SF Traditional Jazz Foundation (SFTJF)
The primary mission of the San Francisco Traditional Jazz Foundation (SFTJF) has been the collection and archival preservation of thousands of rare photographs, unique recordings, musical arrangements, magazine and newspaper articles, and memorabilia related to the mid-20th century rediscovery of Traditional Jazz in San Francisco. Its extraordinary popularity soon spread across the Bay Area and then around the world.
On April 23, 1981, the SFTJF was established as a non-profit organization by its founder, Jim Goggin, who had amassed a large personal archive devoted to Traditional Jazz. A bank executive and avid fan of the ‘San Francisco-style,’ he dreamed of creating a museum to memorialize Turk Murphy and the music phenomenon known as the Great Revival.
Under the guidance of Chairman William Carter along with dedicated staff and members of the SFTJF Board of Directors, the Foundation has realized its mission through a variety of activities:
- Publication of the sftradjazz website and the Frisco Cricket newsletter (Frisco Cricket Archive)
- Production of popular live music events at Bay Area venues
- Production and distribution of an extensive catalogue of music recordings on LP and CD, derived from tapes found in its archive
- Publication of books on key figures in the history of Traditional Jazz in collaboration with like-minded individuals and organizations
In 2009, in order to secure the long-term preservation of the Collection, the SFTJF archive was transferred to the renowned Archive of Recorded Sound at Stanford Libraries.
In 2014, SFTJF President Jim Cullum and the Board of Directors developed a plan to raise funds to preserve the legacy of the Foundation, whereby materials in the Collection would be made widely available online for easy access by academic researchers and scholars, writers, musicians, traditional jazz fans, students, and music lovers everywhere.
In 2016, in collaboration with partners at Stanford Libraries, metadata was created for each object in the Collection identified for digitization, and a finding aid for the Collection was developed. Every photograph, recording or piece of memorabilia was categorized, and some were selected for digitization.
The outcome is The Charles N. Huggins Project. With this online exhibit, we offer the 21st century equivalent of founder Jim Goggins’ dream of a ‘bricks and mortar’ museum to document the legacy of the music movement known as the Great Revival and to honor the musicians who made it happen.
SF Traditional Jazz Foundation Collection at Stanford Libraries
The SFTJF Collection contains the most comprehensive documentation of The Great Revival of Traditional Jazz in San Francisco available in a single archive. Based on the personal collection of the Foundation’s founder, Jim Goggin, and augmented with materials collected by SFTJF members through the decades, the Collection was expanded substantially by the gift of bandleader Turk Murphy’s entire personal archive in 1997.
Items of special interest include Turk Murphy’s complete catalogue of his original compositions, band scores and music arrangements written in his own hand, his detailed business records as a bandleader and club owner, and scrapbooks Murphy kept as a young musician, beginning in the late 1930s through his rise to prominence in the early 1950s.
Thousands of photographs, personal letters, and recordings of band rehearsals, live radio broadcasts, studio sessions and local and national television appearances are among the many assets in the Collection related to the careers of important figures and influencers in the resurgence of Traditional Jazz in the Bay Area, including Lu Watters, Bob Helm, Bunk Johnson, Bob Scobey, Clancy Hayes, Pat Yankee, Pete Clute, Wally Rose, Sid LeProtti and many more. Some 2,000 items were digitized for display on this website.
View the Browse categories for easy access to an overview of digitized materials in the exhibit.