Archives for Wagner - Page 4
William Russell Jazz Collection at the Historic New Orleans Collection
42,500 items tracing the development of jazz in New Orleans that follows the migration of New Orleans musicians to New York, Chicago, California and beyond. William Russell, born Russell William Wagner (1905-1992), was a jazz historian and collector who focused on traditional New Orleans style jazz. The William Russell Jazz Collection documents his lifetime of studying New Orleans jazz and related musical forms such as brass bands, ragtime, and gospel music. Mr. Russell amassed…
Bill Russell All Music Bio
One of the most important writers and historians involved in the New Orleans Revival of the 1940s, Bill Russell had many accomplishments behind the scenes. A violinist who had extensive study in both performance and composition, Russell was with the Red Gate Shadow Players from 1934-40. During that period, he became enamored with New Orleans jazz. He bought and sold records through the Hot Record Exchange, which he ran starting in 1935. Russell was a…
Bill Russell; Historian Helped Launch Revival of New Orleans Jazz
Obituary in LA Times, Aug. 10, 1992 Bill Russell, 87, a violinist and music historian credited with launching a revival of New Orleans traditional jazz. Russell had just completed a biography of Jelly Roll Morton, which took him 30 years to research and write. The American Music Label he founded reissued the recordings of such long-retired musicians as Baby Dodds, Bunk Johnson, Dink Johnson, George Lewis, Jim Robinson and (Wooden) Joe Nicholas. Russell, the longtime…
On William Russell by John Kennedy
In the late 1980’s, with the invaluable assistance of Don Gillespie, I established contact with New Orleans composer William Russell, who had been part of the avant-garde scene in New York in the 1930’s. Apart from isolated performances led by Charles Amrikhanian at the 1984 Cabrillo Festival, Russell’s music was unknown, and some of his works were still unperformed. With my new music ensemble Essential Music, we brought Russell to New York in February, 1990,…
Remembering Bill Russell
by Chris Albertson In my recollections of the 1961 New Orleans "Living Legends" trip, I mention William Russell, the man who was, in good measure, responsible for a 1940s awakening that is often referred to as the "New Orleans Jazz Revival." His bringing trumpeter Bunk Johnson out of an Iberia rice field, buying him a horn and refurnishing his mouth may be apocryphal, but it is still being told some seven decades later. While the…
A Portrait of William Russell
by Michael Slatter In 1905 the first great chapter in the jazz drama was drawing to its close in New Orleans with the approaching mental breakdown of Buddy Bolden. Sadly, this chapter was poorly documented, yet on February 26th of that same year, in Canton, Missouri, a man was born who, in later years, was to do more for the music of New Orleans than any other single individual. Once described, by photographer-lecturer Sam Rosenberg,…
Bill Russell Obituary – The Independent
William Wagner ('Bill') Russell, jazz historian, violinist, composer, producer, born Canton Missouri 26 February 1905, died New Orleans 9 August 1992. ONE OF the most shameful and yet most productive periods in the history of jazz was at the time of the internecine wars between the followers of New Orleans jazz and those of the then new be-bop music. It has never been clear why the former, characterised by sandals and scraggy beards, were known…