Another visit to the SAJA in Adelaide

My third visit to the South Australian Jazz Archive in as many months saw me attending its AGM and another book club meeting, as well as conducting interviews with committee member and current Treasurer, Bill Wood, and his wife and SAJA volunteer, Kerry Wood. I also met with Mal Eustice who, with Pam Swanson, founded the “PAMAL Archive Research Museum” and who regularly donates artefacts to the SAJA’s collection.

Are DIY archives sustainable?

I had hoped to make it back to Germany later this year to visit Jazz Museum Bix Eiben Hamburg and so was sad to learn of the museum’s recent closure. Once again this year (see my post from 29 January 2013) the issue of the sustainability of DIY archives has been brought to the fore.

Return visit to the SA Jazz Archive: the Graham Eames Tribute Concert and the SAJA Book Club

This week I made a return visit to the South Australian Jazz Archive. This was a jam-packed two days beginning with an interview with the Archive’s current president and archivist, Don Hopgood, who was a catalyst in the SAJA’s founding. 

Word cloud emerges from early coding of jazz archive interview data

The coding of interview data has begun! 

Capturing a moment in time: a visit to the South Australian Jazz Archive

Earlier this week I made a visit to the South Australian Jazz Archive in Adelaide, South Australia. This archive is a little younger than the Victorian Jazz Archive (the largest of Australia's DIY jazz archives), having been founded in 2003/4. Run entirely by volunteers, the archive seeks to preserve, collect, catalogue and display material that pertains to ‘the origin and development of the various styles of jazz, swing, and “hot” dance music in South Australia to the present day’, including material relating to ‘relevant performances and recordings by South Australian musicians in South Australia and elsewhere in the world’. The archive’s catchphrase is “Saving and celebrating our jazz heritage”.