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Stanford University Libraries

Launches Comprehensive Web Site

for the

Monterey Jazz Festival Collection

Stanford University Libraries and the Monterey Jazz Festival announce 
the completion of a three-year project to digitally preserve the 
recordings documenting the history of the Festival. The culmination of 
the project is the web site, /The Monterey Jazz Festival Collection at 
Stanford University/ (http://collections.stanford.edu/mjf), offering 
unprecedented access to detailed information on the archive recordings 
spanning the full history of the festival many of which have not been 
heard since their first performance. The centerpiece of the web site is 
a database documenting nearly 9,000 jazz pieces, interviews, and other 
events representing over 1,000 hours of audio and video recordings. For 
the first time, jazz researchers and enthusiasts alike can easily 
explore the multiplicity of jazz performers and styles that make up the 
collection that distinguishes the Festival as an important American 
cultural institution -- including Dizzy Gillespie, Dave Brubeck, John 
Coltrane, Charles Mingus, Miles Davis, Sarah Vaughan, Oscar Peterson, 
Herbie Hancock, Max Roach, Gerry Mulligan, and Thelonious Monk, and many 
more jazz legends.

Users can experience highlights of the collection offering a selection 
of streamed audio and video clips, such as historic performances by 
Bobby McFerrin and Diane Reeves, interviews with Dave Brubeck and Dizzy 
Gillespie, works commissioned by the Festival, and performances from the 
Blues in the Afternoon series. To view or hear the complete recordings, 
visitors are invited to the Stanford Archive of Recorded Sound where the 
collection is housed. Further, a catalog of CDs or digital downloads are 
available for purchase from Monterey Jazz Festival Records, 
(http://www.concordmusicgroup.com/labels/Monterey-Jazz-Festival-Records/). 
The label was established by the Festival in its fiftieth anniversary 
year to issue recordings preserved in the project with Stanford.

The Monterey Jazz Festival, a nonprofit organization dedicated to 
perpetuating the performance of jazz, was founded in 1958. The Monterey 
Jazz Festival became established as one of the foremost jazz festivals 
in the United States and soon received international recognition. The 
three-day festival � the longest running jazz festival in the world � is 
held annually in September, and is distinguished for weaving emerging 
talent alongside the field�s grand masters. The Monterey Jazz Festival 
also plays a significant role in music education by providing year-round 
youth jazz education training programs and scholarships.

The Stanford University Archive of Recorded Sound is one of the largest 
collections of historical recordings in the United States with holdings 
of over 275,000 recordings. The Monterey Jazz Festival has donated all 
of its recordings to the Archive of Recorded Sound since 1984. The 
collection comprises over 1,200 sound recordings, 370 moving image 
materials, and paper-based records of the founding organization. The 
collection is an American treasure of unique and irreplaceable 
recordings of performances by the greatest jazz musicians.

The project was made possible with funding from the National Historical 
Publications and Records Commission (NHPRC), Save America�s Treasures, 
and the GRAMMY Foundation, and was managed by Hannah Frost, Media 
Preservation Librarian, with Jerry McBride, Head Librarian of the Music 
Library and Archive of Recorded Sound, and Tim Jackson, General Manager 
of the Monterey Jazz Festival, as Project Directors.

-- 
Jerry McBride, Head Librarian
Music Library and Archive of Recorded Sound
Braun Music Center, Room 104
Stanford University
541 Lasu�n Mall
Stanford, CA 94305-3076

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