During the pandemic, I finished my graduate work in archival studies and got an Advanced Certificate in Archives and Records Management from Long Island University’s Palmer School. This led to two distinct and intriguing part-time jobs as a project archivist. The first, at the Cathedral of Saint John the Divine in New York City, was putting in order, scanning, and digitizing 4,000 Columbarium records. Colum-what? I had to look up the word before I applied for the job. It’s the place where cremated remains of loved ones are stored, in urns contained in niches within a vault. The Cathedral has three beautiful Columbaria and is actively selling niches, so I will return regularly to update the database.

The second is at the Institute of Jazz Studies (IJS) at Rutgers University Newark. IJS is a place dear to me; I visited it often as a researcher for my books on Louis Armstrong, Ella Fitzgerald, and “girl singers,” (Shout, Sister, Shout!). What’s more, I’m working on the Count Basie Family Papers, a collection to which I’m able to bring some knowledge based on having published Dream Lucky: When FDR was in the White House, Count Basie was on the radio, and everyone wore a hat….

Why archivist? The idea came a few years ago, while I was reading the George Washington papers, which had just been published online, for my book Siege. Reading his “General Orders” was a thrill and made me feel as though I were in that makeshift camp sprawled across Cambridge, Mass., in 1775. I wanted to know what it was like to work on the other side of the desk of a research facility, where primary sources like those were acquired, arranged, and made accessible. Archives.

Here's a glimpse into the process of archival arrangement: I open boxes of stuff taken from Bill and Catherine Basie’s last home, in Freeport, The Bahamas, and decide how to arrange the materials so that a researcher will be able to make use of them. Birthday cards, telegrams, household bills, awards to both Bill and Catherine (a dynamo and successful organizer for charities and civic groups), fan mail, music sent in hopes that Basie would perform it, hundreds of photographs…. Also, an organ, a piano, and a rocking chair. My favorite finds so far? A loving letter from Bill to his only child, Diane, who was born with physical and intellectual disabilities. And, from a teetering pile of paper scraps torn from envelopes, the Los Angeles address of singer Peggy Lee.

It's nonfiction and poetry, nearly 100 poems about the start of the American Revolution. Experience the Siege of Boston 1775-76 through the eyes and ears of George and Martha Washington, Henry Knox, private Caleb Haskell, Lieutenant Joseph Hodgkins, neighbor Abigail Adams, and others both well known and obscure. 

And—Jazz Day comes out in paperback in spring 2019.