Hogan Archive acquires Thomas A. Sancton collection of New Orleans jazz oral histories
The Hogan Archive of New Orleans Music and New Orleans Jazz, a unit of Tulane University Special Collections (TUSC), has recently acquired an archival collection of audio cassette and micro-cassette recordings, and some transcripts, of interviews with traditional New Orleans jazz music artists and participants in 1982, 1990, and 1991. The interviews were conducted in New Orleans for TIME magazine by Thomas A. Sancton, New Orleans-born journalist, educator, clarinetist, and former Paris bureau chief for TIME.
The Thomas A. Sancton collection of New Orleans jazz oral histories is one linear foot, and includes interviews with Alvin Alcorn, Danny Barker, Chef Gerhard Brill, Harold Dejan, Percy Humphrey, Allan Jaffe, Waldren “Frog” Joseph, “Kid Sheik” (George Colar), James Edward “Sing” Miller, Bill Russell, “Kid Thomas” Valentine, and Chester Zardis.
Sancton, who is currently based in France, has written extensively for TIME, Vanity Fair, Fortune, Reader’s Digest, L’Express, Le Point, Le Monde, Le Figaro, and more. He has also authored or co-authored seven books, including Song for My Fathers (2006); Sweet Land of Liberty: America in the Mind of the French Left, 1848-1871 (2021); and The Last Baron: The Paris Kidnapping that Brought Down a Dynasty (2022).
Currently, the collection is closed to the public until all materials have been processed. For more information, contact Hogan Archive curator Melissa A. Weber at mweber3@tulane.edu or 504-247-1807. To learn more about Tulane University Special Collections, visit the TUSC website at library.tulane.edu/tusc, email specialcollections@tulane.edu, and follow them on Facebook and Instagram.
Published July 18, 2022
Photo caption: Tom Sancton (pictured far right) plays clarinet with the Louis James Footwarmers, circa 1965 at Union Passenger Terminal in New Orleans, photographer: Jack Hurley; Hogan Archive Photography Collection PH002031, Hogan Archive of New Orleans Music and New Orleans Jazz, Tulane University Special Collections.
