Special Collections and Archives Finding Aids

Scope and Contents American Dance Band Music Collection Finding Aid (PDF).The American Dance Band Music Collection consists of commercially published stock arrangements and instrument charts for thousands of popular titles, 1800s-1960s. The collection contains music charts for various instruments for a given song. While several titles contain a complete set of parts, most are incomplete but...

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Bob Foster was a Kansas City record collector. Recordings include radio programs, classical music performances, and recordings of church choirs, high school bands and choirs, and college bands and choirs in the Kansas City area.

Scope and Contents Dana Suesse Collection was gifted to LaBudde Special Collections by Peter Mintun in January 2015. Boxes 3-6 were later gifted to LaBudde Special Collections by Mintun in 2021. The collection relates to Suesse’s life and career, and includes promotional and publicity material, original and photocopied music, and scripts for comedies and musicals written by Suesse. Rounding out the collection are two dozen photographs that provide a concise representation of Suesse at different ages of her...

Scope and Contents The David Dean Conn Collection was a gift of the David Conn estate in July 2010. The collection contains materials related to Conn’s music profession while working at the Music Exchange record store and Handleman Music Distributors, both located in Kansas City. Included are correspondence, press packets, music catalogs, periodicals and posters. There are also photographs and some limited edition prints by artist Gary Huston. Some of the highlights of the collection are related to Conn’s...

Scope and Contents The James Mobberley Collection was donated to the UMKC Miller Nichols Library by Mobberley himself in November 2017.The manuscript collection contains a wide array of items from various aspects of the composer and professor’s career. The largest part of the collection is sheet music from Mobberley’s compositional output. There are physical copies of scores and parts for the bulk of the composer’s works from his days as an undergraduate up through the 2010s. This allows one to...

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The Kansas City Women’s Chorus Collection was a gift of Emily Marrin in August 2021 and consists of programs, posters, flyers, director’s notes, fundraising projects, newspaper clippings, and membership information including rehearsal notes and schedules. Materials are dated from the seasons ranging 2000-2016.

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This collection consists of many recordings that were accumulated since the founding of the Marr Sound Archives but the provenance and/or donors are unknown. There is limited information about the recordings in this collection. Much of the collection are lacquer discs of various music performances and home recordings. The collection also holds various test pressings, open reel tapes, cassettes, CD-Rs, and films.

Scope and Contents Sheet Music Collection Finding Aid (PDF).Sheet music from the Kansas City, World War I and World War II imprint collections is temporarily unavailable through Digital Special Collections. If you'd like to request any titles, please contact SpecialCollections@umkc.edu. The Sheet Music...

Scope and Contents The Vic Damon Collection was donated to LaBudde Special Collections by his son, George Damon, in the 1990s.The manuscripts collection consists of the handwritten logbook kept by Damon documenting recording sessions produced by his Kansas City studio; related correspondence and notes; 17 photographs; and a trophy awarded by Cash Box for the success of the 1948 song My Happiness, produced by Damon. Mounted captions used for a Vic Damon exhibit previously on display in the UMKC Miller...