John Snyder Archives
January 2019
Executive Summary
The following summary concerns the invetntory of archival papers, audio/visual recordings of conversations, rehearsals, studio and live performances, and related materials pertining to the career of John Snyder, Producer, Lawyer, Manager, and Agent for multiple jazz, blues, R&B, gospel, and cabaret performers that is being offered in its entirety as a sale or a a combination of sale and donation.
Allan Stypeck, Senior Member American Society of Appraisers, appraisal of the John Snyder Papers can be found here (insert link). Greg Lambousy, Director of the New Orleans Jazz Museum, has also physically inspected the collection, and has expressed the Museum’s interest.
John Snyder is an internationally respected member of the jazz commiunity. He is hightly regarded as a music attorney, music producer, artists manager and educator. He has produced over 350 new recordings (LP and CD) for national and international record companies (1975-2016) and over 400 compilations and reissue recordings on CD (1987-1998). His productions of jazz, blues, gospel and trditional pop recordings have been nominated for 32 Grammys, 5 of which have won the Grammy Award.
He has produced DVD’s of Bobby Short, Etta James, Bob Brookmeyer, Warren Vache, Gerry Mulligan, Clark Terry, Hank Jones, Cecil Taylor, Kenny Werner, Barry Harris, Phil Woods, and Toots Thielemans.
A partial list of artists with whom he has recorded may be found here. A partial list of artists for whom he produced remastered digital recordings may be found here.
The Papers of John Snyder span the years 1975-2018 and include correspondence and production notebooks pertaining to over 500 individual performers, groups, bands and additional jazz related projects including Jazz Master Classes. There are session tapes, songs, photographs, ephemera and memorabilia that capture every aspect of a production.
Of special interest are audio, cassette recordings of Ornette Coleman, Cecil Taylor, Sun Ra, and Paul Desmond speaking and unreleased Chet Baker recordings of him playing in NYC during his most productive comeback years, 1975-1981. There are over 170 signed baseballs by famous jazz artists and blues artists, including Stevie Wonder, Dizzy Gillespie, Eric Clapton, and Mavis Staples.
This collection documents several facets of the mid 20th century music business, holding hundreds of hours of video interviews with music industry executives, producers, artists, lawyers, and educators.
John Snyder is currently the Director of the School of Music Industry at Loyola University New Orleans, Professor and Chair of the Department of Music Business, and Hilton Baldridge Eminent Scholar in Music Industry Studies. Snyder is a member of the New York Bar and remains active in the music industry and in music production both as an academic and as a practitioner.
John Snyder is founder and President of Artists House Foundation with the mission of helping musicians and music entrepreneurs create sustainable careers, and Co-founder of a performing arts helath and wellness intitiative, Athletes and the Arts, that combines the sports medical professionals with music education and performance organizations and the Performing Arts Medical Association to address the health and wellness issues of performing artists, including injury prevention, treatment and rehabilitiation, as well as mental health and substance abuse issues.
Most recently, John Snyder is the recipient of the 2019 Lifetime Achievement Award in Music Education by Offbeat Magazine.