Notes for Notes

The Howard-Tilton Memorial Library at Tulane University recently received the Stan Levenson Jazz Collection. A former New Orleans native turned Dallas businessman, Mr. Levenson's lifelong passion for jazz and collecting has resulted in an expansive, well-balanced collection of books, sound recordings, and video recordings in a variety of formats. Representing jazz interests in North America, Europe, and Japan, the Stan Levenson Jazz Collection contains materials running the gamut of jazz styles from early to modern jazz. Its sheer size—over 700 LPs, 1,000 CDs, 1,000 video recordings, and more than 900 books—combined with its comprehensive nature places the Stan Levenson Jazz Collection among the best academic jazz research collections in the southern United States. The Howard-Tilton Memorial Library is pleased to have received this collection and is proud to make it available to students, scholars, and jazz aficionados alike.

Notes staff. Jane Gottlieb has been appointed editor of Notes, effective with the December 2010 issue. Ms. Gottlieb has served the Music Library Association (MLA) in many capacities, most notably as its president (1995–97). Under her leadership, MLA undertook a long-range planning process, "Plan 2001," to serve as a blueprint for the future of the organization. She is active in the International Association of Music Libraries, Archives, and Documentation Centres (IAML), and its U.S. branch, IAML-U.S. Ms. Gottlieb is vice president for library and information resources at the Juilliard School, where she oversees the library and archives, including the extraordinary Juilliard Manuscript Collection. She also serves as chair of Juilliard's Doctoral Governance Committee, and teaches the doctoral-level music reference and research class. Her recent book, Music Library and Research Skills (Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson Prentice Hall, 2009), is used as a textbook for music bibliography classes in the U.S. and abroad. She has published widely on various aspects of music librarianship, and has presented papers at conferences around the world. Ms. Gottlieb holds the B.A. in music from Binghamton University, and the M.S.L.S. from Columbia University. Prior to her tenure at Juilliard, she worked at Mannes College of Music, the New York Public Library for the Performing Arts, and the American Music Center.

A farewell from the editor. Past editors, as they were completing their editorships, have reflected on the experience: Daniel Zager, in his typical eloquent prose, remarked on what a great privilege it was to participate in providing the contents of the journal to the musical world, and how he was looking forward to rejoining the ranks of enthusiastic readers of Notes (Daniel Zager, September 1997). Richard Griscom remarked on the parallels of editing the journal to the rhythm of life; rhythms that could be pleasing, richly textured, and syncopated, producing a hypnotic and dizzying effect. He took the leisure of leaving this dance to look at the stars (Richard Griscom, September 2000). Linda Solow Blotner mused on how her experience as editor mirrored that of Zager and Griscom, and that she too looked forward to resuming her role as enthusiastic reader and staring at the stars from atop Avon Mountain in her Hartford, Connecticut, home. For her, editing Notes was a daunting, stimulating, educational, and exciting four years (September, 2004).

My experience as editor builds upon that of my illustrious predecessors. My tenure can be likened to performing in a play: as the curtain rises on Act 1 (your first few issues), you are filled with energy, ready to display your gifts to the audience. Act 2 (the next several issues), is a bit more introspective. Here, you deepen your interpretation of your role, offering a more nuanced approach to the work, giving a performance the stuff Tony Awards are made of. By the end of Act 3 (your last few issues), as the curtain slowly falls, you are exhausted, relieved, but ultimately fulfilled in the manner in which you have shared your art with the audience. And so it is with completing my term as editor of Notes.

During the past six years, the journal has undergone many changes, most of which have been virtually transparent to our readers. The editorial...