The Brubeck Collection At Wilton Library Launches Digital Archive

WILTON, CT — This week, one of the world’s premier jazz archives, The Brubeck Collection at Wilton Library, announced the launch of its enhanced and interactive digital archive, making the 22,000-plus item collection catalog easily searchable and browsable online for the first time to everyone worldwide. This new digital archive also includes more than a thousand digitized photos, recordings, scores, and documents.

This robust collection, established by Dave Brubeck and his wife, Iola, features unreleased music, interactive tour maps, photos, correspondence, concert programs, posters, and song timelines, from the biggest–selling jazz single of all time “Take Five” - which Dave Brubeck Quartet member Paul Desmond composed 65 years ago - to Brubeck’s achievements in the classical world with his prolific compositions which include oratorios, orchestral works, choral pieces, quartets, ballets, and chamber works.

Made available on International Jazz Day, this rich resource shares Brubeck’s legacy with musicians, students, researchers, jazz aficionados, and anyone curious about the artist’s broad cultural impact and many dimensions: from his music and family life to his involvement in the 1950s and 60s Civil Rights Movement and beyond. Jazz collections of a comparable scope include Duke Ellington’s at the Smithsonian, Ella Fitzgerald’s at the Library of Congress, and Benny Goodman’s at Yale University.

“Creating an online digital archive for The Brubeck Collection was an essential step in making its broad scope of materials accessible worldwide,” The Brubeck Collection Curator Michael Bellacosa said in a news release. “Dave Brubeck was an internationally renowned musical pioneer and we have been honored to steward his legacy, at Wilton Library and now everywhere. We hope people will enjoy visiting us online as well as in-person, where the full range of this large and important collection can be experienced.”

Explore The Brubeck Collection Here