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How To Use this Site

 

Research Techniques

This site is designed as a celebration of Dan Morgenstern's life and work. While the enjoyment factor is a major element, there are interesting and specific ways to "cross reference" with surprising results. 3 Examples follow.

  1. Large scale search: With a large topic, Duke Ellington for instance, use the browser find function to search pdfs and the closed captions [cc] in YouTube videos.
    • Search the Interviews>Smithsonian/NEA Jazz Master Morgenstern Interview pdf for "Ellington". Find where Dan brought sixty Ellington 78s with him when he migrated to the U.S. in '47. 
    • Search the Interviews for Dan's 5 part interviews on Ellington.
    • Open a YouTube video and toggle "Open transcripts": (see how below) YouTube Open Transcripts
    • Use the browser find function to search the text of the interview.
    • Go to Album Covers - Record Reviews and find the 4 Ellington albums that Dan reviewed as Downbeat editor.
    • Go to About Dan Morgenstern and "browser find" "Ellington" to find the link to "Anthology: The Duke Ellington Reader", which Dan was a major contributor. Product details show the ISBN number. You can find this book in your library.
    • Go to Articles and find "Down Beat under Dan Morgenstern — A Bibliography", by Michael Fitzgerald. "Browser find" "Ellington" to find 69 more Downbeat articles, either submitted by contributors, and edited by Dan, or written by Dan.
       
  2. Small scale search: Search a name you may not know, ex. the drummer, "Zutty Singleton".
    • Go to Lectures. Open the pdf for Dan's Library of Congress lecture on "Louis & Lil: A Couple Making Musical History" and find the single reference to Zutty.
    • Go to Interviews and find Dan's conversation about Zutty. Search the transcript for Zutty (you have to find it misspelled "zooty").
    • Go to Loren Schoenberg's History of Jazz Drums to find drummer Mel Lewis' 90 minutes of discussion about early drummers, including Zutty.
       
  3. Music search: Search a music title or a "contrafact" (do you know what a contrafact is?)
    • Go to Artists.
    • Find & Open the YouTube video on Tadd Dameron.
    • Open it full screen by clicking on the word "YouTube" under the video.
    • Open the transcript on the screen's right side, as explained earlier. 
    • "Browser find" "contrafact". **Click on the word contrafact in the transcript and the video will jump to that spot.
    • Read and listen to Dan explain that both Tadd Dameron and Fats Navarro were very fond of the jazz standard "Out Of Nowhere". Tadd wrote "Nostalgia", a really beautiful take-off, a "contrafact", a tune based on another. Tadd wrote 2 contrafacts on "Out Of Nowhere". He also wrote "Casbah".
    • Search YouTube for "Nostalgia" or "Casbah" Tadd Dameron. Transcribe the head. This tune is not in any fake books. You can play Tadd's contrafact melody and improvise over the familiar changes on "Out Of Nowhere".