International Association of Jazz Record Collectors

The International Association of Jazz Record Collectors is an International non-profit organization devoted to the appreciation, education, and preservation of recorded jazz history. The organization was founded 51 years ago (1964) in Pittsburgh and incorporated in 1975 in Ohio as a non-profit entity,[1][2][3] classified by the IRS as a 501(c)(3). The incorporators were James H. Beauchamp, Edward L. Shank, and Leo F. Krebs (born 1937), all of Dayton. The organization has published the IAJRC Journal four times a year for the past 47 years (since 1968), produced over 77 titles of recorded jazz on its own label, IAJRC Records, and holds a convention once a year. Many peers, including TV and radio historian Tim Brooks, regard the IAJRC as a scholarly organization.[4]

Historical perspective

Before the digital age, access to the wider universe of recorded jazz was dominated by music libraries of academic institutions, broadcast entertainment industries, and private collectors. Advocacy and formalizing published literature on recorded jazz has benefited largely from the International Folk Music Council (founded 1947), the International Association of Music Libraries (founded 1949), the International Association of Jazz Record Collectors (founded 1964), the Association for Recorded Sound Collections (founded 1966), the International Association of Sound and Audiovisual Archives (founded 1968), and the International Association for Jazz Research (founded 1969).[3]

The organization's overarching activities are research, publishing, re-mastering of sound recordings, and distribution of rare or un-released recordings. Jazz, in its infancy, was not respected in learned society. And for the remaining first half of the twentieth century, it was of little interest to scholars and academic institutions. Chronicling it was mostly done by news-media and trade publications. In the latter part of the twentieth century, academic institutions and scholars have become custodians of jazz education and its history. Yet jazz in higher education is typically focused on professional development. The non-profit structure of IAJRC and its volunteerism enables the organization to sidestep limitations of professional and commercial aspects of jazz research and restoration of archival papers, film, and recorded sound. Irrespective of the increasing institutionalism of jazz, the IAJRC — its publications and record releases — has flourished without being entirely subsumed by the establishment.[5] Many projects of the IAJRC have brought notoriety to living and deceased jazz artists who had been little-known or forgotten or non-commercial.

Executives

References

External links