About the Collection
This collection includes audio interviews with jazz musicians, which Bill Spilka conducted backstage and on the road from the 1970s through the 1990s. It also houses recordings of masterclasses and live performances.

Spilka is a professional trombonist, bassist, oral historian, and jazz researcher. He has published as a photographer, with his work appearing in Life Magazine, The New York Times, and Jazz Today. He is also a recipient of funding from the National Endowment for the Arts for his decades-long projects interviewing jazz musicians.

Rutgers University and the New York Public Library house three sister collections to UNLV’s:

— The Bill Spilka Collection of Jazz Videorecordings
New York Public Library, Rodgers and Hammerstein Archives of Recorded Sound, L (Special) 99-13
— Bill Spilka Collection (VHS)
New York Public Library, Schomburg Center (Sc Spilka-1)
— Bill Spilka Collection of Live Performance Audiovisual Recordings
Rutgers University, IJS.0132

Access to Materials
Click on the browse links under Browse this Collection to get started.

Interviews can be streamed or downloaded through this website.

Other items may be listened to in person by special arrangement with the Shaw Center.

Conditions Governing Use
Musical recordings may be listened to only on UNLV’s premises. Broadcasting or copying of these materials is forbidden without the written permission of the proprietary rights holder.

Recorded interviews are accessible directly through this website for research purposes. If quoting information from these interviews, please cite the collection as follows:

Bill Spilka, Recorded Jazz Interviews, Masterclasses, and Performances. Arnold Shaw Popular Music Research Center, University of Nevada Las Vegas, https://asc.unlv.edu/bill-spilka-recorded-interviews-masterclasses-and-performances/.

Administrative information
Collection accepted:
   Kenneth Hanlon (2010–11)

Processed, annotated, published:
   Jonathan Rhodes Lee (2019–22)

Research assistants:
   Brian Marsh
   Molly Redfield

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