UK Happenings

Concert, Collections Remember Men of Note Contribution to Jazz

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LEXINGTON, Ky. (March 29, 2016) — University of Kentucky Special Collections Research Center will celebrate new collections from the Lexington jazz band Men of Note and member Byron Romanowitz at a dedication ceremony and concert this week.

The big band sounds of Men of Note will take center stage at a concert of music from the band's book of arrangements featuring the UK Jazz Ensemble, under the direction of Miles Osland, professor of saxophone and director of UK Jazz Studies; the UK Repertory Jazz Band, under the direction of Brad Kerns, assistant professor of trombone; and guest performances by members of the popular band itself.

Osland is looking forward to recreating these historic compositions and arrangements in concert with UK students this Thursday, and for years to come. "The collection will be a major resource for all three of our jazz ensembles and the Jazz Studies area at UK."

The concert, which includes a program featuring reproductions from the collection, will begin 7 p.m. Thursday, March 31, at the Singletary Center for the Arts Recital Hall. A reception of cookies and drinks will immediately follow the concert.

Made up of music professors, doctors, lawyers and other career types who also had a passion for music, Men of Note began as a group of friends who enjoyed playing together for fun. Over the years, the ensemble's popularity grew and the band played historic locations and events like the prestigious Greenbrier Inn in White Sulphur Springs, West Virginia, and the inaugurations of Govs. Martha Layne Collins and Wallace Wilkinson, as well as local gigs around Central Kentucky.

"What they furnished to Lexington is high-quality popular and jazz-inflected music produced locally by folks who were involved with music as a vocation or avocation," said Dick Domek, professor emeritus of UK School of Music and member of Men of Note. "The band offered music for listening, dancing, relaxing and celebrating at events like weddings, outdoor concerts, dances, company and private parties, governor’s inaugurations, street fairs, and so on. Their music was enjoyed by a cross section of people of all ages. An organization like that should be — and was — a great source of civic pride for Lexington." 

The Men of Note collections document the long-running Lexington big band's history from 1967 to 2009. Among the materials collected are recordings, performance memorabilia, and the band's book of arrangements, which is actually an historic, passed-down collection of 390 charts dating back to the early 1940s arrangements belonging to five earlier bands.

The collection also includes oral histories. In 2014, Domek teamed up with Gail Kennedy, arts and outreach librarian at the Special Collection Research Center, to conduct interviews with former members of the band. To date, seven interviews have been completed, which focus on the band's recollections of their own history and thoughts on jazz in general. 

A third component of the archival collections is the personal memorabilia of Byron Romanowitz, noted Lexington architect and jazz musician, who anchored the Men of Note beginning in the 1980s until the band's dissolution in 2009. 

Romanowitz's collection comprises two scrapbooks and approximately 200 individual recordings of big band/jazz performances and jam sessions in Central Kentucky, dating from 1941-2015. The recordings are primarily of Men of Note and Jazzberry Jam, but also included UK jazz musicians in the early 1950s. The scrapbooks include photographs, news clippings, marketing/promotional materials, and correspondence.

"The Special Collections Research Center is excited to be able to preserve and share these collections with both the university community as well as with big band/swing musicians in Central Kentucky," said Ruth Bryan, director of technical services and university archivist.. "The collections will be used to study local jazz music, history, and culture from an academic perspective, while community- and academic-based jazz bands will have access to the sheet music sets and recordings to enhance their own playing." 

Romanowitz, who began playing jazz at 11 years old, hopes the public will enjoy the wealth of the collections' resources for years to come. "We donated our music library to UK because it contains some of the best musical arrangements from popular local big bands dating from the 1950s to 2009. We thought that this music had historical significance to Central Kentucky, and that it would continue to hold an appeal for future generations."

UK Special Collections Research Center is home to UK Libraries' collection of rare books, Kentuckiana, the Archives, the Louie B. Nunn Center for Oral History, the King Library Press, the Wendell H. Ford Public Policy Research Center and the Bert T. Combs Appalachian collection. The mission of the Special Collections Research Center is to locate and preserve materials documenting the social, cultural, economic and political history of the Commonwealth of Kentucky.

For more information on the Men of Note Collections or the events surrounding its dedication, contact Gail Kennedy, arts and outreach librarian, at gail.kennedy@uky.edu  or 859-257-4631.

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MEDIA CONTACT: Whitney Hale, 859-257-8716; whitney.hale@uky.edu