Jack Behrens's new book, The Big Band Days: A Memoir and Source Book, pays tribute to the glory days of big band jazz, America's popular music during the early- to middle period of the twentieth century. Behrens composed this book with hands-on experience in big band jazz. As a musician and fan, Behrens met many great bandleaders and musicians who comprised the big bands of the late 1940s and early 1950s. In writing his book, Behrens employed the assistance of the Hamilton College Jazz Archive and its director, Monk Rowe. Rowe supplied Behrens with the book's foreword as well as many quotations about the big band period.
The Hamilton College Jazz Archive was started in 1995 and has been growing ever since. While it primarily serves as a resource for the Hamilton College community, there are a growing number of jazz scholars who are utilizing its vast resources. One of the archive's main features is its collection of 220-plus video interviews with notable musicians such as Lionel Hampton, Herbie Hancock, Joe Williams and Bucky Pizzarelli. The gathering of interviews is an ongoing process, and researchers, students and writers are invited to contact the archive for access guidelines. Along with its many video interviews the archive also includes LPs, CDs, photographs, commercial jazz videos, books and memorabilia as well as a concert documentary filmed in 1997 at Hamilton College with Joe Williams and the Count Basie Orchestra.
