Bill Dixon Papers
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Abstract
Bill Dixon (1925-2010) was an educator, artist, composer, writer, and jazz musician who played the trumpet, flugelhorn, and piano. In 1968, he became a professor at Bennington College and established the Black Music Division in the 1970s. During his time at Bennington, he taught classes and was the conductor for the Black Music Ensemble. Dixon worked for fifty years as a recording artist, composer, and performer within the avant-garde jazz scene. The Bill Dixon Papers contain material from all facets of Dixon's personal and professional career in music, education, and visual arts. Dixon's music career is represented in the collection through analog and digital recordings of albums, sessions, and performances as well as paper and electronic work files, performance ephemera, and music manuscripts. Dixon's career at Bennington College is reflected in audiovisual recordings and paper files related to Division meetings, class lectures, rehearsals, and musical events. Materials on Dixon's activities outside Bennington College include audiovisual recordings and files related to lectures, appearances, Judson Arts Workshops, the University of the Streets, and his visiting professorship at the University of Wisconsin, Madison. His work as both a visual artist and writer is represented in this collection through artworks, reproductions, exhibition files, publications, and work files for projects including his book L'Opera: A Collection of Letters, Writings, Musical Scores, Drawings, and Photographs (1967-1986). His personal files include photographs, press clippings, interviews, correspondence, and resumes.
Biographical Note
Jazz musician, composer, artist, and educator William (Bill) Robert Dixon was born in Nantucket, Massachusetts in 1925. Around the age of seven, he and his family moved to Harlem, New York. Dixon studied painting at Boston University, the WPA Arts School, and the Art Students League, working in a variety of mediums. Dixon served in the Army during World War II in Germany from 1944-1946, and later studied music at the Hartnett Conservatory of Music from 1946-1951 where he played trumpet, flugelhorn, and piano.
While living in New York in the 1950s, Dixon worked as an international civil servant at the United Nations and helped found the UN Jazz Society. Dixon also worked clubs as a performing musician in Greenwich Village during this time. In 1964, Dixon organized and produced a four-day festival of underexposed talent, the October Revolution in Jazz, including music and discussions, which led to him founding the short-lived cooperative organization of creative improvising New York musicians known as the Jazz Composers Guild.
In 1966, he began a collaborative partnership with dancer and choreographer Judith Dunn, which eventually led to him joining the faculty at Bennington College as a professor. Dixon founded the Black Music Division in the 1970s at Bennington. He assembled and led the Division's faculty and wrote the curriculum until his retirement from Bennington in 1995. While at Bennington, he taught classes in a variety of related subjects including improvisation, composition, and performance. He was director of the Black Music Ensemble. From 1971-1972, Dixon was a visiting professor of Music at the University of Wisconsin, Madison. He retired from Bennington College in 1996.
In addition to his work as an educator, Dixon continued to record music and perform among other improvisational jazz musicians. He played alongside Archie Shepp, Cecil Taylor, William Parker and other musicians of the avant-garde jazz scene. He worked for fifty years as a recording artist, crafting solo music for trumpet, ensemble, dance collaborations, and orchestras. He recorded with record labels RCA, Cadence Jazz Records, and Soul Note, and founded his own publishing company, Metamorphosis Music. In 1967, he composed and conducted a score for the United States Information Agency film The Wealth of a Nation, produced and directed by William Greaves. In 1980, Dixon completed his first tour in Italy, where he would return to record the albums In Italy, Vol I and II, and Considerations, Vol I and II. In 2007, Dixon recorded 17 Musicians in Search of a Sound: Darfur at the New York City Vision Festival to bring attention to the genocide of Sudan's South Darfur region.
Dixon was also an artist working in various mediums including painting, printmaking, drawing, and collage. He often used his visual art on album covers. As an author, he published the book L'Opera: A Collection of Letters, Writings, Musical Scores, Drawings, and Photographs in 1986. He also wrote reviews and articles, and contributed to other books about jazz.
Bill Dixon passed away in 2010.
Arrangement
This collection is organized into five series. The first two series are arranged into three subseries.
Series I. Music
Subseries I.A. Commercial and Studio Recordings
Subseries I.B. Performance Recordings
Subseries I.C. Sheet Music, Work Files, and Performance Ephemera
Series II. Bennington College
Subseries II.A. Class and Lecture Recordings
Subseries II.B. Performance and Event Recordings
Subseries II.C. Teaching and Administrative Files
Series III. Educational Programs and Appearances
Series IV. Visual and Written Artwork
Series V. Personal Files
Files made up of multiple types of records (audio, video, paper, electronic, etc) have a child element for each type of record present.
Scope and Contents
The Bill Dixon Papers (1936-2012) contains audiovisual, paper, and digital materials documenting Dixon's life and work as a jazz musician, composer, educator, visual artist, and writer.
This collection contains material created during his lifetime career as a jazz musician and composer, particularly the free jazz, experimental music, and avant-garde jazz scenes, dating from the 1960s through 2010. Dixon's large collection of analog and digital audiovisual recordings include performances, rehearsals, radio broadcasts, film soundtracks, and album recording sessions. Paper files support these recordings with handwritten sheet music, correspondence, work files, performance ephemera, and still images of practices, recordings, and performances.
Class curricula, lecture notes, and administrative files document Dixon's tenure as a professor at Bennington College from 1968 to his retirement in 1995. Correspondence, notes, and reports document Dixon's role founding the Black Music Division and his involvement with the Black Music Ensemble. Images portray students, faculty, rehearsals and classes. Audiovisual recordings include Dixon's class lectures (1970s-1990s), music lessons and workshops, student and faculty performances, rehearsals, Black Music Division events, and Division meetings.
This collection also documents Dixon's educational appearances and activities outside of Bennington College. Audiovisual recordings, photographs, and paper files document Dixon's lecture series, panels, and workshops. Notable programs include the Judson Arts Workshops, the University of the Streets, and his visiting professorship at the University of Wisconsin, Madison (Fall 1971 to Spring 1972).
Dixon's work as a visual artist is represented in both original artworks and reproductions of his work, which include photography, collage, printworking, painting, and ink and pencil drawings. The collection also contains tools used in art creation such as printing blocks, an etching plate, and linoleum block sheets. Work files contain correspondence, notes, and images of the creation process and finished works.
As a writer, Dixon produced articles, reviews, book contributions, liner notes for fellow musicians' albums, dating from the 1950s to the 2000s. Many of his writings pertain to his experiences as a jazz musician, compositions, and relationships with other musicians. This collection contains original publications and work files on many of his writings. Work files for his book L'Opera: A Collection of Letters, Writings, Musical Scores, Drawings, and Photographs (1967-1986) contain notes, drafts, mock-ups, correspondence, and the book itself. Also of note are his writings concerning his partnership with the choreographer Judith Dunn, with whom he collaboratived in the 1960s and 1970s.
Audiovisual recordings, photographs, correspondence, datebooks, press clippings, resumes, and scholarly works and interviews provide a profile of his life and work.
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Conditions Governing Access
Restricted materials in Series II.A, II.C, and III are notated as such in the record's title. Please contact the Archives with specific questions regarding access to such records. All other materials are open to researchers. Appointments are necessary for the use of manuscript and archival collections.
Conditions Governing Use
This collection is protected by copyright and/or related rights. You are free to use materials in the collection in any way that is permitted by the copyright and related rights legislation that applies to your use. For other uses you need to obtain permission from the rights-holder(s).
Preferred Citation
Identification of item, date; Bill Dixon Papers; MSS 481; box number; folder number or item identifier; Fales Library and Special Collections, New York University.
Location of Materials
Immediate Source of Acquisition
Donated by Sharon Vogel in March, 2017; the accession number associated with this gift is 2017.022.
Born-Digital Access Policies and Procedures
Advance notice is required for the use of computer records. Original physical digital media is restricted.
An access terminal for born-digital materials in the collection is available by appointment for reading room viewing and listening only. Researchers may view an item's original container and/or carrier, but the physical carriers themselves are not available for use because of preservation concerns.
Audiovisual Access Policies and Procedures
Access to some audiovisual materials in this collection is available through digitized access copies. Researchers may view an item's original container, but the media themselves are not available for playback because of preservation concerns. Materials that have already been digitized are noted in the collection's finding aid and can be requested in our reading room. To request an access copy, or if you are unsure if an item has been digitized, please contact special.collections@nyu.edu with the collection name, collection number, and a description of the item(s) requested. A staff member will respond to you with further information.
Appraisal
Materials containing private student information, including Bennington College mid-term and final student evaluations, class lists, and correspondence discussing student performance, were deaccessioned along with audio recordings of Trustee Meetings and 24 blank compact discs. 103 commercial audiovisual recordings that did not feature Bill Dixon's work were separated from the collection.
In June 2023, 7 videotapes were deaccessioned after they were found to be blank tapes or commercial recordings of television programs.
About this Guide
Processing Information
At the time of accessioning, materials were moved into archival housing and described in a spreadsheet to the box level. Born digital items were identified and listed, but not imaged at this time.
In the Summer and Fall of 2022, the collection was arranged and described by two archivists. The collection was divided into series based on record type and arranged intellectually within these series.
In the Fall of 2022, 25 audio reels and 17 audiocassettes were identified as moldy by the Media Preservation Unit. These items are currently isolated from other items by housing them in polyethylene bags with desiccated boards and RH monitor strips. If this strip indicates an RH greater than 50%, the Preservation department should be contacted ASAP. Do not open this packaging without contacting the Preservation Department. 3 audio reels were vacuumed to remove dust. 1 VHS tape and 2 U-matic tapes were reshelled.
730 optical discs and 2 hard drives were forensically imaged, analyzed, and arranged. New York University Libraries follows professional standards and best practices when imaging, ingesting, and processing born-digital material in order to maintain the integrity of the content.
