Preserving Musical History

Local bassist donates 2,400 hours of reel-to-reel tapes chronicling lost jazz performances to the Library of Congress.

A

BILL CARROLL
Special to the Jewish News

young, so I made duplicate CDs of their music
and mailed them to their families," said Pliskow,
who also made a master index of the recordings
for the library.
"I received wonderful thank-you notes, saying
how valuable these tapes were to them because many
of their children and grandchildren had never heard
their relatives play before. These letters made the
hundreds of hours I spent editing and 'burning' the
CDs well worth the time."

He performed for a year with the Russ Carlyle
Orchestra, was in the "pit" at the Fisher Theatre
for road companies of Broadway musicals, did
backup for singers like Sammy Davis Jr. and
comedian Henny Youngman and still plays each
year in the Ford Detroit International Jazz
Festival.
He teaches jazz bass and guitar to about 30
WSU students as part of the school's music and
jazz studies program.
Pliskow believes the jazz
music business is declining
around the country.
"There's still a great level of
musicianship among the
jazz players of today, but
the opportunities are slowly
disappearing because the
5 jazz venues are dropping,"
he said.
Attendance is falling at
the clubs and cafes, and the
remuneration for the musi-
cians also is down. It's a
shame that this great art
form may be disappearing
from the American cul-
ture."

local Jewish musician has made a signifi-
cant contribution to music history at the
Library of Congress in Washington, D.C.
Bassist Dan Pliskow, 67, of Royal
Oak donated his entire collection of private record-
ings, featuring some of the most famous names in
jazz, to the Recorded Sound Division of the
Library of Congress.
The collection covers more
than 2,400 hours of music,
conversations, radio recordings
and television shows from 1959
to the present. They feature
Pliskow in sessions with hun-
dreds of jazz greats, including
Wes Montgomery, Milt
Jackson, Wynton Kelly, Art
Farmer, Matt Dennis, Roy
Eldridge, Junior Mance, Flop
Wilson and Ruth Brown.
In 1959, one of Pliskow's
musician friends, 20-year-old
bassoonist Lenny Apsel, was
killed in an auto accident while
driving to play with the Toledo
Symphony Orchestra.
His widow gave Pliskow
Witnesses To History
Apsel's Wollansak reel-to-:reel
While
in the nation's capi-
recorder, and Pliskow dragged
tal
to
donate
the record-
it around with him as he made
ings, Pliskow and his wife
his living playing jazz six nights
Phyllis received a special
a week for almost 50 years in
tour of the Recorded Sound
the Detroit area. He appeared
Division of the Library of
in jazz clubs, with bands and
Congress, including a sub-
on local TV and radio shows.
Clockwise from top left: Dan Pliskow sits with a donated statue of jazz great Ella Fitzgerald at the
basement
storeroom, where
"During all of that time, I
Library of Congress. Library of Congress staff member Betty Auman shows some of the Recorded
they
saw
old
tapes and
always had the recorder on'the
Sound Department's holdings to Dan Pliskow. Sam Brylawski, left, head of the Recorded Sound
discs
of
jazz
musicians,
bandstand, so I just recorded
Department at the Library of Congress, chats with Dan Pliskow, right, and his wife Phyllis, center.
famous classical sheet
everything," said Pliskow.
music, Voice of America
In 1999, a former Detroiter
recordings and memorabilia
and friend, Art Lieb, who had
from many entertainers and
worked at the Library of
Early
Roots
composers,
including
a
letter from George
Congress, asked Pliskow about what sorts of
Gershwin
to
his
mother,
saying he wasn't feeling
Pliskow's
father,
Julius,
was
an
attorney
who
recorded music he had. Lieb passed the informa-
well. Gershwin died of a brain tumor shortly after-
played the violin, and his mother, Evelyn, was a
tion on to Sam Brylawski, head of the Recorded
ward.
piano teacher and dance accompanist. So it was
Sound Department at the library. Brylawski asked
"During all of the years I made my living playing
natural that Pliskow embarked on a musical career.
Pliskow to make the donation of his collection.
music, I thought of it as a nightly cranking out of
He started with a cello, then moved up to the
"The thing about music is that once you've
bass in high school. While attending Central High jazz, trying to make it sound as well as I could, and
played the notes, they're gone forever — so it was
I felt very lucky to be able to make a living doing
School
and Wayne University (later Wayne State
great to have preserved all of this wonderful music
something
I loved so much," Pliskow said.
University),
Pliskow
played
at
weddings
and
bar
on tape through the years," said Pliskow. He
"All of a sudden, the Library of Congress is 'telling'
mitzvahs with the Dick Stein Band and other
bought a CD burner and spent three months edit-
me there is a lasting value to it all — and that gives it
groups — "sometimes two gigs on a Sunday," he
ing the more than 100 rolls of tape and transfer-
a different perspective, which is very nice.
recalled.
ring them onto 65 compact discs.
"It was an incredible, humbling, unforgettable
"I would often play until 2 a.m. on a weekday,
"Listening to the tapes made me aware that
experience." Cl
then have to be at a radio or TV station at 6 a.m."
many of the musicians I worked with had died

11/15
2002

76