The EAR is an informal discussion of ethnomusicology archiving at UCLA and in the world. The EAR is issued four times a year, in the fall, winter, spring, and summer quarters. Contributions from readers are welcome and should be sent to the UCLA Ethnomusicology Archive, 1630 Schoenberg Music Building, Box 951657, Los Angeles, CA 90095-1657; telephone 310-825-1695; fax 310-206-4738; email archive@arts.ucla.edu.
Vol. 2, no. 3 (Spring 2002)
Table of Contents
Year of Archiving Lectures, Spring 2002
New Materials for the Don Ellis Collection
For the final quarter of the Year of Archiving, UCLA's Ethnomusicology Archive and Department of Ethnomusicology hosted a spring lecture series. From archival ethics and politics to the challenges of preserving and disseminating audiovisual media, the topics discussed by the participating lecturers covered a diverse array of archival topics. Synopses of each of the lectures appear below.
Lance Bowling, owner-director of Cambria Master Recordings and Archives, presented "Footnotes on Preserving Southern California's Recorded & Musical Past." Cambria Master Recordings and Archives is an independent classical record label specializing in Americana, West Coast composers, and California's musical heritage. During his April 24th presentation Mr. Bowling described his archive of Southern California music memorabilia, which includes correspondence, programs, periodicals, photos, oral histories, broadsides, holographic scores, silent film scores, and sheet music dating back to the 1870s. In addition, he spoke about the Cambria sound archive, which contains rare commercial and non-commercial sound recordings dating from the turn of the 20th century.
On April 30th Jeannie Pool presented "Politics of Archiving: Who Saves What and Why?" Jeannie Pool-who is a composer, music historian, producer, and executive director of the Society for the Preservation of Film Music-reflected on what motivates people to collect. Movie companies archive their own works in order to generate profits for the studio in the future. University archives, on the other hand, collect in order to preserve the legacy of the institution they serve. In her talk Jeanie Pool also described Cal State Northridge's vast Women and Music collection and focused on the ethical conflict that may arise when a person who has professional obligations to an archive develops a personal collection of similar holdings.
Vincent Pelote, librarian at Rutgers University's Institute of Jazz Studies, spoke at the Archive on May 7th. His talk was entitled "Archiving Jazz Materials at the Institute of Jazz Studies: Past, Present, Future." The world's foremost jazz archive and research facility, the Institute of Jazz Studies was founded in 1952 by Marshall Stearns (1908-1966), a trailblazing jazz scholar. In his talk Vincent Pelote spoke about the nature of his archive's extensive contents, the archive's method of organizing its sound recordings, the preservation of lacquered discs, the growing obsolescence of reel to reel tape, and the challenges of funding an archive with short-term grants. Besides speaking, Vincent Pelote also played an early recording by the Savoy Sultans, a band that regularly played at Harlem's Savoy Ballroom in the late 1930's and early 1940's.
On May 14th Ruth M. Stone, Indiana
University professor of folklore and ethnomusicology, presented "Challenges
and Opportunities for an Online Video Archive." In her presentation Professor
Stone showcased the Ethnomusicological Video for Instruction and Analysis Digital
Archive (EVIADA), a joint effort of Indiana University and the University of
Michigan to create an online digital archive of ethnomusicological video. EVIADA
will both preserve quickly deteriorating field tapes and make high quality streaming
video available over Internet2 networks for research and teaching purposes.
At her talk Professor Stone demonstrated a test version of the online archive,
discussed intellectual property issues associated with the project, and described
how IU and UM complement one another by drawing on the strengths of their institutions.
In addition, Professor Stone spoke to the issue of repatriating ethnomusicological
videos and described how EVIADA will facilitate this process.
The final event of the Department of Ethnomusicology's Year of Archiving was Steve Ricci's May 22nd talk, "Out of the Past: The Future of Moving Image Archiving." Steven Ricci is a faculty member of UCLA Department of Information Studies and the Head of Research & Study / New Technologies at the UCLA Film and Television Archive. In his presentation Steven Ricci outlined what he characterized as the "thoroughly depressing" problems facing moving image archives. These challenges include the catastrophic loss of film. According to Ricci, deterioration and neglect have led to the destruction of half of all motion pictures ever created. Ricci warned the audience about the archival shortcomings of digital "film" and explained how motion picture companies are embracing it due to its low production costs. To counter these and other difficulties Ricci suggested that archivists be more selective in collecting practices and encourage the development of professional degree programs in moving image archiving, such as the one at UCLA.
New Materials for the Don Ellis Collection
The Ethnomusicology Archive is pleased to receive three boxes of music scores and parts from Glenn Stuart, longtime lead trumpeter in the Don Ellis Band. After Don Ellis' untimely death, Glenn took over leadership of the band and hoped to tour the U.S. playing many of Don's compositions. For various reasons, the tour never happened, and the music remained in Stuart's garage. Now it has a new home in the Archive and is being sorted and indexed by the Archive's student staff.
Glenn Stuart still lives in Southern California. Though retired from performing, he dusted off his trumpet to play in the "A Celebration of World Music" concert at UCLA during the Fall Quarter. The Archive staff thinks Stuart may have been inspired by his former trumpet student-Professor Steven Loza, who organized the concert.
W. Kay Ellis-Magee, sister of Don Ellis, presented the Archive with the latest CD of Don Ellis' music-Live at Montreux, a reissue of the 1978 Atlantic Records LP. The music was recorded on July 8, 1977, at the Montreux Jazz Festival, Montreux, Switzerland. Listen closely, and you will hear Glenn Stuart's trumpet.
The CD version is issued by Koch Jazz (2002) and includes new liner notes written by Nick Di Scala. "A Don Ellis concert," claims Di Scala, "was always fun." Many tracks on the CD feature Ellis' experimentation with superimposing meters and rhythmic cycles over 4/4. "This," Di Scala says, "provided listeners something familiar to latch onto while giving Don opportunities to inject unexpected twists." There's a warning on one of the tracks: "Attempting to tap one's toe to this may cause severe cramping."
Stop by the Archive and give it
a try!
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