Posts by Jessica Wood

Used in talking dolls, phonographs and more, his use of celluloid is considered a major innovation in the recorded sound field.

Now available for research at the Rodgers & Hammerstein Archives of Recorded Sound at NYPL: a book on orchestration and orchestral instruments belonging to Thomas A. Edison.

Join us for concerts and installations that reflect the NYC accordion scene (yes, of course there's one!) and the role of the accordion in performance traditions across the globe.

While compiling a photograph collection for the Library, a volunteer discovers the archives from one of the first-ever jazz festivals. Here's his story and some of the photos.

Get a look at Aretha Franklin's ASCAP membership form, on which she reveals some of her background and tastes. It's also available in person at the New York Public Library for the Performing Arts.

Professor Ryan Ebright, an NYPL Short Term Fellow for 2017-2018, visited the Library for the Performing Arts to study the Meredith Monk Archive.

Newly available at the NYPL Music Division: The Otto Hess Photographs, a collection that includes images rare images of the record manufacturing process, as shown at the Varsity Records factory.

While searching our files on past exhibits at the Rodgers & Hammerstein Archives of Recorded Sound, the 1978 exhibit “My Favorite Recordings, 1921” caught our attention. To our surprise, along with the press release and left-over captions were the exhibit items themselves: letters dated 1921 from notable recording artists to a New York Times education writer named Wilson Fairbanks.

The Music Division has a rich collection of songsters from 1840 through 1888, particularly from the Republican and Whig parties.

New Release catalogs are useful today for researchers looking to determine the year a particular recording was released, and for the range of musical genres covered by a certain record label. While going through a section of EMI catalogs and brochures, we came across an interesting promotion for a geographically-themed LP series.