Larry Appelbaum dies at 67 after finding a jazz treasure in the archives

Larry Appelbaum, a music archivist who became a major center for studying jazz history during his long career at the Library of Congress and discovered many important recordings in the process, died on February 21 in Washington. He was 67 years old.

His death in the hospital was due to complications from pneumonia, his brother Howard said.

Appelbaum specialised in one of the most complicated task libraries in Congress. It is often a storage of recorded speeches and music, including transfers from one format to another. As part of that effort, he acquired and processed an old collection of recordings. This provided the opportunity for accidental discovery as well as the job that provided the end of Drudge's work.

His greatest discovery came in 2005 when the library received a large collection of jazz recordings. I received a fragile acetate tape made by the USA of America at Carnegie Hall in 1957.

“There was a track filled with tape that literally came to us,” he recalled in an interview with the DC Jazz Festival.

He flipped through them and found something labeled with a pencil as “The Monk Quartet of Terronis.” Interesting, he thought, but it's not necessarily important.

“Only when I put the tape on the machine and started listening, I thought, 'That's John Coltrane,'” he said.

It was a lifelong discovery: forgotten recordings of two jazz giants.

Jazz historians knew the influence Monk had on Coltrane when Coltrane was temporarily a member of the Monk's Quartet. Well, for the first time, they were able to hear in detail the impact. The recording was released in 2005 as “The Terronious Monk Quartet with John Coltrane: Carnegie Hall,” and was later directed to the Grammy Hall of Fame.

Appelbaum's influence spread beyond the archives. As a longtime host of his weekly jazz program at Washington's radio station WPFW, and as a regular contributor to jazz magazines and magazines, he was ranked among the most influential voices in the field.

At the Library of Congress, he hosted lectures, meetings, and performances, and persuaded many jazz greats, including estates such as Max Roach, Eric Dolphe and Billy Strayhorn, to donate their papers.

A widely considered in the world of jazz scholarships, Appelbaum contributed to many history and reference works, including the texts of Jazz: The First Century (2000), Radio Encyclopedia (2004), and the six-CD box set, Jazz: Smithsonian Anthology.

Appelbaum was more of a scholar than a critic, but more than anything, he was a fan. He called his radio show “The Sound of Surprise.” This is a phrase borrowed from jazz critic Whitney Ballett, and described jazz at its best.

Lawrence Alan Appelbaum was born in Washington on April 12, 1957. His father, Melvin, owned several clothing stores outside of Maryland, and his mother, Esther, overseen the house.

He internships at the Library of Congress while a student at the University of Maryland, and after graduating in 1979 with a degree in radio, film and television, he joined the staff full time.

Early on, Appelbaum worked as a sound engineer and became director of the library's Magnetic Records Institute. This job often led to filming old recordings in ambiguous formats and becoming more laborious to analog magnetic tapes of digital files in the 1980s and later on – something more modern.

He worked not only in recording music, but also in lectures and spoken language poetry. Many of them are part of a large collection donated by NBC and Voice of America.

After the Audiovisual Conservation Department moved to his new home in Culpeper, Virginia in 2007, Appelbaum switched to the Music Department, where he was able to bring his extensive knowledge of jazz to his job completely.

He was known for his ability to sniff out rare gems hidden in the vast acquisitions. Along with the Monk Coltrane concert, he found a recording of the Sony Rollins and the Zoot Sims Quartet with Chet Baker.

In addition to his brother, Mr. Aperbaum was survived by another brother, Mark, and his longtime companion, Masha Morozova.

Appelbaum suffered a stroke in 2017, leaving him with mobility issues, but he was able to work from home to work at the Library of Congress. He retired in 2020.