As rumblings of Buffalo’s jazz scene resurface, with a new jazz series such as the one featured at the Pan American Grill and Brewery inside The Hotel @ The Lafayette each Wednesday (Facebook), there is another effort to keep the history of the music genre alive in Buffalo. University at Buffalo is now digitally hosting past issues of Buffalo Jazz Report (BJR), a free newspaper that covered the WNY jazz scene in the ’70s.
BJR was founded by Bill Wahl, and contains important records of the music stores, the venues, the musicians, the concerts and even the local businesses that supported jazz. What was it that made Buffalo and surrounding areas a hotspot for jazz? From the University at Buffalo:
Founded in Buffalo, New York in March of 1974 by Bill Wahl, the Buffalo Jazz Report was a free newspaper distributed at clubs and record stores in the Buffalo, NY area as a service to the local jazz community. It provided record reviews, articles on jazzmen from the area, interviews with visiting musicians, and new album listings. Later issues broadened its focus beyond Buffalo, NY to include Toronto, ON and Rochester, NY.
With the permission of Bill Wahl, the University at Buffalo Libraries host issue 1 (March, 1974) through issue 58 (December, 1978) in the UB Institutional Repository.
The UB News Center has the full story of the newspaper, and the travels of Bill Wahl, who followed his dream from Buffalo to Cleveland and eventually ended up in San Diego where he publishes jazz news online for readers from around the world. It’s a fascinating story about how the jazz scene in Buffalo dried up along with the local industries, and then riding the wave again in Cleveland until that wave crashed…
If you are a jazz fan, and are looking to support the live music scene in Buffalo, come check out trumpeter Jim Bohm and his band Winelight at The Pan American Grill this Wednesday (Hotel @ The Lafayette) from 6:30pm-9pm (FB).
Browse more of The University at Buffalo’s Digital Collections while visiting Buffalo Jazz Report
1901 Pan-Am Expo Music Images
Aerial Photographs of WNY
Animal Behavior
Animal Communication
Archacki Cartoons
Architectural Drawings of the Darwin D. Martin House
Bison Magazine Covers
Black Student Union Newspapers
Buffalo Building Stories
Buffalo Jazz Report
Buffalonian Yearbooks
Case Study Teaching in Science
Clifford C. Furnas Collection
Darwin D. Martin Photographs
Edgar R. McGuire Historical Medical Instrument Collection
Eleanor Steber Collection
Evolutionary Biology Digital Dissections
Gustave Doré Illustrations
Hallwalls Collection
Irene Haupt Photos of Musicians in Buffalo
Iris Yearbooks
J. Warren Perry Photographs
James Joyce Collection
Jan Williams Collection
Jan Williams Photos of Morton Feldman
Jewish Buffalo Image Collection
June in Buffalo Photographs
Just Buffalo Collection
Leo Smit Photograph Collection
Livingston Gearhart Collection
Love Canal Images
Mail Art
Medical Illustrations Collection
Medical Newspaper Clippings, 1901-1906
Morton Feldman Photographs
Music Department Photographs
Music Library Works
North American New Music Festival Archive Photographs
Opinion Newsletter, 1949-2009
Pamela Gearhart Collection
Perry Ballet Photos
Pulp Fiction Collection
Rudy Bruner Awards Digital Archive
Slee Family Collection
Store-Front Churches in Buffalo
Thomas B. Lockwood – The Man and His Library
Universal Design Product
UB Alumni Publications
UB Oral History Collection
UB Sports History Collection
UB Student Newspapers, Argus, the Bee 1921-1950
UB Student Newspapers, Spectrum 1950-1962
The Victor E. Reichert Robert Frost Collection
Welch-Ludwig Collection
William S. Huff Photographs of the Work of Louis Kahn
Yvar Mikhashoff Photographs