Willie Ruff as an Oral Historian with Suzanne Lovejoy & Libby Van Cleve: Mondays at Beinecke 9/15/25 скачать в хорошем качестве

Willie Ruff as an Oral Historian with Suzanne Lovejoy & Libby Van Cleve: Mondays at Beinecke 9/15/25

A discussion led by Suzanne Lovejoy, Music Librarian for Research and Acess Sevices, and Libby Van Cleve, Director of Yale University's Oral History of American Music, related to the late Willie Ruff. This talk is in conjunction with the current exhibition at the Gilmore Music Library at Sterling Memorial Library. The exhibit features oral histories recorded by Ruff speaking with other legendary Black musicians and composers. In 1972, Ruff conducted 19 interviews with Bessie Jones, a gospel singer and living repository of African American children’s games and songs. Then, as preparations for the American Bicentennial were underway, he learned that the Rockefeller Foundation was planning a series of 200 recordings that would document the musical history of the U.S. He had to a proposal—to interview a group of jazz giants and to distill those into a long-playing record. Although the recording was never made, the interviews are now part of the Oral History of American Music at Yale and are now part of the present exhibition. It also includes excerpts of Ruff’s film Tony Williams in African and other interviews and photographs. Mondays at Beinecke online talks focus on materials from the collections and include an opening presentation at 4pm followed by conversation and Q & A beginning about 4:30pm until 5pm. Learn more about future Mondays at Beinecke events at our website beinecke.library.yale.edu