Gift of Jim Cullum, Jr.
The Happy Jazz Band was started in 1962 by Jim Cullum with his son, Jim Cullum, Jr. in San Antonio where they established a jazz club, The Landing. Jim Cullum, Jr. continued the band after his father and changed the name of the group to simply, the Jim Cullum Jazz Band. The band is one of the foremost groups playing traditional Dixieland and early jazz and has a regular program distributed on public radio. This collection consists of 1130 reel-to-reel tapes of the Happy Jazz Band and the Jim Cullum Jazz Band and covers over 20 years of the band’s performances. In addition to performances by the Cullum bands, the collection contains performances by other noteworthy traditional jazz performers including Jack Teagarden, Baby Dodds, Garner Clark, and lesser known, but important jazz musicians from Texas. The collection adds immeasurably to the Archives’ resources in the area of traditional jazz performance.