Communications - Film and Audio Recordings
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Item Bill Dixon Interview(1975-05-15)Topics: Part One History of Black Music in United States, George Gershwin, the popularity of jazz in Europe, the role of historians and critics in art, writing and conducting a score for a United States Information Agency film in 1967 (The Wealth of a Nation, produced and directed by William Greaves) the Black esthetic, improvisation. “…in the West, we have come up with the idea that like, composition as we define it, is the highest order and improvisation has to come less than that. Now we know that Bach, Beethoven, Haydn, Mozart were all incredible improvisers, we know that from history, you know, because the music, before people became so caught up with notation, that was the way people did music. The way improvisation has functioned in Black Music, it has not been an adjunct, it’s been the music.” Topics: Part Two His work at the United Nations, musical influences, writing music, the role of Black Music in academia, the nature of art, and his teaching philosophies. “I have sort of fantasized and said that like for every society that has an overt musical display there must people in the society like I am in this one, that functions in another way, without the endorsement of the society.” Part Two Topics: His work at the United Nations, musical influences, writing music, the role of Black Music in academia, the nature of art, his teaching philosophies. Topics: Part Two: “I have sort of fantasized and said that like for every society that has an overt musical display there must people in the society like I am in this one, that functions in another way, without the endorsement of the society.”Item Bill Dixon Interview(1973-05-15) Dixon, BillBill Dixon interview - May 1973. Topics include: 0:52 his childhood growing up in Nantucket, MA and 6:48 Harlem, NYC, 13:44 his school P.S. 89, 22:00 seeing Louis Armstrong play, 24:48 getting his first instrument at age 16, 25:00 attending art school, 32:00 hearing bands at the Apollo, studying music at age 20, 42:53 racism, 43:08 his time in the US Army, 44:00 studying at the Art Students League, 44:16 the GI Bill, 54:00 working on a retrospective of his work,1:01:20 relationships with other musicians, the elusive quality of happiness, playing at Cafe Bohemia and Birdland, and planning the Black Music Festival at Bennington College.Item A Life at Bennington: An Interview with Rebecca B. Stickney '43(2006-05-25) Pritchett, ElizabethFootage was excerpted from a longer oral history interview with Rebecca Stickney '43.