Jazzinstitut Darmstadt

Bessunger Straße 88d
D-64285 Darmstadt
Tel.: +49 (0)6151 963700
Fax: +49 (0)6151 963744
E-Mail: jazz@jazzinstitut.de
www.jazzinstitut.de

Opening hours
Mon, Wed, Thu 10 a.m-5 p.m.
Tue 10 a.m.-9 p.m.
Fri 10 a.m-2 p.m.

International research and information center on jazz
The city's Jazzinstitut has earned a name for itself in Germany as well as among international musicians and researchers as a premier institution in the archiving, preservation, research and documentation of jazz and its evolution. The Jazzinstitut Darmstadt bridges scholarly and practical demands and regional and international activities, as well as offers a forum for transnational scholarly discourse in order to support the music and the many people who keep it alive. The Jazzinstitut has also earned a reputation in the jazz world for its reliable services answering inquiries of any kind.

• Archives and special collections
  
  
• Exhibitions
  
  
• Research
  
  
• Darmstadt Jazzforum
  
  
• Information center, events, other activities
  
  
• History and location
  
  
• Publications
  
  

The Jazzinstitut Darmstadt holds Europe's largest public research archive on jazz. Among its holdings are substantial donations and acquisitions from private collectors such as Joachim Ernst Berendt, Gerhard Conrad, Hanns E. Haehl, Hans Otto Jung, Evert "Ted" Kaleveld, Peter Köhler, Wilhelm Liefland, Dietrich von Staden, the record label Free Music Production (FMP) and others.

Today the Jazzinstitut Darmstadt holds thousands of books and more than 90,000 items of recorded music which include

• 60,000 LPs,
  
• 16,000 CDs,
  
• 15,000 vinyl recordings (78 RPM records, EPs, and 10 inch records), as well as tapes, videos and DVDs.
  

The periodical collection is one of the highlights of the archive. The collection is comprised of more than 1,000 periodical titles, which equal out to more than 60,000 individual issues of periodical material. It includes jazz periodicals from all over the world, some dated as far back as the early 1920's. About 70 percent of the printed material has been entered into Jazz-Index, a computer based bibliographical tool used by researchers from all over the world. This service is available through the Jazzinstitut free-of-charge per e-mail request. The sheet music collection of the Jazzinstitut contains musical transcriptions, fake books, instrumental methods as well as some band and orchestra scores.

The Jazzinstitut is a public archive, open to anybody. Visitors are invited to glance at the latest issues of about sixty different jazz periodicals from all over the world, listen to records (LPs and CDs) or obtain information on jazz events (jazz clubs, festivals, workshops) all over Germany. Aside from jazz they will also find information about related musical styles such as rhythm 'n' blues, latin jazz, salsa as well as electronic and improvised music.

During recent years we have been able to organize exhibitions making use of the many historical photographs, posters, rare private correspondence and notes found in our collection. "Jazz Changes" exhibits the development of jazz from its origins to the present on eleven large sized panels. Other historical exhibitions and book projects document various local scenes like the one in Darmstadt or the development of jazz in the city of Frankfurt.

Besides being a documentation center, the Jazzinstitut undertakes research projects of its own as well as in collaboration with other institutions. The Jazzinstitut initiated an oral history project on German jazz, and, together with Hessischer Rundfunk and the city of Frankfurt, published an extensive book on the development of jazz in Frankfurt ("Der Frankfurt Sound - Eine Stadt und ihre Jazzgeschichte[n]") [Frankfurt Sound. A City and its Jazz Histories]. The Jazzinstitut is represented in international and national advisory boards, among them: the International Voting Panel for Jazz at Lincoln Center's Ertegun Jazz Hall of Fame (New York), the Smithonian Institution's CD series "Smithsonian Collection of Classic Jazz" (Washington, D.C.), the editors' board of University of Michigan Press' jazz book series, and the music advisory council of Goethe-Institut (for the German Ministery of Foreign Affairs). Together with several partners, the Jazzinstitut Darmstadt initiated a research project on European jazz history, which will lead to an English language book publication.

The Darmstadt Jazzforum is a biannual conference on jazz. A symposium brings together jazz researchers and musicians from all over the world to exchange opinions, experiences and papers and act as a forum for the public. An accompanying concert series explores the musical aspects of the conference's topic. Since 1989 all conference papers are published in the book series "Darmstädter Beiträge zur Jazzforschung".

10th Darmstadt Jazzforum (October 4 to October 7, 2007)

The Jazzinstitut Darmstadt is not just a center for scholarly research; anybody interested in the music is welcome. Our website www.jazzinstitut.de provides one of the most extensive and comprehensive online compilations of national and international jazz addresses.

Every other year the Jazzinstitut publishes "Wegweiser Jazz" [The Jazz Pathfinder], a directory of jazz clubs, venues, festivals, record labels, agencies, and media in Germany. The Jazzinstitut can be contacted for answers to all sorts of questions and inquiries from musicians, concert promoters, agents, researchers or just plain old music lovers. Our mission is to provide contacts, give information about public funding, answer "jazzological" inquiries and be active participants in the ongoing international discourses about the music, its mystique and impact.

The Jazzinstitut established its own concert series in the intimate concert space built in the cave underneath its current residence. For a series entitled "JazzTalk" we invite musicians for a concert followed by a public interview onstage highlighting their aesthetic ideals, influences, the troubles of working musicians and the directions in which they see the music moving. An annual workshop called "Jazz Conceptions" brings young musicians to Darmstadt for a week in order to work together with renowned teachers.

In 1983 the city of Darmstadt acquired the private collection of well known German jazz critic and producer Joachim Ernst Berendt's records, books, periodicals, photographs and much more. This and further material led to the exhibition "That's Jazz. Der Sound des 20. Jahrhunderts" [That's Jazz. The Sound of the 20th Century] shown in 1988 at Darmstadt's Museum Mathildenhöhe and documented in an extensive catalogue which to this day is regarded as one of the most thorough and comprehensive books on the history of jazz. As the collection continued to grow, the city founded the Jazzinstitut Darmstadt to become an archive, a research center as well as a place to promote and enrich the German jazz scene with its own projects and regular events.

The Jazzinstitut, founded in September 1990, was at first situated in three narrow rooms on the third floor of the "John-F.-Kennedy-Haus" in Darmstadt. Seven years later, on October 3rd, 1997, the institute moved to its present home: the historic "Bessunger Kavaliershaus". On three floors, the new location offers sufficient work space for visitors. A cellar underneath the archive has become a well utilized concert hall, and thus an ideal and practical counterpart to the theoretical world housed above. A trumpet-shaped weathervane on its roof and a sculpture of the blues harp virtuoso Little Walter in front of the building make its current use visible to everyone.

   http://www.jazzinstitut.de/jazz-publikationen.htm