The music program at the University of North Texas has graduated hundreds of jazz artists who went on to successful careers as professionals. Woody Herman populated virtually an entire edition of his Thundering Herd of the 1970s with North Texas graduates, and they keep coming. Jimmy Giuffre, Herb Ellis, Billy Harper, Marvin Stamm, Bob Belden, Norah Jones, Dee Barton, Gene Roland, Marc Johnson, James Chirillo and Jim Snidero are a few of the musicians that UNT has sent into the jazz world. Now, UNT is making another kind of contribution to the preservation of jazz.
Under Maristella Feustle of the university’s library, there is an
archive devoted to the late Willis Conover of the Voice of America (pictured with Louis Armstrong). Conover’s VOA programs sent jazz around the world. For a quarter of a century he was one of the nation’s most valuable cultural diplomats. As of today, parts of the Conover archive are online and open to the public, thanks to a grant from the Grammy Foundation. Ms. Feustle (pictured right) has posted audio of programs from several periods of Conover’s career,
including complete hours of his VOA broadcasts. In a message to Rifftides, she writes,
We got word at the end of March that the grant had been funded, in the
amount of $16,650 to digitize the 360 oldest reels in the Conover
collection, covering approximately 1955 through 1969. There are just
under 2100 reels total, so this is a good first step in tackling the
most urgent preservation needs. The contractor performing the digital
transfers is George Blood Audio, with whom we’ve worked on other
high-value, high-priority projects. There will be many more recordings
added to the UNT Digital Library as we receive the preservation
masters.
In the first batch of 10 reels digitized and posted on the UNT Library site are interviews with (and music by) Armstrong, Dave Brubeck, Art Tatum, Kai Winding and Johnny Hodges. There are also what seem to be previously unreleased recordings by Bill Evans at the Village Vanguard, an interview with producer George Avakian from one of Conover’s Music USA broadcasts, and a live performance of The Orchestra, which Conover co-led in Washington, DC, in the early 1950s. To see the list and listen to the tapes, go here.
For my recent Wall Street Journal article about Conover and a new effort to see that his work gets wider recognition, go here.
Wow! That’s a big project. I’ve listened a bit to the Bill Evans at the Vanguard entry because it’s on the first page.
Unidentified track #1 is “Funkallero”. It was a bit tough at first, because I had never heard Bill play it in trio.
Thanks! We’ll update accordingly. There are a few other unknowns (or the “I know I’ve heard this, but what is it?” category) that we’re hoping to be able to fill in for this set, and there are sure to be more in the remaining reels. We always learn new things about a collection — sometimes quite unexpectedly — once it is accessible and people find out about it. That’s part of the fun.
Thanks to you for the effort. I’m glad I could help. Since the last two songs are also unidentified, couldn’t it be that they are “Slow Dance” and “A Song for Now?” The UNT website says those titles were mentioned on the tape box
The first one is a slow fox trot. The other sounds like a piece of film music or a “song” spontaneously invented on the spot by Bill. Its beginning reminds me of “After All,” a once-popular swing-era song performed by Jack Leonard with Tommy Dorsey and his orchestra in 1939.
Wonderful! Thank you muchly for the link to the UNT Digital Library, Doug (I already have your Wall Street Journal article).
Thanks are also due to the dedicated and indefatigable Maristella Fuestle, whose hard work on the Willis Conover project has come to fruition for our benefit. It will stand as a monument to the memory of a jazz broadcasting legend.
I’m like a kid at Christmas to see this project starting to come to fruition. To be piecing together and bringing to light a hidden chapter in jazz history like this is a dream come true.
What a treasure trove this is going to be! Is there a mechanism for public contributions to the effort?
There’s no formal mechanism, but we do gratefully accept donations to put toward the project! We’re rather low-tech there, but the mailing address is:
UNT Music Library
Attn: Willis Conover Collection
1155 Union Circle #305190
Denton, TX 76203
I was asked to write a piece about Willis that will appear in the Henderson (NC) Weekly Gazette. Its title is: The Most Famous Person You’ve Never Heard of.”
Though I’ve been retired from the Voice of America (VOA) for seven years, people still associate me with the Conover programs. Given the sorry state of VOA now (limited coverage, deeply shrunken budgets, a shortage of key personnel) it’s great to be linked to the peak period of its existence and to the man who is mainly responsible for its excellence.
And speaking of excellence, keep up the great work on “Rifftides”, Doug. As the late Clark Terry was heard to say, “Keep on keepin’ on.”
Looking forward to reading it. If our library can be of assistance in any way, please feel free to give me a holler at maristella.feustle@unt.edu
This is excellent! A big thank you to Doug and Maristella! It is roll-back-the-years time.
In the mid-fifties nightly in an army barracks, commandeering the radio listening to Willis Conover, ready to fight off anyone, (rifle at the ready, unloaded!) who dared take over the
the air waves and deprive the few of us of our highlight of the night!
I recall in 1957 my first night back home, (now rifle-less!) in my old ill fitting civilian threads and hearing Willis announce—”This-is-the Voice Of America. Tonight we present the Duke Ellington Orchestra live at the 1956 Newport Jazz Festival.”
I know this is about Willis and the archive, but NT alumni were mentioned and I would like to take the opportunity to give a shout out to my brilliant, talented friend Bill Stapleton. Bill left just a few beautiful things for us to enjoy; a few solos, a few gorgeous charts. He died tragically from a disease that I also suffered from, but I was the one who survived, for some reason. I was away when our mutual friend Terry Woodsen broke down his door and found him dead in appalling surroundings, alone and unwanted. Thanks for the memories together, Bill, you sensitive soul, you. Listen to his arrangement of “Come Rain or Come Shine” on Woody Herman’s King Cobra album and you’ll hear what I mean.