The Center for Black Music Research Collection contains materials that reflect many areas of Black music including collections from composers, ethnomusicologists, music researchers, music journalists, and also scores, published music, and audiovisual collections across all genres. These collection guides, or finding aids, provide access to materials held in archival special collections. The guide describes the organization and offers content information so researchers can discover relevant information.
Many musical works listed in these guides are handwritten; those listed with a publisher's name are printed. Please check the guides for more information.
Additional guides will be added as they are completed..
Please contact archives@colum.edu with questions.
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Guide to the Cheryl A. Wall Collection of Margaret Bonds and Florence Price Manuscript Scores
Margaret Bonds and Florence Price
Cheryl A. Wall was a literary critic and English professor at Rutgers University who donated three manuscript scores to the CBMR – Troubled Water by Margaret Bonds with a handwritten autobiographical sketch by the composer on the back and two works by Florence Price, Negro Fantasy and Concerto in One Movement for three pianos. The Bonds score was given to Cheryl Wall by the composer and the two Price scores belonged to her aunt, Nannie Strayhorn Reid, a classical pianist and teacher in Chicago, Illinois.
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Guide to the Coleridge-Taylor Perkinson Collection
Columbia College Chicago
Coleridge-Taylor Perkinson was a composer, conductor, and pianist who composed classical, jazz, and popular music containing elements of spirituals, folk music, and blues. He was founding member and associate conductor of the Symphony for the New World, and had a long career as a composer includes activities in classical music, jazz, and film and television. The collection consists of scores, a scrapbook, programs, and publicity about his career from 1949 to 2004.
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Guide to the Collection of De Paur Chorus Materials
Columbia College Chicago
The Collection of De Paur Chorus Materials is small and holds sound recordings, photographs and ephemera documenting the De Paur Chorus and its activities, primarily during the early 1950s, a chorus established by Leonard de Paur.
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Guide to the Collection of Gerhard Kubik and Moya Malamusi papers
Columbia College Chicago
This collection is simply a small sampling of the field research of both Dr. Kubik and Dr. Malamusi, including offprints of articles and photographs, sound recordings and publications documenting their work. Of particular interest are the videotaped recordings of African dance and music and the small collection of photographs taken primarily in the 1960s in Angola, Cameroon and Mozambique, among others, and the typescript for an essay entitled “African Elements in Jazz,” in addition to other writings.
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Guide to the Collection of Lillian Evans Tibbs Materials
Columbia College Chicago
Lillian Evans Tibbs was professionally know as Madame Lillian Evanti and this collection of materials consists of photographs of her in costume for various opera productions and a six-page manuscript of her autobiography prologue given as a speech in Chicago at the Century of Negro Progress Exposition in 1963.