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THE LOST MUSEUM
JAZZ EXPOSÉ: THE NEW YORK JAZZ MUSEUM AND THE POWER STRUGGLE THAT
DESTROYED IT
52 Reasons to Read This Book (see – www.NYJazzMuseum.com) –site down for updates

Cadence Magazine April 2005

BOOK LOOK

JAZZ EXPOSÉ: THE NEW YORK JAZZ MUSEUM AND THE POWER STRUGGLE THAT DESTROYED IT by Howard E. Fischer (Sundog Ltd., 134 pages. $15) is a fairly exhaustive account of the first Jazz museum in the country (discounting, Fischer says, a contemporary museum in New Orleans whose scope was far more limited). The NYJM had its beginnings in the New York Hot Jazz Society, which Fischer, an attorney, incorporated in 1967; their first concert presentation was the Count Basie Alumni Band, in the following year. They also began publishing a monthly newsletter in 1969, and Fischer inserts some of its Jazz-related “News Items” throughout the book (from which we learn that “April 7th to 11th (1969) was Jazz Week on the Captain Kangaroo show on CBS-TV,” whose guests included Willie “The Lion” Smith and the Wilbur DeParis Band!) The actual Museum opened in June 1972 on West 55th Street, with Fischer guesting on the Today Show the morning of the preview party (interviewed by Joe Garagiola and Frank McGhee) surrounded by media coverage that would be impressive even 30 years later. Fischer even subsequently appeared on To Tell Then Truth, as the prize bounty to be identified as “the real Howard Fischer, founder and Executive Director of the New York Jazz Museum.” Although the Museum would go through several more location changes, and receive grants from the Ford Foundation and The National Endowment for the Arts, serious internal squabbles between board members, and funding difficulties, eventually resulted in Fischer being fired as Executive Director, and the Museum finally closed in 1977. Fischer’s story is an eye-opening account of the legal hassles and business strategies endemic to such ventures, but is also full of great jazz stories involving many major musicians of the early and mid-1900’s who were still flourishing at the time.

Have you ever heard of the New York Jazz Museum? Most people have not.
Yet between 1972 and 1977 it was the most significant institution for
jazz in the world! This book looks back to present the story of a Lost Museum.
It was situated in its own two-story building in mid-town Manhattan
and had a small staff, an archive that eventually numbered about 25,000
items and extensive programs in New York City and beyond. Some of the
programs won awards and most of them were received with widespread
acclaim in the media and from jazz fans. There were the Calvert Extra Sunday Concerts – 40 per year, the Jazz
Puppet Show, the Jazz Film Festivals, the Jazz Panorama – an audio
visual history of jazz, The Jazz Store, Information Center, the exhibits
- Louis Armstrong, Duke Ellington, Benny Goodman, Bird & Diz: The Bebop
Era, Count Basie and His Bands, Billie Holiday Remembered, About John
Coltrane and the Jazz Trumpet. Posters and booklets were produced in
conjunction with the exhibits and there was so much more. An extended power struggle ensued that eventually caused the Museum’s
demise. Entangled in the fatal conflagration was the “Jazz Fraternity,”
which included the most prominent names in jazz – musicians, producers,
writers, artists, et al.
This book tells the whole story for the first time. It was written by
Howard E. Fischer, founder of the Museum and its Executive Director.

Title – JAZZ EXPOSÉ: THE NEW YORK JAZZ MUSEUM AND
THE POWER STRUGGLE THAT DESTROYED IT
Author – Howard E. Fischer
5 ½ x 8 ½ Paperback 134 pages illustrations
ISBN: 9781932203875

Contact: (212) 579-0689
Web site: http://www.NYJazzMuseum.com (site down for updates)
Discounts for 5 or more copies – please inquire.

Price: $15 + $3.95 (shipping in USA; foreign please inquire) = $18.95

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Howard Fischer
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Suite 404
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USA