A MUSEUM OF MEMORABILIA

Would you care to see Miles Davis’ first trumpet? Bobby Hackett’s cornet? Eddie Condon’s guitar? Do you want to see what Down Beat had to say about Charlie Parker in 1947? Or find an early photograph of Mary Lou Williams? Would you like to inspect the arrangements used by Muggsy Spanier’s big band?

These are just a few of the almost limitless options open to anyone who plans a visit to the Institute of Jazz Studies, the world’s foremost reference-library-cum-museum for students, musicians and inquisitive laymen.

The institute owes its existence to the late Marshall Stearns, who was a professor of medieval literature at Hunter College but, unlike most professors of medieval literature, had a profound knowledge of jazz and began collecting books, records and odd memorabilia at his home in Greenwich Village. This became an official organization in 1952, with a group of critics, collectors and devotees helping to organize the files.

In 1966, a year before Stearns’ death, the institute arranged for Rutgers University to become its permanent home. Today, its rapidly swelling reference materials can be found in Bradley Hall, a building near Rutgers’ Newark campus.

A recent visit to the institute found Dan Morgenstern, its director since 1976, busy compiling new facts and figures. Edward Berger, co-author of the two-volume work “Benny Carter: A Life in American Music” (Scarecrow Press, 1982), is his assistant; a librarian, Vincent Pelote, and a secretary complete the staff. “But we have several students who come in now and then to help out,” said Morgenstern, a respected critic who came to prominence as editor of Down Beat in the 1960s.

“Right now, our record collection runs to about 75,000,” he added, “but that’s not counting thousands more that have to be sorted and indexed. As you see, we have a 78 rpm record player; a cleaner that takes the grit out of records and really cleans up the sound, and a player piano complete with old piano rolls by people like Fats Waller.

“Our files are becoming more extensive daily. We have thousands of magazines, domestic and foreign; some were in such precarious condition that we had them transferred to microfilm. Then there are our photo files, and the jazz books--well over 3,000 at last count.”

The IJS, which has always been a nonprofit foundation, has relied on grants from the National Endowment for the Arts and the National Endowment for the Humanities to keep going. One of its most ambitious ventures has been an oral history of jazz. Interviews, all at least five hours long, have been conducted with 120 musicians, many of them pioneers who have since passed on: Count Basie, Charles Mingus, Jo Jones and Teddy Wilson were among the subjects. “We’ve had any number of authors and doctoral candidates, as well as film and TV producers, at the institute to examine transcripts of these interviews,” said Morgenstern.

According to Berger, the institute attracts a constant flow of inquiries, many by telephone, as well as in-person visitors who have heard about the IJS and traveled many miles to dig up material for a biography or educational project.

“We’ve had visitors from Siberia,” Berger said, “who brought some Soviet jazz LPs with them. The president of the University of Lagos Jazz Club is due here from Nigeria soon.

“Here’s a typical bunch of requests: A writer from West Germany wants to look up material for a biography he’s doing on Bill Evans. A bass student is checking out facts for a dissertation on the evolution of the bass. Two people were here to find out biographical information for a Grove’s Dictionary of Jazz that’s coming out late in 1988.”

While we were talking the phone rang. Morgenstern picked it up, talked for a while, then told us: “That was Roy Eldridge. He received a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts, and they want a letter showing what he’s done with the funds. Like most musicians, Roy doesn’t like to deal with bureaucracy, so he comes to us for help.”

“One of the oddest calls we’ve received,” Berger said, “was from a doctor who needed information on music--I guess he meant lyrics--dealing with mental illness. But much of what we get here consists of high school students working on a paper. We’ve had a lot of graduate students from Europe. Some scholars stay here all day for periods ranging from days to weeks, seeking out everything from an introductory overview of jazz all the way up to the most esoteric topics.”

That the IJS is a museum as well as a library becomes evident with a glance at some of the more arcane artifacts: an original Edison record player, a Pathe hill-and-dale phonograph (“We had them reconditioned so they really work,” Morgenstern said), and a collection of the weird instruments played by the late Rahsaan Roland Kirk.

“Look at this,” said Berger. “A set of issues of Music Dial. That’s a magazine that was published by a group of black musicians from 1943 to 1945.”

“These are so rare,” Morgenstern added, “that even the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture in Harlem doesn’t have them.”

The good work of the IJS transcends its own physical boundaries. Often it will help faculty and students at Rutgers and other colleges and universities in research and in the preparation of classroom materials. Since 1979, the institute has hosted a weekly jazz program called “Jazz From the Archives,” on WBGO-FM, the Newark associate of National Public Radio.

The IJS decided some years ago to take a plunge into the perilous world of book publishing. In association with Scarecrow Press in Metuchen, N.J., it has produced the Benny Carter work by Berger and his late father, as well as “Art Tatum: A Guide to His Recorded Music,” by Arnold Laubich, and “Erroll Garner: The Most Happy Piano,” by James M. Doran, comprising interviews with Garner’s friends and family and a complex discography.

The institute publishes the Annual Review of Jazz Studies, which it claims is the only scholarly jazz periodical in the English language (and, it might be added, probably in any language). The essays in the review offer a reminder of how much deeper certain scholars are ready to probe beyond the often superficial level of the popular jazz magazines.

Morgenstern typifies this admirable breed. When not busy with the institute, he occupies his time writing many of the most valuable album notes to be found in the LP annals (he has won several Grammies for his efforts); he is a former officer and present trustee of the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences, and has to his credit a book called “Jazz People,” now regrettably hard to find.

“Don’t forget,” he said, “the institute is open weekdays, but it’s by appointment only. Or tell people they can call us at (201) 648-5595. They can’t see our photo files that way, but at least we can tell them what year it was that Jelly Roll Morton wrote ‘King Porter Stomp.’ ”