Frank Driggs

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Frank Driggs
Born(1930-01-29)January 29, 1930
New York, New York
, U.S.
NationalityAmerican
Occupation(s)record producer and archivist

Frank Driggs (January 29, 1930 – September 20, 2011)[1] was an American record producer for Columbia Records and a jazz historian and author, known as well for his collection of over 100,000 pieces of jazz music memorabilia including photographs,[2] 314 oral history recordings[3] and other items.

Biography

Frank Driggs first became enamored with jazz and swing music listening to late-night broadcasts from hotels and ballrooms in the 1930s. A 1952

page.[4] Later he joined with Marshall Stearns, founder of the Institute of Jazz Studies
, and others in documenting jazz history.

In the late 1950s, the record producer

Time-Life Records. In the early 1970s, Driggs and RCA Records producer Ethel Gabriel reissued an acclaimed series of historic big-band, jazz and swing recordings on the RCA Bluebird
label.

Soon after Driggs moved to Manhattan in 1952, he began gathering and saving posters, flyers and ticket stubs, recordings and amateur photographs, providing invaluable information to journalists and music fans decades later that would have otherwise been lost. While much of his collection was publicity stills of Jazz music artists, Drigg's holdings also contained a sizable collection of

movie artists. By 2005 his collection had included over 100,000 images. Many of the photographed are not labeled or indexed since Driggs relied on his own system of sorting and his own personal memory of the musicians in the pictures.[5]

In 1977 Driggs retired from the music industry and afterwards made most of his income from reproduction fees from his collection. Many of his images appeared in the 2001

Flatbush until 2005 when he moved in with the late musicologist and writer Joan Peyser in the Manhattan borough of New York City.[2]

In 2005, Driggs collection of photographs was appraised at $1.5 million [2] and Driggs made provisions for the collection to be donated to Jazz at Lincoln Center after his death.[6]

Driggs died in his Manhattan home on Tuesday, September 20, 2011, of natural causes. He is buried in

Woodlawn Cemetery in The Bronx
, New York City.

Books

References

  1. ^ Ancestry.com. U.S., Find A Grave Index, 1600s-Current (database on-line). Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2012.
  2. ^ a b c Kilgannon, Corey. "...And All That Jazz Memorabilia!", The New York Times, March 1, 2005. Accessed September 12, 2011
  3. ^ "Marr Sound Archives: Frank Driggs Jazz Oral History Collection"
  4. ^ Adler, Jerry. "Jazz Man", Smithsonian.com., September, 2005. Accessed September 12, 2011.
  5. ^ "Photos of Jazz's Memory Lane, for Sale" National Public Radio, March 15, 2005. Accessed September 12, 2011
  6. ^ Tamarkin, Jeff (April 5, 2013). "Jazz at Lincoln Center Acquires Frank Driggs Collection". JazzTimes News. JazzTimes. Retrieved November 19, 2014.

External links

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