on the deep jazz collections here at the Library of Congress (http://www.loc.gov/today/pr/2005/05-090.html). The tapes, found while preserving the Voice of America Collection, were subsequently issued by Blue Note Records and became a sensation in the jazz world. Since …
When we’re not awarding honors to Knighted former Beatles, we in the Music Division are caretakers of one of the great performing arts archives in the world. It’s an embarrassment of riches, and a lifetime could be spent studying just the online collections in the Performing Arts Encyclopedia (the website formerly known as I Hear America Singing). But then you’d miss the deep catalog available on the Library campus, from a 15th-century manuscript on vellum to back issues of Creem magazine; exhibits in the lobby of the Performing Arts Reading Room; the popular concert series in the Coolidge Auditorium; and, last but far from least, the expertise and enthusiasm of our diverse staff.
From a solo piano arrangement of Beethoven's Concerto in E-flat major