Extending Outreach

If there's a live jazz music event, and no one comes to hear it, did it really produce any sound?

One of the objectives of the Jazz in the Stacks project is to promote awareness of the LP collection in the student, researcher, and wider communities. The "Specific Learning Objectives," for example, notes the following:

• Develop publicity objectives and strategy to enable awareness of the collection among the academic and local music culture communities in Austin and beyond. Organize, coordinate, and oversee Open House events to highlight the collection. Spring [2009] publicity events will take advantage of the learning experience and coordination efforts resulting from executing Archives Week Fall 2008 "Jazz in the Stacks" activity [conducted October 28 2008 at the Ragsdale Center on St. Edwards University campus].

That event included a joint lecture by Michael Tarabulski, who previously served as the lead archivist overseeing the International Jazz Collections at the University of Idaho (see website at http://www.ijc.uidaho.edu/) and a seasoned scholar on the challenging thickets of digitizing music; Michael was accompanied by Edward Meyer, the donor of the LP collection at St. Edwards, who explained his collecting methodology, his discovery of jazz worlds, and his motivation in donating the collection to the university, where he teaches History of Jazz classes.

The principal upcoming activity to promote awareness in the Spring of 2009 consists of celebrations in conjunction with Jazz Appreciation Month, a nationwide commemoration of jazz music and culture sponsored by the Smithsonian Institution. St. Edwards will encourage awareness through posters, displays (with the hope of presenting albums and liner notes with adjacent music players that will allow students to actually sample works from selected artists), and some live music events timed to coincide with National Library Week ( April 12-18). We have invited two jazz organizations--the Austin Traditional Jazz Society (visit their site at http://www1.onr.com/atjs/) and the Central Texas Jazz Society (visit site at http://www.centexjazz.com/) to perform live to help broaden the jazz audience.

As an opportunity to further increase interest in not only the materials housed here at St. Edwards, we hope to initiate an oral history program as well, with the performers from the two jazz societies providing an interviewee pool. Austin is frequently touted as the Live Music Capital of the World, and with the April Jazz Appreciation Month activities, we hope to put jazz on the city's map, at least a little more prominently than it has been in the past!