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Special Collections and Archives
DESI ARNAZ
researched by Music Librarian Christopher Popa
Around 1997, Desi Arnaz's daughter, Lucie, reportedly "found a cache of the old charts"
[ i.e., some of the musical arrangements used by her father's big band ].
The official repository for Arnaz materials is the "Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz Collection" at the Library of Congress in Washington, DC. It includes about 300 of his band's arrangements and some 100 recordings, in addition to 85 scrapbooks kept about their lives and careers.
The "Marco Rizo Papers," at the New York Public Library in New York City, also contain some references to Arnaz. Rizo was a former piano player and arranger with Arnaz's band.
Other memorabilia, such as the 1963 photo of Arnaz shown below, is held by private collectors.
sources:
David Diehl. E-mail "Re: Desi Arnaz and His Orchestra," Sept. 30, 1997.
Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz Collection, http://lcweb2.loc.gov/diglib/ihas/loc.natlib.scdb.
200033665/default.html.
New York Public Library Web Server, http://catalog.nypl.org/record=b16031699.
