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COLLECTION Identifier: Ms. Coll. 135

Tom Everett jazz scores, memorabilia, and other material, 1944-2011.

Overview

Scores and memorabilia documenting 40 years of jazz at Harvard.

Dates

  • 1971-2011.

Conditions Governing Access

Access to the collection is unrestricted.

Conditions Governing Use

Reproduction and/or publication of materials subject to copyright requires written permission from a) the copyright owner, his/her heirs or assigns and from b) the Loeb Music Library, owner of the original material.

Extent

1 collection (6 linear feet (10 file boxes).)

The collection contains 75 manuscript scores, parts and lead sheets from the Harvard Jazz Band library and Tom Everett’s personal archive dating from 1971. Included also are letters, flyers, photographs and other memorabilia spanning 40 years of jazz at Harvard.

Biographical and Historical Note

For over four decades, Harvard University has fostered an active environment for jazz performance and scholarship. Through the years, the university has hosted residencies for jazz legends, sponsored courses and seminars on jazz topics, and maintained several performance groups for Harvard students.

The central figure in promoting jazz at Harvard has been band director Tom Everett. A trombonist by trade, Everett was hired in 1971 to direct the college bands, and founded the Harvard Jazz Band later that year. While the early years saw the band supporting itself by playing local dances, university support gradually increased, especially through the Office for the Arts, allowing for official residencies and formal commissions. Everett taught courses on jazz as well, inviting a parade of stars to address and inspire Harvard undergraduates. This enhanced level of respect— aided by the growing presence of jazz in the academic curriculum—bred good-will from the artists themselves, who were welcomed with tributes appropriate to their accomplishments.

Everett amassed a significant collection of scores, correspondence, photographs, and memorabilia. These materials represent both a personal and an institutional history. When viewed collectively, the interaction between jazz musicians, colleagues, students and friends serves to chronicle the university’s evolving support for the jazz enterprise.

System of Arrangement

  1. Series I. Scores (by title).
  2. Series II. Memorabilia (by artist/event).

Processed by:

Douglas Freundlich and Michael Heller

Finding aid encoded by: Christina Linklater

Title
Tom Everett jazz scores, memorabilia, and other material, 1944-2011.
Author
Eda Kuhn Loeb Music Library, Harvard College Library
Language of description
und
EAD ID
mus00035

Repository Details

Part of the Eda Kuhn Loeb Music Library Repository

The Eda Kuhn Loeb Music Library is the primary repository of musical materials at Harvard. The Music Library’s collecting mission is to serve music teaching and research programs in the Music Department and throughout the Faculty of Arts and Sciences. In addition, it supports the musical needs of the broader Harvard community as well as an international scholarly constituency. We collect books, musical scores, serial titles, sound recordings and video formats, microforms, and rare and archival materials that support research in a wide variety of musical disciplines including historical musicology, music theory, ethnomusicology, composition, and historically informed performance practice, as well as interdisciplinary areas related to music. The special collections include archival collections from the 19th, 20th and 21st century.

Contact:
Music Building, 3 Oxford Street
Cambridge MA 02138 USA
(617) 495-2794