Special Collections
Frank Driggs Jazz Oral History Collection

A child of the Great Depression, author and music historian Frank Driggs first became enamored with jazz and swing while listening to late night broadcasts from hotels and ballrooms. After graduating from Princeton in 1952, Driggs moved to Manhattan where he joined with Marshall Stearns and other jazz scholars in documenting the history of jazz. Realizing the importance of preserving the eyewitness accounts of those who pioneered the jazz tradition, Driggs began recording oral histories of early jazz musicians. The musicians interviewed often gave or lent Driggs scrapbooks, photos and memorabilia, which he lovingly archived.

Follow this Link to Access an Inventory of the Collection

The interviews and photos, widely published in Jazz Review and other publications, caught the eye of impresario John Hammond who hired Driggs to produce reissues and new releases of American roots music for Columbia records. Digging deep into the vaults of Columbia, Driggs produced the first LP reissues of delta blues legend Robert Johnson. After leaving Columbia, Driggs went on to produce recordings for Epic, Okeh, MCA, Stash, and Time-Life Records, before reviving the Bluebird label for RCA Victor in the early 1970s. During his 25 years in the business, Driggs won several Record of the Year awards, capped in 1991 by a Grammy for Robert Johnson: The Complete Recordings. All the while, Driggs continued documenting the evolution of jazz by recording oral histories and collecting photos, amassing a collection of well over 100,000 images.

Over the years, Driggs has published widely and penned liner notes for hundreds of recordings. Driggs contributed the chapter on Kansas City and Southwestern jazz for Nat Hentoff‘s and Albert J. McCarthy's landmark jazz history Jazz: New Perspectives on the History of Jazz by Twelve of the World's Foremost Jazz Critics and Scholars. In 1982, Driggs, along with Harris Lewine, published Black Beauty, White Heat, a striking pictorial history of jazz culled from Drigg's collection. Countless researchers, publishers and record companies have drawn upon Drigg's massive collection of photos and memorabilia. Most recently, Driggs and his collection served as the principal resource for Ken Burn's Jazz, a history of jazz, broadcast by PBS.

Driggs recently gave his collection of oral histories to the Marr Sound Archives, a division of Special Collections in the Miller Nichols Library at the University of Missouri-Kansas City. The oral histories, conducted from 1956 to 1986, capture the truths of the development of jazz as related by a host of musicians and band leaders who defined the tradition. All aspects of the jazz experience are captured in the interviews, ranging from musical triumphs to hardships on the road during the Great Depression. Reflecting Driggs' interest in the development of Southwestern and Kansas City jazz, the collection is rich in oral histories of the bandleaders and musicians who defined those traditions, including Andy Kirk, Buster Smith, Gene Ramey, Thamon Hayes, Jesse Stone and Ed Lewis. Many of the oral histories in the Driggs collection survive as the only known record of a musician's experiences and voice. The 375 oral histories, housed in the Marr Sound Archives, have been inventoried and are in the process of being preserved and made available for research and scholarship.

For information about the Frank Driggs Jazz Oral History Collection contact Chuck Haddix, Marr Sound Archives, Miller Nichols Library, University of Missouri-Kansas City, 800 E. 51st Street, Kansas City, MO 64110, (816) 235-2798, Chuck Haddix.

Special Collections is a non-circulating and non-browsing resource center. The Special Collections Reading Room is open to researchers Monday through Friday during the academic year. Public service hours for the current semester are listed at http://library.umkc.edu/spec-col/index.html#hours but researchers are encouraged to call ahead for verification of hours due to University intersessions and other events. Special Collections is located on the fourth floor of the Miller Nichols Library at 5100 Rockhill Road in Kansas City, Missouri. All inquiries concerning access to the collections should be addressed to Special Collections Library Information Specialists Teresa Gipson or Kelly McEniry.