Rare jazz find sweet music for registry
New Monk found
April 6, 2005
WASHINGTON — Sometimes being a library archive nerd and jazz aficionado pays off.
Larry Appelbaum, a studio engineer for the Library of Congress who also hosts a jazz show on WPFW-FM in Washington, recently was digging through some old Voice of America recordings and came across a once-in-a-lifetime find.
It was a reel-to-reel tape of a benefit concert for a Harlem community center given by Thelonious Monk and recorded at Carnegie Hall on Nov. 29, 1957. The recording featured Ray Charles, Dizzy Gillespie and his orchestra, the Sonny Rollins trio and the Zoot Sims quartet, featuring such legendary performers as Monk, John Coltrane, Chet Baker and Shadow Wilson.
Lewis Porter, a professor in the visual and performing arts department at Rutgers University, knew the tape existed and had been searching for it for years, Appelbaum said.
Being a huge Coltrane fan, Appelbaum knew he had found something extraordinary, he said.
“It’s as if we had found a new Hitchcock film no one knew existed,” Appelbaum said. “This is one of the finds that makes it fascinating to show up for work here every day.”
The tape will be preserved along with the other selections chosen by the Library of Congress for its National Recording Registry. It will be housed in the Library of Congress, but Appelbaum figures it won’t be hard to attract the interest of a jazz-oriented music label for a commercial release.
“Someone will put it out,” he predicted.
Glynn Wilson is a reporter for States News Service
Larry Appelbaum, a studio engineer for the Library of Congress who also hosts a jazz show on WPFW-FM in Washington, recently was digging through some old Voice of America recordings and came across a once-in-a-lifetime find.
It was a reel-to-reel tape of a benefit concert for a Harlem community center given by Thelonious Monk and recorded at Carnegie Hall on Nov. 29, 1957. The recording featured Ray Charles, Dizzy Gillespie and his orchestra, the Sonny Rollins trio and the Zoot Sims quartet, featuring such legendary performers as Monk, John Coltrane, Chet Baker and Shadow Wilson.
Lewis Porter, a professor in the visual and performing arts department at Rutgers University, knew the tape existed and had been searching for it for years, Appelbaum said.
Being a huge Coltrane fan, Appelbaum knew he had found something extraordinary, he said.
“It’s as if we had found a new Hitchcock film no one knew existed,” Appelbaum said. “This is one of the finds that makes it fascinating to show up for work here every day.”
The tape will be preserved along with the other selections chosen by the Library of Congress for its National Recording Registry. It will be housed in the Library of Congress, but Appelbaum figures it won’t be hard to attract the interest of a jazz-oriented music label for a commercial release.
“Someone will put it out,” he predicted.
Glynn Wilson is a reporter for States News Service
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