Oral History of American Music, Yale University

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Aaron Copland (1900-1990), an American composer represented in the
Oral History of American Music collections.
Source:  Wikimedia Commons

Oral History of American Music, Yale University

310 Prospect Street

New Haven, CT

Website:  OHAM

  

The Treasure:  The treasures at the Oral History of Music (OHAM) collections at the Yale University Library are 2,200 audio and video recordings of oral history interviews with great 20th century American composers and musicians.

Accessibility:  The OHAM website lists seven major collections. The first of these, Major Figures in American Music, links to a fairly comprehensive finding aid for researchers. All of the recorded interviews have been transcribed. Summaries of the contents of the oral history recordings are provided on the website for many of the artists represented. Information regarding accessto the recorded material and the transcripts is available on the OHAM website. OHAM is open Monday through Friday from noon to 5.

Background:  There is a long history of documenting folk music through the use of sound recordings, particularly in the years immediately following World War II. By 1950, there were already over 10,000 recordings of folk music in the Library of Congress. The invention of the tape recorder in 1950 spurred even more ethnomusicology activity. But emphasis continued to be on performance recordings rather than oral history interviews.

Charles Ives in 1913.
Source: Wikimedia Commons

The OHAM collections began in 1968 with the Charles Ives (1874-1954) oral history project—an ambitious three-year documentary history project shaped around the recorded reminiscences of 60 people closely associated with Ives, each of them interviewed in-depth. The documentation of Ives’ career as an important American composer set a high standard for the many other oral history projects that followed. In the early years, efforts were made to interview established composers in failing health. As time moved on, the pool of American composers and musicians covered by the OHAM collections grew larger and larger.

Although OHAM’s work began with a composer in the classical vein, a wide variety of music styles were quickly welcomed. Ragtime composer Eubie Blake (1887-1983) was interviewed in 1972, encouraged to recall the vaudeville and jazz scenes in the early years of the 20th century. Pioneering jazz pianist Mary Lou Williams, who composed important pieces for Duke Ellington and Benny Goodman, was interviewed shortly before her death in 1981. Famous classical composers like Aaron Copland and Virgil Thomson were interviewed, as well as groundbreaking avant-garde figures like John Cage. The American musical theater was recognized through interviews with luminaries such as Oscar Hammerstein II and Stephen Sondheim. While popular music is less well represented, there are delightful surprises:  for instance, interviews with Les Paul, Quincy Jones, and Frank Zappa.

In addition to the Charles Ives project, other major OHAM projects involve dozens of interviews focused on Paul Hindemith, Duke Ellington, and even the famous piano manufacturing company Steinway & Sons. The Duke Ellington project encompasses 92 interviews with a broad range of friends, relatives, and artists. The depth of material is staggering—an astonishing wealth of material for researchers to explore.

Currently there are approximately 1,000 American composers and musicians represented by oral history interviews in the OHAM collections. These recordings of the voices of composers, musicians, and fellow travelers illuminate the many paths American music has taken in the past century.

Jazz pianist and composer Mary Lou Williams (1910-1981), circa 1946.
Photo by William P. Gottlieb from the collection of the Library of Congress.
Source:  Wikimedia Commons

Duke Ellington conducting from the piano at the
Hurricane Cabaret in 1943.  Photo by Gordon Parks.
Source:  Wikimedia Commons

Virgil Thomson.
Source:  Wikimedia Commons

Notes from the Editor:  The OHAM collection has several podcasts and interview transcripts available online. Among them is an intense conversation excerpt between the classical composer Virgil Thomson (1896-1989) and interviewer Vivian Perlis on the nature of art and inspiration. As a poet and fiber artist (though admittedly no musician), I found this passage in particular to be deeply resonant:

“I like to make it flow from the beginning, because it hangs together much better that way then if you think of a fine finale and how you are gonna to get there, oh? Because it’s much easier in a continuous flow to cut passages where your inspiration is a little weak or where you repeated yourself unnecessarily. It’s much easier to cut than to add. Anyway I like to begin at the beginning and go straight on.”

Elsewhere, he describes the ideal creative situation as “one in which you write it down as it comes to you very rapidly, and those are likely to be––well, the most inspired passages.”

To conclude with some music (seems appropriate!), here’s Virgil Thomson’s “Suite from The River,” a 1938 score that he wrote to accompany a WPA short documentary on the Mississippi River: