Jazz Links
The links featured here provide a brief overview on jazz research and fan sites worldwide.
The list is being updated continuously and sorted by name. However, since checking one of the links will provide a huge number of further sites, this list shall remain rather short.
The Lycoming College website of the extraordinary jazz-related journal, with two issues per year. Actually, it is the ONLY journal with focus on jazz-related literature.
Edited by two experts in the field, jazz book authors Sascha Feinstein and David J. Rife, it features a variety of content such as poetry, fiction, and nonfiction. Popular and famous contributors as Whitney Balliett, Amiri Baraka, Hayden Carruth, Wanda Coleman, Billy Collins, Jayne Cortez, Stephen Dunn, Gary Giddins, Yusef Komunyakaa, Philip Levine, Clarence Major, William Matthews, Colleen McElroy, Al Young, and Paul Zimmer write for it.
Highly recommended if you are into jazz fiction and don’t want to wait for the publication of books on the subject.
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Institute for Jazz Research, Graz, Austria
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Jazz First Books
A unique shop offering rare finds if you are looking for signed first editions of books on jazz and blues, jazz fiction, signed music memorabilia and musicians’ biographies. Worth checking out.
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Jazzinstitut Darmstadt
The Jazzinstitut Darmstadt, a municipal institute of the city of Darmstadt, is Europe’s largest public research archive on jazz.
The Jazzinstitut is also the host of the Wegweiser Jazz-Online (“Wegweiser” means “sign post”/”directory”), a database on jazz life worldwide. In this free online database the names, websites, fields of research and the like of hundreds of jazz aficionados, researchers, lecturers, journalists, authors, DJs, musicians and collectors worldwide can be searched. Admittance to the database is free.
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A well-kept site “about where jazz musicians can be seen on film as well as heard,” to quote the owner. Here you find a huge listing of jazz documentaries, shorts and TV programmes.
NOT included in the listing are “films where a jazz musician just happens to be on the sound track regardless of the music.” But then the site is well equipped with data on “films that feature musicians playing jazz or ghosting for actors and are about the jazz life are included”.
In addition, it also lists some of the major books on the subject.
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Prof. Wolfgang Karrer
A website featuring lots of information on American authors, American literature, American culture and transcriptions of the songs of Blues legend Blind Lemon Jefferson. Hosted by Professor of American Studies Wolfgang Karrer.
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Norma Miller on Swing, Baby Swing!
The “Queen of Swing” and Lindy Hop legend…
Long-time dance partner of Frankie Manning, Savoy Ballroom champion, member of Whitey’s Lindy Hoppers, comedienne, dance teacher, author and… and…. and. Check out the website of this GREAT (and very entertaining!) woman.
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Rutgers Institute of Jazz Studies
This Institute does not need any introduction; nevertheless, I will quote briefly from their website: “IJS is the largest archive of jazz and jazz related materials in the world. Over 100 distinct ARCHIVAL COLLECTIONS comprise personal papers as well as archives of record companies and jazz-related institutions and organizations spanning from 1920 to the present. The Institute maintains over 100,000 commercial and non-commercial SOUND RECORDINGS. Two of the earliest formats, piano rolls and phonograph cylinders, are represented….”
My recommendation: if you are interested in jazz and ever come close to New Jersey, go there and spend some hours in the H U G E library.
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Swing DJ Swingin’ Swanee
One of the few DJs playing 1930s and 1940s jazz exclusively; hosts her own jazz radio show and has her own SWING CD SERIES: Swingin’ Swanee Presents, having reached #4 now and counting…
A superb swing DJ, the best one if you ask me. And the “world’s greatest swing DJ” if you believe “the world’s greatest Lindy Hop dancers” who were blown away by her sets.
Her compilations are published by the German label CERATON (Hamburg), world famous for skillful mastering and reconstruction of the original shellac sound.
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Swingtime is Stephan Wuthe‘s website.
A swing DJ from Berlin, author of “Swingtime in Deutschland,” a brand-new book on jazz appreciation in Germany 1920-present.
He devotes a large part of the book to the (dangerous) life of the swing fan in Nazi Germany and the introduction of American music into the German dance halls. The most comprehensive study of its kind so far. You can read a review here.