Research Notes

Turnbull Library Record, Volume 39, 1 January 2006, Page 95

Research Notes

National Library Research Fellow Wellington-based journalist, Chris Bourke was named the National Library Research Fellow for 2006. He will use the fellowship, awarded annually, for research use of the Alexander Turnbull Library’s resources, to study the origins of popular music in New Zealand. Since graduating from Victoria University of Wellington in 1983 with a Bachelor of Music in the history and literature of music, Chris has been pursuing his interest in the development of popular music and jazz in New Zealand. Twenty-five years of research, interviews, and writing has led him to the conclusion that there is a large gap in New Zealand’s popular music history: the period before rock’n’roll.

‘There are about 40 years, between 1918 and 1960, that are missing from our cultural history’, says Chris. ‘This was the time when New Zealand was developing its own unique musical voice on the dance floor of the Peter Pan Cabaret, to the accompaniment of Ruru Karaitiana’s ‘Blue Smoke’.’

During his time as the National Library Research Fellow, Chris aims to complete the research required to ready his work for publication in late 2007. His project, which has the working title of ‘Blue Smoke Gets in Your Eyes’, will bring together both famous and less well-known people, places, and events in New Zealand’s musical history. Among the people and topics to be featured are the 1930 s bandleaders Epi Shalfoon and Freddie Gore, the songwriter Ken Avery (a 1950 s jazz musician who composed ‘Tea at Te Kuiti’), the role of cabarets in launching the careers of singers such as Mavis Rivers, and the impact of visits by international musicians to New Zealand, including Artie Shaw and Dave Brubeck.

Chris has been working through many of the Turnbull’s collections, including the oral history archive, periodical collections, photographic archive, and manuscripts collections, and will follow this research up as far as possible with interviews.

Chris’s career as a journalist has been largely focused on New Zealand music. He has been a staff writer and arts and books editor at New Zealand Listener , has produced numerous music documentaries for Radio New Zealand, and edited the New Zealand music magazines Rip It Up and Real Groove. In 1997 Pan Macmillan published his biography of Crowded House, Something So Strong.

Friends of the Turnbull Library Research Grant This grant has been in existence for three years. The first awards went to two biographers: Philip Norman for his work on Douglas Lilbum; and Emeritus Professor Tim Beaglehole for his biography of John C Beaglehole. The third recipient was Dr Alex Bremner, an architectural history lecturer at the School of Arts, Culture and Environment, University of Edinburgh. Dr Bremner spent June 2006 in the Library, working on Anglican Church architecture in Britain and the empire in the mid-nineteenth century. While here he consulted several collections, including the Bishop Selwyn papers, and numerous watercolours, prints, and photographs of nineteenth-century churches in New Zealand.

Research ... Libraries ... Collections ... Creating knowledge This conference was organised and run by the Alexander Turnbull Library, 2-3 September 2005. It was supported by the Friends of the Turnbull Library and the Guardians/Kaitiaki of the Alexander Turnbull Library. The purpose of the conference was to provide a forum for those engaged in all aspects of research, to examine the state and nature of research in New Zealand, the support available for research, and to consider possibilities for future provision in the digital world. The list of distinguished speakers was headed by Associate Professor Brian Hosmer, University of Illionis, Chicago, and Director, D’Arcy McNickle Center for American Indian History at the Newberry Library.