Jazz Research FAQs
- Is the Archive the right place to start?
- History projects on Chicago Jazz
- Poster projects on Jazz and Blues
- Student resources on the Great Migration
- Teacher resources on the Great Migration
- Help with undergrad jazz papers
- Citing sources and respecting copyright
- Online Reference Assistance
Jazz Research Tools
- CJA Finding Aids
- Jazz Slang Dictionary courtesy of All About Jazz.Com
- Cab Calloway's Jive Dictionary courtesy of the C. Calloway Brooks, Cab's grandson.
- Bibliographies
- Indexes
- Recordings
- Interviews
- Sheet Music
- Libraries
- Jazz Search
- Chicago Federation of Musicians files for deceased members 1928-1979 are in the Archival Collections of Chicago Public Library, Harold Washington Library. The file name is American Federation of Musicians, Chicago Chapter. Files. The Archives unit can be contacted by email from the Harold Washington Library's Archives homepage.
- Among the Newberry Library's Railroad Collections are two corporate archives important to the Great Migration and jazz in Chicago, those of the Illinois Central Railroad Company and the Pullman Company.
- Music Industry Sources and Statistics courtesy of the Library's Business and Economics Subject Guides
- U of C Only Digital Sanborn Maps, 1867-1970 Fire Insurance maps for many locations in Illinois. Sanborn map Index
- U of C Only
Vanderbilt Television News Archive
Use phrase mode with jazz and another term, e.g., "jazz and festival" --
jazz alone as a word search is so big the system can't retrieve it all! - U of C Only Chicago Defender 1905-1975 and Chicago Tribune 1890-1945 from ProQuest Historical Newspapers. Enter from the Electronic Resources page.
- Photographs from the Chicago Daily News 1902-1933 at the Library of Congress, American Memory Collections.
- Photographs from LOOK magazine at the Library of Congress, American Memory Collections.
- The Motion Picture and Television Photo Archive Choose "Jazz" under Category, or search by performer name.
- Jazz on the Screen from the Library of Congress.
- JazzStandards.com: a site dedicated to the history of the standard repertoire of jazz. Includes a list of the 1000 most-recorded standards, detailed info about the top 100, biographies of writers and performers, and musical analysis and history.
- David A. Martinelli's masters' thesis on Sun Ra, The Cosmic-Myth Equations of Sun Ra.
- Francis Davis interview of Sun Ra, January 29, 1990. Courtesy of the Slought Foundation.
- The Library's African American Studies Page
Jazz Research In Progress: Jazz researchers worldwide looking for info!
Our constantly evolving Chicago Club Map 1915-1930
BIBLIOGRAPHIES
- Chicago Jazz
- The Great Migration
- Bebop
- Researching the jazz diaspora
- Eubie Blake
- Jelly Roll Morton
- Jazz and Dance
- Performance & Musician Health
- Blues Bibliography
courtesy of the Chicago Blues Archive at the Harold Washington Library in Chicago
INDEXES
- Lyrics sites from the Worldwide Internet Music Resources page at William and Gayle Cook Music Library, Indiana University
- Berklee College of Music Library Catalog: Search by song title!
RECORDINGS
- Web sites with Jazz Discographies
INTERVIEWS
- Oral Histories at the Archive and elsewhere
- Interviews with Sun Ra and Coltrane, as well as audio from the Vancouver 1963 Poetry Conference, courtesy of the Slought Foundation