Marr Sound Archives

The Marr Sound Archives, a unit of the Special Collections Department, holds over 290,000 sound recordings in formats that include LPs, 78s, 45s, cylinders, transcription discs, instantaneous cut discs and open-reel tapes. The focus of the collection is the American experience as reflected in recorded sound, with very substantial and significant holdings in the following areas:

Historic voices American popular music Jazz, Blues, and Country Vintage radio programs Authors reading their own works Historic classical and operatic recordings

The popular collection dates from the beginning of recorded sound in the 1890s up to 1980. This aspect of the collection is rich in topical references reflecting events of the day.

The Archives is also noted for its collection of jazz recordings which encompasses all styles and movements of jazz. The Archives hosts Club Kaycee, a Website devoted to Kansas City jazz history featuring photographs, music and sound files, and additional information about the golden age of Kansas City jazz.

Kansas City Jazz: A Selected & Annotated Bibliography
Kansas City Jazz: A Selected & Annotated Discography from the Marr Sound Archives

 

The Marr Sound Archives is also a leader in the field of audio preservation and digitization. The Marr's sound preservation studio preserves modern as well as obsolete audio formats, and its digitizing and RealAudio capabilities allow it to provide world-wide access to sound recorded on almost any analog or digital source.

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Digitization Projects and Online Exhibits

• The Voices And Music Of World War I
  
  A web project conceived in cooperation with the National World War I Museum at the Liberty Memorial in Kansas City, Missouri. Featuring sheet music housed in Special Collections and original sound recordings from the Marr Sound Archives, the website chronicles the American WWI experience through printed music and audio discs of the day. In addition, there is a small section dedicated to spoken word recordings.
  
  The sheet music on this website is part of Special Collections' World War I Sheet Music Collection, which contains over 250 unique titles published primarily from 1914 to 1919. The World War I Sheet Music Collection is hosted online by the Missouri Digital Library.
  

• Musicians Local No. 627 and the Mutual Musicians Foundation: The Cradle of Kansas City Jazz
  
  An Internet Web exhibit on the history of Kansas City’s Local 627, the African-American Musicians Union founded in 1917 and now known as the Mutual Musicians Foundation. The exhibit presents photographs, sound recordings and other historic information documenting union functions, social events and the bands and members of Local 627 who created the internationally recognized Kansas City style of jazz. The exhibit is based upon the 700-piece Mutual Musicians Foundation Photograph Collection held in the Department of Special Collections.
  

• "Voices of World War II: Experiences from the Front and at Home."
  
  A website created to focus on World War II and how it was experienced in Kansas City through the popular media - KMBC radio. The project demonstrates best practices and standards for digitization of archival sound materials.
  

• The Brush Creek Follies: Photos, Sound & Video from the Arthur B. Church KMBC Radio Collection.
  
  For nearly 20 years in Kansas City and across the Midwest, Saturday nights meant a date with KMBC's "Brush Creek Follies."
  
  • This site was selected by Yahoo! Picks as the website of the day for July 18, 2003.
  • Listen to a KCUR-FM program about the Brush Creek Follies, broadcast Feb. 25, 2002. This KCUR production was honored at the annual Missouri Broadcasters Association awards banquet on June 7, 2003. Prepared by reporter Steve Bell, it won second place for "Best Feature Broadcast."
    

• Club Kaycee, a Website devoted to Kansas City jazz history featuring photographs, music and sound files, and additional information about the golden age of Kansas City jazz.

• Nat "King" Cole: The Early Years: 1936-1942.
  
  
  Before his international acclaim as a pop vocalist, Nathaniel Adams Coles built an indelible reputation as a jazz pianist in the groundbreaking combo, The King Cole Trio.
  

• Kansas City History in Sound and Image: Digital Sound Projects at the Marr Sound Archives.

• Resurrecting a 20th Century Musical Giant: The Electronic Music of Raymond Scott.
  
  Raymond Scott (1908-1994) was a pioneer in the field of electronic music, designing several electronic instruments including the Clavivox, Circle Machine, Karloff, and Electronium. Scott's electronic compositions included songs, commercial jingles, and scores for film shorts. Scott was also a pianist and band leader and is noted for his eccentric compositions written in the late 1930s for his six piece Quintette.
  

• Presidential Speeches
  Listen to President Harry S. Truman's Acceptance Speech (www.trumanlibrary.org/audio/48speech.ram) at the 1948 Democratic National Convention, his Radio Address on Democratic Women's Day (www.trumanlibrary.org/whistlestop/womenspeech.ram) September 27th, 1949, and Excerpts from other Presidents' Speeches digitized from recordings in the Marr Sound Archives (a project in support of the Presidential Studies Collection at Miller Nichols Library).
  

Location and Hours

The Marr Sound Archives is located in Room G11, adjacent to the Music/Media Library, on the ground floor of the Miller Nichols Library building at 800 E. 51st Street. The mailing address is 5100 Rockhill Road, Kansas City, Missouri 64110. The Archives is open from Monday - Friday from 8:30 a.m. - 4:30 p.m. Appointments are not required, but are strongly recommended, particularly for large research projects. Hours may vary during intersession and holidays.

Staff Contacts

Any research questions regarding the contents of the Marr Sound Archives and/or any questions regarding access to the materials should be directed to Chuck Haddix, Director of the Marr Sound Archives and Sound Recording Specialist (816-235-2798); Kelley Martin, Library Information Specialist II (816-235-1031); or Charlie Stout, Library Information Specialist I (816-235-1031). Inquiries specific to studio operations and sound preservation also can be directed to Scott Middleton, Broadcast Engineer I (816-235-2798).

Accessing the Collection

Researchers are invited to consult materials in the Sound Archives. Access to over 51,000 recordings in the LP collection is available through the MERLIN Library Catalog by searching the holdings of the University of Missouri - Kansas City Libraries. Information helpful in accessing non-cataloged recordings is available in the Archives' and Music/Media Library's collection of indexes, discographies, OCLC WorldCat and other finding aids. The Archives collection is shelved by format, manufacturer label and issue number. Patrons are asked to request items by label, issue number, performer and format. Staff retrieves all requested items. The collection is non-circulating with on-site listening available in the Archives.

Frequently Consulted Discographical Tools

Reference Services

Appointments are not required, but are recommended strongly, particularly for large research projects. In addition to reference enquiries, the Sound Archives offers library instruction sessions for classes, which must be arranged in advance. Please call Chuck Haddix at (816) 235-2798 to schedule a session. Sessions on the popular music of the Great Depression (1930s) and the Harlem Renaissance are just two examples of how academic courses have benefitted from the services and holdings of the Sound Archives.

Preservation/Recording Services

The Archives' sound preservation studio can reproduce and preserve recordings in the following formats: cylinders, transcription discs, instantaneous cut discs, open-reel tapes, wire recordings, 78s, 45s and LPs. With projects such as preserving the recorded legacy of American composer Paul Creston and the St. Olaf College Choir of Northfield, Minnesota, the Archives is active in the conservation of recorded sound. Visit Kansas City History in Sound and Image to learn more about the Archives' achievements in audio preservation and also how analog sound sources are digitized for remote access on the Internet. Phonoduplication services are restricted to preservation or research purposes within the provisions of the United States Copyright Law and/or other restrictions that may apply to specific collections. The Marr Sound Archives is listed in the directory, Audio Preservation: A Selective Annotated Bibliography and Brief Summary of Current Practices (1998).

News About the Marr Sound Archives

Marr Sound Archives Acquires the Frank Driggs Jazz Oral History Collection.

Past corporate patrons include Merchant-Ivory Films, Capitol Records, Disney/EMM, CBS News, Enja Records and National Public Radio. Notable projects include Ain't Seen Nothing Like It Since, a documentary about the Kansas City Monarchs of the Negro Baseball League for KCPT, Kansas City's public television station; a complete reissue of the recordings of Julia Lee on the Bear Family label of Germany; and reference services for Robert Altman's film Kansas City. The Archives hosts Club Kaycee, a Website devoted to Kansas City jazz history featuring photos, sounds and information.

The Marr Sound Archives was profiled in the new American Library Association publication on sound preservation. The selective, indexed 1998 bibliography is entitled Audio Preservation: A Selective Annotated Bibliography and Brief Summary of Current Practices. The publication comes from the Association for Library Collections & Technical Services (a division of ALA), and covers the preservation of sound recordings of all types from wax cylinders through digital. The document alerts the reader to general works, description and history of media and formats, storage and handling, disaster response, reformatting/re-recording, technical studies and bibliographies, and includes a section on institutions and services offered.

The Marr Sound Archives Bibliographic Conversion / Cataloging Special Project staff in the Technical Services Division catalogs approximately 450 to 600 titles per month. As of June, 2006, the MERLIN library catalog holds UMKC-generated detailed bibliographic information for over 73,557 12-inch LP sound recordings (equaling 78% of the 12-inch collection) and 2590 10-inch LP sound recordings (equaling 90% of the 10-inch collection). 32% of the entire Marr collection has been cataloged thus far. Individual selections on each recording are also accessible in MERLIN using Title or Advanced Keyword searching. Because recordings are shelved by label in the Marr Sound Archives, the cataloging project staff are proceeding by label name. Major labels such as Capitol and London are completed, but smaller labels have also been cataloged. For example, patrons searching for the song The Breeze and I recorded by Betty Miller and Milt Abel on the Foremost label (a Kansas City recording studio) can search the MERLIN library catalog and find a copy of a rare 1958 recording (FML-1001). The MERLIN entry for this recording lists all the selections on the LP, including the song, The Breeze and I.

The Marr Special Projects Cataloging Team continues the cataloging of the Charlie Menees Collection, which now includes over 11,205 sound recordings cataloged and accessible in MERLIN, or 86% of the total Menees Collection. The Team also continues working through the Fred Calland Collection. Over 12,746 items have been cataloged, exceeding 64% of the total collection. And the Team recently finished the project of cataloging Kansas City imprints in Special Collections' sheet music collections, a set of over 660 items of sheet music published in Kansas City from 1874 to 1966. The Team also recently finished another project cataloging over 160 sheet music titles from World War II. Furthermore, a new project is underway cataloging sheet music from the Popular American Sheet Music Collection with emphasis on Kansas and Missouri imprints and composers, as well as approximately 300 titles pertaining to World War I that have been culled from the collection. Wendy Sistrunk is the Special Music Projects Cataloger.

Charitable Gifts to the Archives

The Sound Archives has been built primarily from gifts of major collections from donors including writer and Capitol Records producer, Dave E. Dexter, Jr.; bandleader and composer, Raymond Scott; and St. Louis jazz educator and broadcaster "Cactus" Charlie Menees. If you are interested in donating material or funds to support the Sound Archives, please contact the Director of the Sound Archives, Chuck Haddix (816-235-2798).

The Special Collections Department

The Miller Nichols Library Special Collections Department is a vital resource for UMKC students, faculty, researchers and visiting scholars from throughout the United States and around the globe. Visitors have an opportunity to enhance their research through the examination of original materials including music scores, correspondence, pamphlets, broadsides, and diaries in addition to the books and sound recordings. The Special Collections Department is located in Room 411 on the fourth floor of the Miller Nichols Library. For more information, consult the Department's Web page.