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Frederic Ramsey audio recordings

Center for Folklife and Cultural Heritage

Object Details

Shared Stewardship of Collections
The Center for Folklife and Cultural Heritage acknowledges and respects the right of artists, performers, Folklife Festival participants, community-based scholars, and knowledge-keepers to collaboratively steward representations of themselves and their intangible cultural heritage in media produced, curated, and distributed by the Center. Making this collection accessible to the public is an ongoing process grounded in the Center's commitment to connecting living people and cultures to the materials this collection represents. To view the Center's full shared stewardship policy, which defines our protocols for addressing collections-related inquiries and concerns, please visit https://doi.org/10.25573/data.21771155.
Creator
Ramsey, Frederic, 1915-1995
Place
Southern States -- Music
Topic
Blues (Music)
Music -- African-American
African American musicians
Jazz musicians
Jazz -- Louisiana -- New Orleans
Jazz
Provenance
This collection was donated by Frederic Ramsey's daughter Alida Porter in 1996.
Creator
Ramsey, Frederic, 1915-1995
See more items in
Frederic Ramsey audio recordings
Summary
This collection contains open reel recordings made by noted jazz scholar Frederic Ramsey during his tour of the American South in the 1950s.
Biographical / Historical
Frederic Ramsey Jr. (1915-1995), son of painter Charles Frederic Ramsey, was a jazz scholar and author who worked with a number of musicians in the South and the New York/New Jersey area, notably Lead Belly. After receiving a Guggenheim Fellowship in 1953, Ramsey undertook a tour of the South in order to explore and document the African-American music environment. His goal was to record the speech and music of persons at least sixty years of age or older in an attempt to trace the evolution of the musical genre that would become jazz. Ramsey produced a number of recordings for the Folkways label in the 1950s-1960s. [From Jeff: Frederic Ramsey Jr. (1915-1995) was a jazz critic, scholar, fieldworker and record producer. He was the author of a number of books on jazz, including Jazzmen (with Charles Edward Smith) and the Jazz Record Book. He became one of the main producers for Moses Asch at Asch, Disc, and Folkways Records of jazz and blues. Ramsey was one of the first to deploy an open reel tape recorder using it in New York City in 1949 to record Lead Belly in a set of sessions at his apartment, that were to be Lead Belly's last. What was noteworthy about this is that a reel to reel deck allowed one to record a longer recording than the previous 4 minutes on instantaneous discs. This allowed Led Belly to stretch out and do his extended rhymes and longer songs and to tell stories of his life. It was released by Folkways as a 2 LP 2-records each set. Each side was one track so more material could be fit in. The new LP format allowed for Folkways to create anthologies of music with multiple tracks per side. This allowed Ramsey the ability to create a 11-volume anthology of jazz in the early 1950s. It was the first of many anthologies for Folkways. He also received a Guggenheim fellowship in 1954-56 to go to Alabama, Mississippi, and Louisiana to record vernacular African American music. This included field hollers, spirituals, and brass bands. It was Ramsey's desire to find the roots of jazz in early African-American music forms. He recorded hundreds of tapes they make up the bulk of Ramsey Tape Collection. A 10 LP set Music from the South was released from these trips. Also, there was a book Been Here and Gone with his magnificent photographs from the trip. Other notable recordings released by Folkways include an interview album of Baby Dodds, a box set of shape-note singing, and recordings of a, then, teenaged Michael Hurley. In 1975, with other grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities and Ford Foundation, he researched the life of Buddy Bolden. After the death of Frederic Ramsey Jr., folklorist Kip Lornell arranged the donation of Ramsey's tape and record collection to the Smithsonian.]
Extent
8.83 Cubic feet
Date
1945-1959
Archival Repository
Ralph Rinzler Folklife Archives and Collections
Identifier
CFCH.RAMS
Type
Collection descriptions
Archival materials
Citation
Frederic Ramsey audio recordings, Ralph Rinzler Folklife Archives and Collections, Smithsonian Institution.
Arrangement
The tapes are organized and shelved by accession number.
Processing Information
Prepared by Jeff Place and revised by Stephanie Smith.
Rights
Permission to publish materials from the collection must be requested from the Ralph Rinzler Folklife Archives and Collections. Please visit our website to learn more about submitting a request. The Ralph Rinzler Folklife Archives and Collections make no guarantees concerning copyright or other intellectual property restrictions. Other usage conditions may apply; please see the Smithsonian's Terms of Use for more information.
Scope and Contents
The collection includes 400? Open reel audio tapes. They are from Ramsey's fieldwork and various projects, many for Folkways Records. The bulk of the recordings come from Ramsey's fieldwork in Alabama, Mississippi, and Louisiana in 1954-56.
Restrictions
Access to the Ralph Rinzler Folklife Archives and Collections is by appointment only. Visit our website for more information on scheduling a visit or making a digitization request. Researchers interested in accessing born-digital records or audiovisual recordings in this collection must use access copies.
Related Materials
Frederic Ramsey's personal papers are available at Rutgers University Institute of Jazz Studies. Ramsey's photograph collection (many from the same field projects) can be found in the collections of the Hogan Jazz Archive at Tulane University.
Related link
Record ID
ebl-1649109300700-1649109308066-0
Metadata Usage
CC0
GUID
https://n2t.net/ark:/65665/bk5ebc883ed-96f3-4f1b-9e4b-1b8fde86e4f4

In the Collection

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  • September Song/Artistry in Tango

  • Poemontages: 100 Years of French Poetry: Cendrars, Blaise: Prose Du Transsiberien

  • Music from the South, George Herod/Lapsy

  • Goodman SExtet Session

  • Legend of America Intro for Design Association, FEB 04 1963

  • Freight Train Blues/Done Sold My Soul to the Devil (And My Heart's Done Turned to Stone)

  • Music from the South, Horace Sprott

  • World Library of Folk and Primitive Music: Spain

  • Music from the South, Charlie Love

  • After Hours/Three Buckets-O-Jive

  • Afro-American Spirituals, Work Songs, and Ballads

  • Angola Prisoner's Blues

  • Chips' Boogie Woogie/Boogie Woogie Camp Meetin'

  • Ramsey Recordings: Mike Hurley, First Songs

  • O Tahiti/Tupaha

  • Jamaican Cult Music

  • Lead Belly, 1948 (CDR copy, also CDR 307)

  • Oh! Peter (You're So Nice)/Who Stole the Lock

  • Lead Belly Standard School Broadcast, FEB 15 1945 (CDR copy)

  • Ramsey Recordings: Landowska from WNYC

  • Negro Folk Music of Alabama: Rich Amerson 1

  • Ramsey Recordings: Sterling Brown

  • Chicago/The Blues/Today!, Vol. 2

  • Music from the South, Rutledge, SEP 30 1956 (CDR copy)

  • Six and Seven-Eighths String Band of New Orleans

  • Ringtail Blues/Bluin' the Blues

  • Encore

  • Lead Belly's Last Sessions, NOV 05 1948 (CDR copy- also CDR 306)

  • Copenhagen/My Blue Heaven

  • Frank Stokes' Dream...1927-1931: The Memphis Blues

  • 57 Varieties/I Ain't Got Nobody

  • Ramsey Recordings: Mississippi Portrait transcription, NBC News

  • Summit Ridge Drive/Cross Your Heart

  • Topsy/Smoke House

  • Brahms and Mozart, NOV 26 1948

  • Meeting of the James Joyce Society

  • More Folksongs by Burl Ives

  • Lies/Gotta Gimme Whatcha Got

  • Man's Early Musical Instruments

  • Kol Nidre/El Mole Rachmin (fur Titanik)

  • The Siberian Sleighride/Tobacco Auctioneer

  • Sounds of Four Seasons, SEP 28 1967

  • Songs of Tommy Makem

  • Folk Festival at Newport, Vol. 1, 1959 1959

  • Ramsey Recordings: Mike Hurley, First Songs

  • Music from the South, Rev. Lewis Jackson

  • Tom Cat on the Keys/Everybody Step

  • You Oughta Be in Pictures/Muskrat Ramble

  • Ramsey Recordings: Songs and Stories

  • Get 'Em Again BLues/Brush Stomp

  • Sounds of Four Seasons

  • Come Back Sweet Papa/Tiger Rag

  • Kate Smith Sings Folk Songs

  • Swing Low/Ducky Wucky

  • Skid-Dat-De-Dat/Muskrat Ramble

  • Dill Pickles/Tiger Rag

  • It's Monday Every Day/Air Conditioned Jungle

  • Everything Happens to Me/Swing High

  • Music from the South, Horace Sprott

  • Ramsey Recordings: Songs and Stories

  • Saturday Night Fish Fry/Pelican's Hop

  • Sloneczko Na Zachodzie Polka (Sun is in the West Polka)/Oj Swieci Miesac Swieci Polka (Shining Moon Polka) (Filed-album)

  • Let's Pray Together

  • The Real Blues

  • Milton Berle Sings Rodgers and Hart Songs

  • Town Hall Concert Plus

  • New Orleans Function, Pts. 1 & 2

  • The Five-String Banjo Instructor

  • Just One More Chance/Boppin' the Blues

  • Music from the South, Starlight Gospel Singers, MAY 02 1954 (CDR copy)

  • Ramsey Recordings: Mississippi Portrait transcription, NBC N

  • Misc., including children's songs, FEB 21 1960

  • Minuet in Jazz

  • SAB - side 1 (CDR copy)

  • Ramsey Recordings: Mississippi Portrait transcription, NBC N

  • Believe it Beloved/Flying Home

  • Ramsey Recordings: Mississippi Portrait transcription, NBC N

  • In an Eighteenth Century Drawing Room/Boy Scout in Switzerland

  • I'll Remember April/Jumping with Symphony Sid

  • AJR, Rags, MAR 23 1966

  • There'll Be Some Changes Made/These Things You Left Me

  • I Need Ya Like I Need a Hole in the Head/But What are These?

  • Poemontages

  • Ballad Hunter, The: John Lomax , Pt.1 & 2: Cheyenne & Blues

  • Rasmey Recordings: Music from the South, Vol. 2: Horace Sprott, 1, side 2 (CDR copy)

  • Absolutely Free

  • Music from the South

  • Dixieland and New Orleans Jazz

  • Danny Boy/Neal's Deal

  • Music from the South, Eureka Brass Band (CDR copy)

  • Ramsey Recordings: Sounds of Four Seasons

  • Music from the South, Horace Sprott APR 20 1954 (CDR copy)

  • Jerbane Galop/Indiansk Krigdans

  • Montilla Presents a Sampler in High Fidelity

  • Lady's in Love with You, The/Show Your Linen Miss Richardson

  • A Duke Ellington Panorama

  • Ravel Quartet

  • Ramsey Recordings: Mike Hurley, First Songs

  • Chicago Ain't Nothin' But a Blues Band

  • That's What I Like/Crazy World

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Studs Terkel's Weekly Almanac on Folk Music
There are restrictions for re-using this image. For more information, visit the Smithsonian's Terms of Use page .
International media Interoperability Framework
IIIF provides researchers rich metadata and media viewing options for comparison of works across cultural heritage collections. Visit the IIIF page to learn more.
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