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Monk Rowe, the Joe Williams Director of the Jazz Archive and lecturer in music performance (saxophone), recently announced the completion of Season 4 of the Jazz Backstory podcast.

April’s news highlights ranged from commentary on the wars in Sudan and Ukraine to postwar African American music in France.

More than 400 video and audio recordings of jazz greats, their band members, critics, writers, and composers retelling their personal histories in the world of jazz comprise the Hamilton College Jazz Archive. Organizing those interviews within major categories of interest and study to capture salient, meaningful, or groundbreaking moments might be an overwhelming task for most.

Major national and regional news organizations regularly interview Hamilton faculty, staff, and students for their expertise and perspectives on current events, and to feature programs and activities on campus.

The Fillius Jazz Archive has, among its more than 400 videotaped interviews, two with jazz great Dave Brubeck, shared here.

As Frank Alkyer, publisher of Downbeat magazine, notes: “The Fillius Jazz Archive [has] been doing righteous work for a quarter century.”

From questioning whether a coup should ever be labeled “good” to protesting recent immigration policies, opinions expressed by faculty appeared in major national publications via essays and letters to the editor throughout the year.

Today marks the 100th birthday of jazz singer Joe Williams (1918-1999), Hamilton honorary degree recipient in 1988 and co-founder of the Fillius Jazz Archive.

Professor of Sociology Stephen Ellingson and Chelsea Wahl ’13 published an article in Qualitative Sociology that draws on 30+ interviews with women in Hamilton’s Jazz Archives and shows how two core cultures of jazz have shaped women’s entry into and success.

Monk Rowe, the Joe Williams Director of the Jazz Archive and Lecturer in Music Performance (Saxophone) will be honored with the 2018 Syracuse Area Music Awards (SAMMYs) Music Educator of the Year award on March 2.