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Sacramento Traditional Jazz Society
Collection
2001/062
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Title: Sacramento Traditional Jazz
Society Collection
Date Range:
1950-2003 inclusive,
Date (bulk): 1974-1998
bulk
Collection Number: 2001/062
Collector:
Sacramento Traditional Jazz
Society
Extent: 57 linear
feet
Repository:
Center for Sacramento History
551 Sequoia Pacific Blvd.
Sacramento, California 95814
Location: See Finding Aid for exact location of
materials.
Abstract: The Sacramento Traditional Jazz Society (STJS)
began on Sunday May 5, 1968 with a group of local jazz musicians gathering at
the Orangevale Grange Hall to play for a small group of jazz fans. The
musicians included Dr. Bill Borcher, the Dean of Men at American River College
and trumpet player for the Delta Moonlighters, John Knurr, a local high school
music teacher, jazz trombonist Jerry Kaehele, and George Boyd and his Good Time
Go-to-Meeting Band. The non-profit organization holds an annual Jazz Jubilee
Festival on Memorial Day weekend and conducts jazz education programs and
community outreach. The Sacramento Traditional Jazz Society is the largest
traditional jazz organization in the United States. The files date from 1952 to
2003, with the bulk of the material dating from 1974 to 1998. The collection
includes correspondence, financial documents, legal documents, meeting records,
grant applications, publications, directors files, photographs, programs, and
brochures.
Collection is open for research.
Copyright has not been assigned to the Center for Sacramento History for private collections.
All requests to publish or quote from private manuscripts must be submitted in writing to the Archivist.
Permission for publication is given on behalf of the Center for Sacramento History as the owner of the
physical items and is not intended to include or imply permission of the
copyright holder, which must also be obtained by the reader. No permission is
necessary to publish or quote from records.
[Identification of item, prepared according to standard citation style
such as MLA, ALAL, or Turabian], [2001/062]. Sacramento Traditional Jazz
Society Collection, Center for Sacramento History.
Acquired in 2001 from Mike Foley, agent of the Sacramento Traditional
Jazz Society.
Processed by Lola Aguilar, 2006. Finding aid prepared using DACS by Lola
Aguilar, 2007. Machine-readable finding aid created by Lola Aguilar, 2007.
The Sacramento Traditional Jazz Society (STJS) began on Sunday May 5,
1968 with a group of local jazz musicians gathering at the Orangevale Grange
Hall to play for a small group of jazz fans. The musicians included Dr. Bill
Borcher, the Dean of Men at American River College and trumpet player for the
Delta Moonlighters, John Knurr, a local high school music teacher, jazz
trombonist Jerry Kaehele, and George Boyd and his Good Time Go-to-Meeting Band.
Originally named the New Sacramento Traditional Jazz Society, the musicians met
informally in the afternoon on the first Sunday of the month and elected Jerry
Kaelhele as the first President, Jack Burke as Vice President, and Roy Harper
as Secretary-Treasurer. As news of the Jazz Society spread, more jazz musicians
joined the Sunday sessions and their membership grew. In October 1969, Bill
Borcher helped friends arrange a fundraiser on the Delta King riverboat, which
attracted a crowd of 4,000. Publicity from the fundraiser and two successful
fundraisers in November and December of that year generated even more interest
in jazz.
With a renewed public interest in jazz music, the STJS outgrew the
Orangevale Grange Hall and by 1970 the musicians moved their Sunday concerts to
larger venues, such as the El Rancho Motel and the Carmichael Elks Lodge. For
the next three years paid guest artists and bands joined STJS musicians in
performances around Sacramento. In late 1973, then-President Ozzie Belmore and
Bill Borcher organized a committee to investigate the feasibility of a Jazz
Festival in Sacramento. Other jazz festivals in Monterey and Newport had
attracted wide audiences and the STJS believed Sacramento could accomplish the
same. The committee decided on Memorial Day weekend because the high rate of
vacancies of Sacramento area hotels would accommodate visitors. The STJS
presented the Dixieland Jazz Jubilee on Memorial Day weekend in 1974. Seven
performance sites in West Sacramento and in Old Sacramento featured 21 bands,
300 volunteers, and attracted 3,000 jazz fans. Admission badges for that first
year cost $12.50 for three days and revenues totaled $32,000, but expenses
totaled $35,000. Despite the loss, the STJS decided to continue the Jubilee as
an annual event.
The original intent of the STJS was to promote and preserve the roots of
jazz, which to Bill Borcher and his colleagues meant Dixieland Jazz. After much
heated discussion, the Jazz Jubilee decided in 1995, to include other types of
jazz in an effort to attract a wider and younger audience. In addition to
Dixieland, the music included Swing, Gospel, Latin Jazz, Zydeco, and
Barbershop. Prestigious acts such as the Pied Pipers, Boots Randolph, Gary
Crosby, Julius LaRosa, Pat Yankee, Bob Crosbys Bob Cats, the Ink Spots, and the
Mills Brothers have performed at the Jubilee.
In 1979 the STJC incorporated as a non-profit organization with the
mission of preserving and promoting traditional jazz music. The same year, the
organization established a Youth Scholarship Program, which provides
scholarships for young musicians for private music instruction with an emphasis
on jazz. The program expanded into an annual Trad Jazz Camp in 1986. This week
long camp provides intensive jazz instruction for approximately 100 young
musicians ages 12-18. The Jazz Ambassadors, instituted in 1992, travel
throughout Northern California providing information about STJS programs and
events to hundreds of organizations at breakfast, lunch, and dinner meetings.
The STJS included the Elderhostel program in 1992, which provides jazz
instruction for seniors. In 2000, the Trad Jazz Camp added a week long camp for
approximately 90 adults to its program.
According to their web site (http//:www.sacjazz.org), the Sacramento
Traditional Jazz Society is now the largest traditional jazz organization in
the United States. Organization membership has reached 5,000 with 4 paid
employees. The Jazz Jubilee now attracts over 100,000 attendees, with 146 bands
including 9 international groups, and 1,097 musicians playing at 47 performance
sites. Venues in Sacramento include Cal Expo, Old Sacramento, the Sacramento
Community Center, and various hotels throughout the city. Volunteers now number
3,800 to ensure a successful festival, with revenues exceeding $20 million.
The Sacramento Traditional Jazz Society Collection is arranged in eight
series: 1. Artifacts, 2. Administrative Files, 3. Jazz Jubilee, 4. Trad Jazz
Camp, 5. Jazz Ambassadors, 6. Elderhostel, 7. Scrapbooks, and 8. Media. Items
span the years 1950 to 2003, with the bulk of the items dating from 1974 to
1998. The first series, Artifacts, consists of 5 cubic feet and includes button
badges, t-shirts, hats, and a garter. Appendix A includes the complete list of
the artifacts.
The second series, Administrative Files, which consists
of eight cubic feet and three map case drawers, is divided into eight
subseries: Correspondence, Financial Documents, Meeting Records, Legal
Documents, Reports, Grant Applications, Publications, and Ephemera. The items
are arranged chronologically within each subseries and include balance sheets,
treasurers reports, financial statements, committee reports, incorporation
papers, by-laws and constitution, and musicians union information. These
documents chronicle the growth of the organization from a small, informal
gathering of musicians, to a highly successful non-profit organization. The
documents include changes made to the constitution and the by-laws as the
organization grew. Committee reports include valuable information about the
direction of the STJS, with changes in the types of committees which were
necessary during the years when the organization started to expand. The STJS
efforts to acquire grants from the National Endowment for the Arts and the
Sacramento Regional Foundation highlight the organizations non-profit status.
Publications contain an extensive collection of external jazz publications from
other jazz organizations throughout the United States and Canada and are
arranged alphabetically and are listed in Appendix B. Ephemera includes flyers
and brochures from other jazz festivals in the Northern California area.
The third series contains the records of the Jazz Jubilee and consists
of six cubic feet and three map case drawers, which are divided into twelve
subseries: Correspondence, Directors Files, Financial Documents, Legal
Documents, Reports, Meeting Records, Band Information, Site Information,
Concessions, General Information, Publications, and Ephemera. Correspondence is
divided between letters, arranged chronologically, and hardcopies of email
correspondence, arranged chronologically within alphabetical order.
Correspondence includes letters between Jubilee organizers and several
musicians, notably one letter from an ailing Hoagy Carmichael written by his
wife. General Information includes Jubilee files on only thirteen years, but
includes complete information of those particular Jubilees. Internal
publications include programs and newsletters but are also missing several
years.
The fourth series, Trad Jazz Camp contains one cubic foot and includes
correspondence, financial documents, minutes, class material, scholarship
information, publications, and ephemera. Trad Jazz Camp newsletters are
incomplete, but offer information about the inner workings of the camp. The
fifth series, Jazz Ambassadors, consists of one file folder and includes
general information detailing the duties and events concerning this program,
including agendas and newsletter. The sixth series, Elderhostel, consists of
one cubic foot. Items are arranged chronologically and include correspondence,
class material, catalogs, newsletters, publications, ephemera, and general
information about the programs. Class material includes handouts and class
manuals used for jazz instruction. The seventh series, Scrapbooks, include
general information STJS scrapbooks, Jubilee scrapbooks, jazz history
scrapbooks, and band scrapbooks. The eighth series includes VHS videotapes,
reel-to-reel audiotapes, cassette tapes, slides, negatives, and over five
thousand photographs. Photographs include images of guest artists such as Molly
Ringwald, Tommy Newsome, and Phil Harris. Jubilees through the years are
represented by hundreds of color and black and white photographs. Jazz band
photographs are arranged alphabetically with a complete list in Appendix C.
Arrangement
The Sacramento Traditional Jazz Society Collection is subdivided into
eight series:
- Series I: Artifacts
- Series II: Administrative Files
- Series III: Jazz Jubilee
- Series IV: Trad Jazz Camp
- Series V: Jazz Ambassadors
- Series VI: Elderhostel
- Series VII: Scrapbooks
- Series VIII: Media
Sacramento
Traditional Jazz Society
Jazz
Jazz festivals
Sacramento
(Calif.)--History