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Special Collections and Archives
HARRY JAMES
researched by Music Librarian Christopher Popa
Because The Harry James Orchestra continues to operate, a portion of James' music book is still in use by them.
Meanwhile, "several hundred" orchestral arrangements used from around 1939 to 1969, along with a scrapbook of clippings assembled by George Erff, a member of James' fan club, are at the University of Wyoming's American Heritage Center in Laramie, WY.
And another large collection of scores once used by James' band is held at the University of Southern California in Los Angeles.
James' longtime manager, PeeWee Monte and his wife, Viola, assembled a collection of over 1200 airchecks on 10, 12, and 16-inch transcription discs (64 of the recordings were commercially-released as the 3-CD boxed set, "Harry James & His Orchestra: Bandstand Memories 1938 to 1948" (Hindsight HBCD503), in 1994.
Other memorabilia, such as the stock arrangement of Two O'Clock Jump, shown below, is in the hands of private collectors.
sources:
Entertainment Industry Resources, http://ahc.uwyo.edu/documents/use_archives/guides/
Entertainment_Industry_Resources.pdf.
University of Southern California Libraries, http://www.usc.edu/libraries/archives/arc/libraries/
collections/records/446home.html.
