- physdesc
-
{"format"=>"structured", "physdesc_components"=>[{"name"=>"extent", "value"=>"4.02 linear feet", "unit"=>"linear feet"}, {"name"=>"extent", "value"=>"6 boxes", "unit"=>"containers"}], "supress_display"=>true}
- unitid
-
{"value"=>"JPB 07-3", "type"=>"local_call"}
{"value"=>"20417", "type"=>"local_mss"}
- unitdate
-
{"value"=>"1975-1978", "type"=>"inclusive", "normal"=>"1975/1978"}
- date_inclusive_start
-
1975
- date_inclusive_end
-
1978
- keydate
-
1975
- unittitle
-
{"value"=>"Coleridge-Taylor Perkinson papers"}
- repository
-
{"value"=>"<span class=\"corpname\">The New York Public Library for the Performing Arts.</span> <span class=\"subarea\">Music Division.</span> <div class=\"address\"><span class=\"addressline\">New York, New York</span></div>"}
- abstract
-
{"value"=>"The Coleridge-Taylor Perkinson Papers document Perkinson’s career as an arranger for Motown Records artists, particularly Marvin Gaye, in the mid 1970s, and as a composer for television."}
- prefercite
-
{"value"=>"<p> Coleridge-Taylor Perkinson Papers, JPB 07-3. Music Division, The New York Public Library for the Performing Arts.</p>"}
- origination
-
{"value"=>"Perkinson, Coleridge-Taylor", "type"=>"persname"}
- bioghist
-
{"value"=>"<p>Coleridge-Taylor Perkinson was born June 14, 1932 in Winston-Salem, North Carolina. Prophetically, he was named after Samuel Coleridge Taylor, an Afro-British composer and conductor from the late 19th century. He moved to New York around the age of 11 to live with his mother, a piano teacher and church organist. He attended the High School of Music and Art where he began composing and conducting, graduating with a share of the LaGuardia Prize in music in 1949. After two years at New York University’s School of Education, he transferred to the Manhattan School of Music to study composition with Vittorio Giannini, Charles Mills and Earl Kim, and earned a Master’s Degree in 1953. His classmates there included later prominent jazz musicians such as Max Roach, Herbie Mann and Randy Weston.</p> <p>Perkinson’s professional accomplishments span a remarkably wide range of fields, including classical music, jazz, popular music, dance, film soundtracks, scores for television, and education. In 1965 he co-founded the Symphony of the New World in New York; many of his classical compositions (influenced primarily by Hindemith, Barber and Bartok) were collected on a 2005 CD, <span class=\"title\">Coleridge-Taylor Perkinson: A Celebration</span>. His jazz credits include a short stint playing piano in Max Roach’s Quartet, and work with Rahsaan Roland Kirk, David Sanborn, and Donald Byrd and the Blackbyrds. He straddled the jazz and dance worlds when he wrote a ballet for Alvin Ailey inspired by Charlie Parker, <span class=\"title\">For Bird, With Love</span>; he was also Music Director for the Alvin Ailey Dance Company, Jerome Robbins’s American Theater Lab and the Dance Theater of Harlem. His film credits include the Martin Luther King documentary, <span class=\"title\">From Montgomery to Memphis</span>, Sidney Poitier’s <span class=\"title\">A Warm December</span>, <span class=\"title\">Cornbread, Earl and Me</span>, and <span class=\"title\">The Education of Sonny Carson</span>. His television work included scores for <span class=\"title\">Harris and Company</span> and <span class=\"title\">The Plant Family</span>, and musical director for <span class=\"title\">The Barbara McNair Show</span>. His career in education began at Brooklyn College in 1959 and ended at Columbia College Chicago, where he directed the Center for Black Music Research and the New Black Music Repertory Ensemble until his death from cancer on March 9, 2004.</p> <p>Perkinson’s career as an arranger in popular music was brief, but significant. His eclectic background equipped him well to contribute to the development of rhythm and blues from the slick pop singles of early Motown and the rawer soul of Stax/Volt Records to the more lush, fully orchestrated sounds of disco in the late 1970s. His work on Marvin Gaye’s <span class=\"title\">I Want You</span>and its companion, Leon Ware’s <span class=\"title\">Musical Massage</span> (called “the pre-eminent early disco concept albums” by the All Music Guide), puts him in the company of other arrangers of the period such as David Van de Pitte (on Gaye’s previous records <span class=\"title\">What’s Going On</span> and <span class=\"title\">Let’s Get It On</span> and theTemptations’<span class=\"title\"> Ball of Confusion</span>), Johnny Allen and Dale Warren (on Isaac Hayes’s <span class=\"title\">Shaft</span>), Riley Hampton and Johnny Pate (on Curtis Mayfield’s <span class=\"title\">Superfly</span>), Thom Bell (with the O’Jays and other Philadelphia International Records artists) and Gene Page (with Motown and Barry White) who greatly expanded the level of orchestral sophistication of this music, allowing for records with dramatic, palpable atmosphere and sonic depth.</p> <p>Sources:<ul> <li>Jurek, Thom. Review of <span class=\"title\">I Want You</span> [Expanded Edition], by Marvin Gaye, All Music Guide. Available online at http://www.allmusic.com (accessed September 15, 2007).</li> <li>Lewis, Uncle Dave. Review of <span class=\"title\">Coleridge-Taylor Perkinson - A Celebration</span>. All Music Guide. Available online at http://www.allmusic.com (accessed September 15, 2007).</li> <li>Martin, Douglas. “Coleridge-Taylor Perkinson, Versatile Musician, Dies at 71,” New York Times, March 13, 2004.</li> <li>New York Public Library, Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture. Video Gallery Cataloging Data for <span class=\"title\">Oral history interview with Coleridge-Taylor Perkinson, 5 August, 1993</span> (video recording). Available online at http://www.nypl.org/research/sc/scl/MULTIMED/JAZZHIST/cpcat.htm (Accessed September 17, 2007).</li> <li>Torres, Richard. “Romantic Obsession.” Liner notes to Marvin Gaye, <span class=\"title\">I Want You</span> [Expanded Edition], Motown Records, B0000467-02.</li> <li>Weinger, Harry. “Arranged by Coleridge-Taylor Perkinson.” Sidebar to liner notes for Marvin Gaye, <span class=\"title\">I Want You</span> [Expanded Edition], Motown Records, B0000467-02.</li></ul></p>"}
- scopecontent
-
{"value"=>"<p> The Coleridge-Taylor Perkinson Papers document only a small part of Perkinson’s long and varied career, but they include the period with the highest public profile, his work as an arranger for Motown and Marvin Gaye. The collection consists almost entirely of finished full scores, and instrumental parts along with some sketches (mainly in the television music). There is no directly personal or biographical material to be found in the papers.</p>"}
{"value"=>"<p class='list-head'>The Coleridge-Taylor Perkinson papers are arranged in two series:</p>\n<ul class='arrangement series-descriptions'>\n<li><div class='series-title'><a href='/mus/20417#c615628'>Series I: Arrangements, c.</a></div>\n<div class='series-date'>1975 - 76 & undated</div>\n<div class='series-description'><p>The scores and parts in this series cover work for the Blackbyrds (these arrangements are actually credited to Wade Marcus), Marvin Gaye, Diana Ross, and Leon Ware. The bulk of the material pertains to two closely interrelated projects, Gaye’s 1976 LP <span class=\"title\">I Want You</span>, produced and principally written by Ware, and Ware’s own <span class=\"title\">Musical Massage</span> LP, released later the same year. Most of the songs under Ware’s name ended up on Gaye’s album; several songs under both artists’ names were ultimately released with different titles. Some were not released on the original LPs and only became available on the expanded CD reissues. Also included in this series is a folder of general personal papers containing a small number of items such as song lyrics, sheet music and correspondence.</p></div></li><li><div class='series-title'><a href='/mus/20417#c615686'>Series II: Television music, c. &</a></div>\n<div class='series-date'>1978</div>\n<div class='series-description'><p>This series includes material Perkinson composed for two short-lived television shows, <span class=\"title\">Harris and Company</span> and <span class=\"title\">The Plant Family</span>, as well as some finished cues and sketches with no identification that could belong to either or neither of the two.</p></div></li></ul>\n", "type"=>"arrangement"}
- arrangement
-
{"value"=>"<p> <ul> <li>Series I: Arrangements, c. 1975 - 76 & undated</li> <li>Series II: Television Music, c. 1978</li></ul></p>", "supress_display"=>true}
- acqinfo
-
{"value"=>"<p>The collection was donated by Richard Gordon.</p>"}
- userestrict
-
{"value"=>"<p>For permission to publish, contact the Chief, Music Division.</p>"}
- relatedmaterial
-
{"value"=>"<p>in the Center for Black Music Research, Columbia College Chicago</p>"}
- processinfo
-
{"value"=>"<p>Processed by William F. Johnson; Machine-readable finding aid created by William F. Johnson.</p>"}
- extent_statement
-
4.02 linear feet (6 boxes)
- date_start
-
1975
- date_end
-
1978