The James W. Kimball Traditional Music & Dance in NYS Collection
Jim Kimball is a well-known historian who focuses on the music and dance traditions of upstate New York. The James W. Kimball Traditional Music and Dance in New York State Collection is a curated selection of Kimball’s significant research recordings between 1976-2008 as well as earlier materials from various sources. It includes unique interviews and community performances of notable fiddlers, square dance callers, dance musicians, and community members whose knowledge bridges 19th-century repertory to contemporary practice of the tradition.
With more than 700 hours of audio and video recordings, this collection supplies a rich, layered account of cultural music and dance that connects to similar communities across the region, as well as the international phenomenon of American square dance. Furthermore, the interviews and recordings recount changes that impacted rural areas of New York since the 1950s.
Jim Kimball writes: "The focus, if one can call it that, of this collection is traditional music and dance in rural New York State. It’s a collection from tapes and video made mostly in the 1980s to the early 2000s while attending old-time round and square dances, and visiting with both musicians and folks who had a long history of enjoying these events. The collection also includes copies from a few older wire and reel-to-reel tape recordings and earlier New York State sources. If there is a focus on traditional fiddlers and fiddle tunes, long a specific interest of mine, there are also good examples of old time dance tunes being played on other instruments: piano, accordions, mouth organ, guitar, banjos and the like, or sometimes just sung.
"The settings for these recordings vary widely, from grange and fire halls, community centers and parks, folk festivals, fiddlers’ fairs, jam sessions, visits in kitchens and living rooms, riding in a car, telephone conversations, arts council and historical society presentations, etc.—anywhere I might find a good story, some tunes, new dance calls or the like. The quality of the documentation certainly varies greatly. Most is rather informal, with a cassette recorder or video camera set up, turned on and left to record everything that was to be recorded."
Subjects: New York and Pennsylvania
Tags: Albert Dohse, Clarence Maher, Geneseo, Geneseo String Band, Hilton Kelly, Jim Kimball, Mark Hamilton, New York, Roger Knox
Item Relations
| This Item | is related to | Item: Hilton Kelly - Catskill fiddler & caller |
| This Item | is related to | Item: Square Dance and Square Dance Music in Western New York State |
| This Item | is related to | Item: Square-Dance Figures from Northern New York State, 1931 |
| This Item | is related to | Item: Country Dancing in Central and Western New York State |
| Item: Hilton and Stella Kelly - Square Dance Tunes and Calls | is related to | This Item |
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Jim Kimball is a well-known historian who focuses on the music and dance traditions of upstate New York. The James W. Kimball Traditional Music and Dance in New York State Collection is a curated selection of Kimball’s significant research recordings between 1976-2008 as well as earlier materials from various sources. It includes unique interviews and community performances of notable fiddlers, square dance callers, dance musicians, and community members whose knowledge bridges 19th-century repertory to contemporary practice of the tradition.
With more than 700 hours of audio and video recordings, this collection supplies a rich, layered account of cultural music and dance that connects to similar communities across the region, as well as the international phenomenon of American square dance. Furthermore, the interviews and recordings recount changes that impacted rural areas of New York since the 1950s.
Jim Kimball writes: "The focus, if one can call it that, of this collection is traditional music and dance in rural New York State. It’s a collection from tapes and video made mostly in the 1980s to the early 2000s while attending old-time round and square dances, and visiting with both musicians and folks who had a long history of enjoying these events. The collection also includes copies from a few older wire and reel-to-reel tape recordings and earlier New York State sources. If there is a focus on traditional fiddlers and fiddle tunes, long a specific interest of mine, there are also good examples of old time dance tunes being played on other instruments: piano, accordions, mouth organ, guitar, banjos and the like, or sometimes just sung.
"The settings for these recordings vary widely, from grange and fire halls, community centers and parks, folk festivals, fiddlers’ fairs, jam sessions, visits in kitchens and living rooms, riding in a car, telephone conversations, arts council and historical society presentations, etc.—anywhere I might find a good story, some tunes, new dance calls or the like. The quality of the documentation certainly varies greatly. Most is rather informal, with a cassette recorder or video camera set up, turned on and left to record everything that was to be recorded."