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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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  • Mam'selle/Sleepy Time Gal

  • Music from the South: Chickadee, JUN 17 1954 (CDR copy)

  • Fleetwing and Union Volunteer Fire Company, JUN 06 1964 (CDR copy)

  • Yank's Two Day Toot/Sugarfoot Stomp

  • Rough and Ready: Boogie Woogie for Four Hands

  • Jack Armstrong Blues/Rockin' Chair

  • Ramsey Recordings: Windy Williamson

  • Ramsey Recordings: Church Service in Addor

  • NBC Pilot Sync, Horace Sprott JUL 07 1966 (CDR copy)

  • Fietita One-Step/Catalina One-Step

  • Incomparable, The One, The Only Collection of Late White New Orleans Jazz

  • Mississippi Portrait transcription, NBC News, APR 24 1965

  • Today is the Highway

  • ABC Song, Butterfield, East-West, FEB 19

  • For Me and My Gal/Lullaby of Broadway

  • Sousa, J.P.: Washington Post March

  • AJR, poetry readings

  • I Can't Give You Anything But Love, Baby/Sugarfoot Stomp

  • Blues, The, Pts. A & B

  • Music from the South, Suddie Griffins

  • Music from the South, Starlight Gospel Singers APR 20 1954 (CDR copy)

  • Undying Love?/Brown Skin Gal

  • Ry Cooder, MAR 17 1970 (CDR copy)

  • Music from the South, Vol. 10 Master, Been Here and Gone

  • I'll Be Around/Quintessence

  • Walkin' Away with My Heart/What Did You Put in That Kiss

  • Morning Star Baptist Church, JUN 17 1954 (CDR copy)

  • Ramsey Recordings: Sterling Brown

  • Lead Belly (CDR copy)

  • Chicago Blues/31st Street Blues

  • Music from the South, Horace Sprott

  • Passe/These Foolish Things (Remind Me of You)

  • Beethoven, Ludwig v.: Irish Songs

  • Misc., including Fritzie the Lineman, 1950 (CDR copy)

  • The Fabulous Eartha Kitt

  • Diminuendo in Blue/Crescendo in Blue

  • Noels, French Christmas Carols (CDR copy)

  • Ragging the Nursery Rhymes/On the Honeymoon Express

  • Eagle and the Lion March/French National Defile March

  • Ramsey Recordings: Mike Hurley, First Songs

  • Good Scout One-Step/Universal Fox Trot

  • Sweetheart of Sigma Chi, The/Copenhagen

  • Music from the South, Louis Jones

  • Korea: Folk and Classical Music

  • Music from the South, Wilson Boling

  • Music from the South, George Herod/Lapsy MAY 08 1954 (CDR copy)

  • Ramsey Recordings: Landowska from WNYC

  • Mississippi Portrait transcription, NBC News, APR 15 1965

  • Ramsey Recordings: Mississippi Portrait transcription, NBC N

  • Sweet Sue, Just You/Singapore Sorrows

  • Ramsey Recordings: Sterling Brown

  • Ramsey Recordings: Mississippi Portrait transcription, NBC News

  • April Showers/Rock-a-Bye Your Baby with a Dixie Melody

  • Nine-String Guitar Blues

  • Mexican Bird Songs

  • dub of WHBI - Nellie Lind, Geneva Hope, JUN 26 1949

  • Hootenanny at Carnegie

  • The Immortal Johnny Dodds

  • This is Jimmie Rodgers 1973

  • Sterling Brown (CDR copy)

  • Ramsey Recordings: Marcia Charry

  • Don't Be That Way/One O'clock Jump

  • Ramsey Recordings: Mississippi Portrait transcription, NBC N

  • Schochnei Butei Choimer/Al Tiro Mipachad Pisom

  • Poemontages, NOV 26 1948

  • Blues Project, Blues Improvisation , OCT 1966 (CDR copy)

  • Wheels

  • Music from the South, Louis Jones (CDR copy)

  • Six and Seven-Eighths String Band of New Orleans (CDR copy)

  • Tell Me, Daddy

  • I Want to Be Loved (But Only By You)/Limehouse Blues

  • AJR, Viriginia Woolf monologue

  • The Grateful Dead

  • Music from the South, Small High Society

  • Ain't Misbehavin'/Exactly Like You

  • Sounds of Four Seasons, OCT 06 1967

  • I'd Rather Be the Girl in Your Arms (Than the Girl in Your Dreams)/Sunday

  • Music from the South, Horace Sprott

  • Ellington Special

  • Ramsey Recordings: Mamas and Papas - `Boys and Girls'

  • Meet the Beatles

  • Mississippi Portrait transcription, NBC News, MAY 02 1965

  • When the Saints Go Marching In/Do You Know What it Means to Miss New Orleans

  • Music from the South, Horace Sprott, APR 10 1954 (CDR copy)

  • When You and I Were Young, Maggie/Really the Blues

  • Gold Rush Daze

  • Music from the South, Huff Cabin

  • Sounds of Four Seasons, JAN 04 1965

  • Music from the South, Horace Sprott

  • Ken Stone, MAR 08 1965 (CDR copy)\

  • Music from the South, Huff Cabin

  • Sepia Panorama/Harlem Air-Shaft

  • Ramsey Recordings: Mississippi Portrait transcription, NBC N

  • Old Fashioned Love/I Surrender, Dear

  • Basin Street Blues/Flamingo

  • Hamlet

  • King Size Papa/When Your Smiling (The Whole World Smileswith You)

  • Ramsey Recordings: Sterling Brown

  • I Wanna/Soprano Boogie

  • Mike Hurley, First Songs MAR 26 1964

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Studs Terkel's Weekly Almanac on Folk Music
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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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