Overview
Photograph albums and manuscript drafts of jazz musician Bill Coleman.
Dates
- Creation: 1926-1981
Creator
- Coleman, Bill, 1904-1981 (Person)
Physical Description
In good condition, some photograph albums are fragile.
Conditions Governing Access
The manuscripts are open for research. The photograph albums are closed for processing, 2024.
A portion of this collection is shelved offsite. Retrieval requires advance notice. Check with Houghton Public Services staff.
Extent
1.5 linear feet (2 boxes)Collection includes 6 photograph albums spanning the years 1926-1981, Coleman's manuscript on letterhead of his autobiography, Trumpet Story, the manuscript French translation of the autobiography by Lily Coleman (Ma Trompette Sous le Bras), and the printed edition.
Photograph albums cover New York, a 1933 European tour, Cincinnati, Paris, Chicago, Montreux Jazz Festival (1973), Nice Jazz Festival (1974), the Bill Coleman orchestra, Martine Kay, and Cecily Ford.
Biographical / Historical
Bill Coleman was a trumpeter and jazz musician who was born in Kentucky and moved to Paris in 1935; he traveled, played, and recorded extensively in Europe, India, and Egypt and died in Toulouse (France) in 1981. Coleman resided in Franch from 1948 on, largely due to racial segregation in the United States. His autobiography, Trumpet Story, was translated by his wife, Lily Coleman, into French and published in 1981. The English version was published in 1989.
Arrangement
Collection is arranged in the following series: Trumpet Story drafts and book, and Photograph albums.
Physical Location
Harvard Depository
Immediate Source of Acquisition
2016MT-71. Purchased from Between The Covers with the Beatrice, Benjamin and Richard Bader Fund in the Visual Arts of the Theatre and the Francis W. Hatch Book Fund, 2017 April 14.
Separated Materials
One page (83) missing from the manuscript autobiography, and numerous pages missing from the manuscript French translation.
Processing Information
Processed by Katherine Gaburo, 2024.
Creator
- Coleman, Bill, 1904-1981 (Person)
- Title
- Coleman, Bill, 1904-1981. Bill Coleman papers and photograph albums, 1926-1981 (MS Thr 1606): Guide.
- Status
- in_progress
- Author
- Houghton Library, Harvard University.
- Date
- 2024 March 15
- Description rules
- dacs
- Language of description
- eng
- EAD ID
- hou03668
Repository Details
Part of the Houghton Library Repository
Houghton Library is Harvard College's principal repository for rare books and manuscripts, archives, and more. Houghton Library's collections represent the scope of human experience from ancient Egypt to twenty-first century Cambridge. With strengths primarily in North American and European history, literature, and culture, collections range in media from printed books and handwritten manuscripts to maps, drawings and paintings, prints, posters, photographs, film and audio recordings, and digital media, as well as costumes, theater props, and a wide range of other objects. Houghton Library has historically focused on collecting the written record of European and Eurocentric North American culture, yet it holds a large and diverse number of primary sources valuable for research on the languages, culture and history of indigenous peoples of the Americas, Africa, Asia and Oceania.
Houghton Library’s Reading Room is free and open to all who wish to use the library’s collections.
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