Archive of historic jazz recordings available online--for free

The San Francisco-based non-profit Archive.org has made 1,000 hours of early jazz recordings, some dating back to 1921, available online in CD-quality audio. The digital goldmine of jazz rarities is possible because of a high school teacher from New Jersey who started collecting records as a child.

The David W. Niven Collection of Early Jazz Legends, 1921-1991 contains streaming and downloadable WAV files of 650 tapes of rare jazz records Niven collected over the years—complete with JPEG scans of all the cassette liner cards. The recordings also feature Niven’s narration and commentary.

Niven started the collection when he was 10 years old, beginning with a 10-inch 78 RPM of Louis Armstrong’s 1925 Chicago recording of “My Heart.” He added to his collection using paper route money, through his school years before World War II.

He eventually amassed more than 10,000 hours of recordings. The post-war hassle of moving the huge record collection caused him to convert them to cassettes in hopes he could pass on his treasure. In 2010, Niven gifted the collection to the Foxborough (Mass.) High School Jazz Program.

Artists include Jelly Roll Morton, Louis Armstrong, Duke Ellington, Lionel Hampton, Frank Sinatra, Chet Baker, Thelonious Monk, Benny Goodman, Charlie Parker, Barney Kessel, Django Reinhardt, Coleman Hawkins, Stan Getz, Clifford Brown, Bud Powell, Charlie Christian, Billie Holiday, Art Tatum, Dinah Washington, Al Grey, King Oliver, Oscar Peterson, and Bill Evans.

Listen to a report on David W. Niven’s jazz collection on The World and Everything in It.