Below is the project description for in-kind use of Jack Straw recording studio facilities and services.
Summary
The Jack Straw Residency would
support oral history recording, preservation of historic recordings through
analog to digital transfer and production of audio excerpts for a blog and
biography about the life and impact of American jazz saxophonist and educator
Joe Brazil.
Background
Joe Brazil (1927-2008) grew up
in Detroit, moved to Seattle,
worked at Boeing, taught at Garfield High
School and University
of Washington and established the
Black Academy of Music in the Central District.
Brazil
was a friend of John Coltrane. In the 1950’s Coltrane practiced and jammed for
hours at Brazil’s
Detroit residence. After Brazil
moved to Seattle, Coltrane stayed in
Brazil’s home
during a week-long engagement in 1965 at a club called the Penthouse.
My research to date includes
more than 400 documents and 20 photographs from the University of Washington
Archives, Seattle Municipal Archives, King County Courthouse, Seattle Times,
Seattle Post-Intelligencer, and UW Daily. Brazil
is mentioned in 12 published books. 4Culture is supporting this project through
an Individual Artist Grant. I have applied to a Biography Fellowship Residency
at the CUNY Leon
Levy Center
for Biography to complete Brazil’s
biography. Mary Francis, editor at University
of California Press, is receptive
to a book proposal.
I am collecting oral histories
from people who lived, performed, worked, studied or allied with Joe Brazil. My
list of 70 sources continues to grow but key oral histories will come from
Larry Gossett, Gary Hammon and Wadie Ervin in Seattle, Jeffrey Winston and
Mikal Majeed in Los Angeles, Barry Harris, Curtis Fuller, Roy Ayers, Rufus Reid
and Yusef Lateef in New York and Byron Pope in Switzerland. Audio recordings of
these voices would capture the immediately recognizable gratitude and respect
when they speak about Brazil.
The oral histories will be donated to the King County Library.
Brazil
was known to frequently make audio tapes and 8mm films of his classes, jams and
concerts that included major jazz artists. Several sources report that Brazil
made tapes of Coltrane practicing. Brazil’s
widow and others have collections of his tapes and films that need to be
inventoried and digitized for archival. The content of this audio and visual
collection may have significant historic value.
To find new sources and
information, I post documents, photos, sources and data to
joebrazilproject.blogspot.com. Excerpts from oral histories and audio archives might
attract more material about Brazil.
The blog and an article published in Earshot
Jazz have already attracted an audience as far away as Berlin.
The Jack Straw Residency would provide
facilities and expertise to record oral histories, or instruction to facilitate
my field recording at source locations. The Artist Support Program would also
help transfer Brazil’s
analog audio tapes to a digital archive and make all of this material available
to a wide audience through the blog. I would like this audio material to be a
supplement to a published biography. During the residency I will present
podcasts and readings of gathered material.
Addendum
Some readers misunderstand that this post says I have audio tapes from Joe Brazil. I do not. This was a proposal to further my research. I am trying to facilitate the preservation and distribution of tapes that are owned and possessed by others. When I first wrote this post, I had met with Frances Brazil. She shared photographs and an 8mm home movie, but she did not show me any tapes. I copied the photos and film and returned all the material. At the time I believed that she was Joe's only living beneficiary and envisioned working with her as she wished. She indicated that there were more of Joe's things in a bench under her television, but that she did not want to move it at the time. I left her house with the impression that there were tapes in her possession. About a year later I met Joe's second wife, who was with him for the last years of his life. She showed me a collection of audio tapes that Joe had made. I have been helping her organize the material and seek funding for preservation.
