Jazz and Quilts

Jazz & Quilts, Always a Great Combo!

My latest quilt project....applique quilt blocks which I have unexpectedly turned into vehicles for gathering the signatures of jazz musicians! 

I have been stitching on these blocks over our last two adventures with The Jazz Cruise. This year I suddenly thought...why don't I use the blocks to gather the musicians' signatures! Wa-la!

Now I am going to try to design a rather "jazzy", unconventional setting for the blocks, not at all like the original blocks from the 1870s quilt would have been set. It will be fun to comb thru the gazillion digital photos I have stored, as well as my books, to get some ideas.

Meanwhile, here is a link to another much smaller project where I collected the signatures of jazz musicians. 

"Artemis"

"Artemis," the all-women instrumental sextet (check them by clicking here!) with Melissa Aldana (tenor sax), Anat Cohen (clarinet), Renee Rosnes (piano), Ingrid Jensen (trumpet), Noriko Ueda (bass) and Allison Miller (drums).

Gary tried to decipher the signatures after the fact. I should have jotted them down on a paper list as they signed each block but it didn't occur to me at the time.

I haven't deciphered all the signatures, but by comparing their signatures on Gary's CDs and the context of who played with whom, we can identify about 80% of them:

Upper left includes a potpourri of musicians: Joel Frahm (tenor sax), Benny Green (piano), Jon Hamar and Clark Sommers (bass), Bijon Watson (lead trumpet in the big band) and singers: the amazing Niki Haris whom I never tire of hearing sing; plus the witty, smokey Jessica Molaskey.

The upper right quilt block is dominated by the Brubeck Brothers -- Chris Brubeck (bass and trombone) and Daniel Brubeck (drums), with drummer Billy Hart.  It was such a pleasure to listen to Dave Brubeck's sons play in person and to also hear them share their family stories and memories. Daniel actually lives not too far from us here in the PNW.  (And, of course, I am partial to the name Daniel anyway given it's the name of my son, brother and grandfather!)

The lower left block captures the "Name That Tune" leaders. It's hosts are the wonderful talented, witty Ken Peplowski on clarinet; Shelly Berg on piano; Johnny Pizzarelli on guitar (and comic foil to Ken) and Gary Alexander ("Saxman Alex"/KLOI Radio DJ, Lopez Island, WA), as a "Name That Tune" contestant.

The final quilt block is dominated by "Artemis," the all-women instrumental sextet (check them out!!!!), with Melissa Aldana, tenor saxophone (and still in her 20s); Anat Cohen (clarinet) whom we have heard many times on the Jazz Cruise; Renee Rosnes (piano), Ingrid Jensen (trumpet), Noriko Ueda (bass) and Allison Miller (drums).

Other women in that block are vocalist Catherine Russell and Kelly Peterson , widow of pianist Oscar Peterson). (Kelly was so excited when she saw my quilt block and exclaimed that she is a quilter, too!)

Catherine Russell

Melissa Walker of Jazz House for Kids (check this out!) 

Ken Peplowski

Kelly Peterson

Lee Mergner

John Clayton

John Pizzarelli and wife Jessica Molaskey

John Fedchock 

By  LEONARD FEATHER

Source: https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1986-07-27-ca-1303-story.html

JULY 27, 1986

“50TH ANNIVERSARY TOUR.” Woody Herman Big Band. Concord CJ302. Recorded last March at San Francisco’s Great American Music Hall, this is an almost flawless example of the current Herman Herd.

Emerging as the unsung hero is John Fedchock, a superior jazz trombonist who also wrote all but one of the arrangements. It’s a typically eclectic Herman set, with themes drawn from Ellington, Coltrane, Monk, Bob Haggart (a fine “What’s New?”) and Fedchock himself. “Conga” is a brisk Latin pace-changer, and Lou Donaldson’s “Fried Buzzard” a vehicle for some funky cooking. “Epistrophy” is done partly in 6/8, building tension with Herman on soprano sax. Frank Tiberi, the band’s veteran tenor sax soloist, and Lynn Seaton, playing bass and singing a la Slam Stewart, contribute valuably to this 4 1/2-star session.

Other musicians in this quilt block include John Clayton (bass) and leader of the big band and sweet, sweet guy we have had the pleasure of meeting many times; John Fedchock (trombone); Christian McBride (bass and big band leader) and his wife Melissa Walker of Jazz House for Kids; and Emmet Cohen (piano and organ), a wonderful young we have had the pleasure of seeing every year since his first jazz cruise (and ours!) about 10 years ago. 

Signatures from guys "in the background" (i.e. not on stage) include Lee Mergner (editor of Jazz Times and sweet guy) and New York photographer John Abbott (official photographer of the Jazz Cruise), who just sent us a video of the "Name That Tune" contest in which Gary participated.



PS: To see my mini Jazz Signature quilt, click here.

Colville Washington Signature Quilt

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I recently purchased a Signature quilt in Fife, WA that appears to be part of Colville, Washinton history. The quilt consists of 30 blocks. The center block says Colville Chapter - 514 W.O.T.M. - Jan 26. 1934. There are 29 embroidered signatures, one on each of the other 29 blocks.

At the moment, I suspect that W.O.T.M stands for Women Of The Moose. According to their website, the Moose organization is a fraternal order first founded in the late 1800s but "reinvented" about 1906 to "provide protection and security for a largely working-class membership" in case the bread winner died, i.e. the husband.

The women's auxiliary was formed in 1913. The focus of the group changed a bit after WWII. There are still many active chapters across the US today. I am in the process of trying to track down whether or not there was once a chapter in Colville, Washington.

Some of the embroidery on the quilt is difficult to read so the spelling of the names on the quilt are subject to interpretation.

The names are as follows: Ruth Harner, Julia Pool, Grace Wennmans, Mrs. Bloom, Ena Miller Boletta M. Elwood, Mrs. Sarah Lewis, Olive Vine, Annie Skeels, Maud D. Moser, Madge Dunham, C. M. Clark, Lillian Carman, Mrs. W. H. Hoeft, Flora Carman, Ethel Thomas, Emma Nelson, Evelyn Bennett, Alice Knapp, Claire Curry, Mary Anderson, Dora Campbell, Edna Moore, Susie L. Noble, Jeanie Nugent, Carrie Carman, Lena Artman, Lena Montgomery, and Mrs. Benedict.

The earliest published version of this pattern that Barbara Brackman could find is called CRACKERS-#2380 and can be found of page 300 of her book Encyclopedia of Pieced Quilt Patterns. Barbara states that it appeared in Woman's World in 1931.

I would love to be able to document any information about the women listed on this quilt and discover why the quilt was made. If you recognize any of the names or can help shed light on this quilt's history, please email me.

I look forward to hearing from some of you!

Karen Alexander

PS:  Colville is a city in Stevens County, Washington, and is the county seat. The population was 1,803 in 1930 and then only 4,988 at the 2000 census. In 1825 the Hudson's Bay Company established Fort Colville near the Kettle Falls fur trading site and named for Lord Andrew Colville, a London governor of Hudson's Bay Company. 

Eventually the Oregon boundary dispute arose as a result of competing British and American claims to the Pacific Northwest of North America in the first half of the 19th century. Once the boundary was set at the 49th parallel in 1846 and Washington Territory officially separated from the Oregon territory in 1853, Hudson's Bay Company, being a British company, withdrew from Fort Colville and moved to Canada. 

In 1859, the US Army, at the direction of the War Department, established a new Fort Colville about 1.5 miles NE of the current city of Colville. That fort was abandoned in 1882 and the city was moved to the present location on the Colville River Valley.

The post was called Harney's Depot at first, then Fort Colville. The town of Colville was founded in 1882 when Fort Colville was abandoned.  

As an aside, while trying to trace down Colville, Washington, I discovered there is a Native American Reservation of this name in the southeastern section of Okanogan County and the southern half of Ferry County.

The Stevens  County Museum houses a very extensive collection of native American artifacts of tribes from all parts of the nation as well as all local tribes. 

Researching Signature Quilts

Photo taken July 2006 in Marion, Indiana at the annual Quilters Hall of Fame Celebration. The Minatel brothers above meet my 1941-42 Navy Signature Quilt for the first time. Although their names appear on this quilt, the brothers didn't know of the quilt's existence until I discovered them in Indiana as I was researching the names on the quilt. One brother was old enough to serve during the WWII era. They assume their father or his friend added their names to the quilt because they recognized the name of two of their father's friends on the same block that bears their names.

The allure of Signature quilts is irresistable. They are so embedded with history! It is juat one of the reasons I volunteered to serve on the Signature Quilt Pilot Project Team for the Quilt Index the past three years.

It has been exciting to be a part of a team helping to make it possible for individuals to enter Signature Quilts into The Index. Click here to read our essay on Signature quilts.

Special thanks goes to the Salser Family Foundation for supporting a specific focus on the QI pilot project of public object submissions; to the Institute of Museum and Library Services (which is supporting the development of public object submissions to the Quilt Index); and to the members of the American Quilt Study Group listserv for sparking the conversation that led to the present convergence in spring 2009. Up until now, only large collections who could rasie the funds have been entered into the Index.



My Personal Signature Quilt Research

My first two purchased antique Signature quilts took place in 2000. The Navy-related one was found at a large antique show in Chantilly, VA in January. The New York Album-style quilt was found at the Howard County Maryland Fairgrounds Antique Show late March 2000. I was so excited I quickly transcribed the 42 signatures and started googling. Genealogy-focused websites are also a great place to start.

My first guess for dating this quilt (based on the fabrics in the quilt) was that it may have been made somewhere between 1860 and 1875. One of two things could help me prove this: genealogical research or finding a quilt with a stitched or written date on it that included some of the same fabrics.

First Steps: Transcribing Names Using Grid Format and Phtographing the Quilt

Above is a scan of a photo I took in 2001.
The colors are actually quite distorted.

You can easily create a grid using preprinted paper 

or by creating one on your computer.

Click on the photos to see a larger version.  Double click and you can get an even closer view.


The second photo was taken recently indoors. I always take with and without flash so that I can compare the two to the quilt.









Photographing My Quilt

One of the hardest things for me to do is to get true color when photographing indoors. Living here in the PNW, I seldom have sunshine to work with after October when I want to shoot outdoors. And of course everyone's computer monitor can have its own funky interpretation of color as well.


Perhaps the most important lesson I have learned is to have the right camera and lighting to start with and to photograph each block in order and to label each photo as soon as I upload it into my computer.

(green block without flash_Annie Evans-7b)









(same green block with flash_Annie Evans-7b)



Lighting and the ability to zoom in on a signature is the most challenging aspect for me. I finally discovered that an Ott light often works best to give the right lighting. My flash washed some signatures out yet no flash would often create too many shadows due to the quilting.

However, in this particular green example, the signature was dark enough to begin with that you can read it in either photo when you click and enlarge. The actual green my eye sees is somewhere in between these two on the screen, but does lean a little more towards a yellow-green rather than a blue-green.





Becoming a Quilt Detective

The three geographical references on this quilt are NYC, NY, and what I thought at first was "Madison City." I began by looking on a New York State map and found Madison County and Madison, but not a Madison City.



How easy it is to mis-remember clues in a quilt unless you photograph it block by block and keep the photos handy each time you resume research.


I shared the quilt at a local guild meeting within the month. The next day a member called to tell me that her husband had some roots in Madison County, New York, and she gave me a Web site address for cemetery records. I found five of the family surnames on a Civil War soldiers casualty list of Madison County, but none of the first names matched.




Always Take a Careful Second Look in Order to
Double-Check Your Notes

I soon posted inquiries to various local historians listed on the Madison City website. One librarian responded that the town of Madison had never been called Madison City. She thought I ought to go look at the handwriting on the quilt again, which I did. This time I used a magnifying glass. Sure enough, it wasn't Madison City, it was HUDSON City.




I subsequently learned that the current city of Hudson was once called Hudson City. It was south of Madison and much closer to New York City.






The Geographic Clues Begin to Line Up
Right Down the Hudson River

In January 2001 I contacted RootsWeb, one of the major genealogy websites at that time, and asked the editor of their newsletter if she would be interested in a short article about my two new Signature quilts. She was quite amenable to the idea and I received a number of responses once the story appeared. However, none of them were exact matches to the people on the quilt.

As my life became consumed with my work at The Quilters Hall of Fame, I set aside my research on my Signature quilts for several years.



Big Break in Research in Spring of 2008

In March 2008 a descendant of the Weightman family on this quilt got in touch with me. Tiffany just happened to come across the article I posted on a New York genealogical website in 2004. She has now helped me indentify and connect 27 people on this quilt. She feels that everyone on the quilt is somehow related by blood or marriage and continues to work on it. We are guessing the quilt was to commemorate a family event of some kind, possibly an elder's birthday or one family's move Westward to Ohio.




Creating a grid system always helps.
I have learned a lot as I have worked on this quilt.

Henry Everett - Row 6b on the grid above.




Here is a list of names in alpha order with the block location beside each name. The numerical represents the horizontal rows and the alpha represents the vertical row. So 1a would appear in the upper left hand corner of the quilt and so on. This quilt has 7 horizontal rows and 6 vertical rows and measures 92" tall and 80" wide.




The information within the parens in the list below is what Tiffany has helped me prove to date.



2b ...Adams, William
3b ...Adams, Myra - Hudson City
3d ...Adams, Anne C. (dau of William and Caroline Evans)
4a ...Adams, Thomas (husb. of Anne C.)
5a ...Adams, Edward F. (son of Thomas & Anne C.)
5b ...Adams, Mary Adelaide (dau of Thomas & Anne C.)
7a ...Adams, Eva (dau of Thomas & Anne C.)

2d ...Anthony, John
5f ...Anthony, Abigail

4f ...Brown, Myra -----NYC
6c ...Brown, Sarah ----NY

1a ...Evans, Frank E. (son of Jacob and Carrie L.)
1d ...Evans, Willie
1e ...Evans, Jacob (husb. Of Carrie L.)
1f ...Evans, George W. (b. 3 Oct 1866-Brooklyn) (husb. of Kati)
3e ...Evans, Caroline C. (mother of Annie E. Weightman)
3f ...Evans, Kati (wife of George W. Evans)
6e ...Evans, Nathaniel (son of Kati & George W. Evans)
7c ...Evans, Martha R.
7e ... Evans, Annie
7d ...Evans, Carrie L. (wife of Jacob Evans)
4d ... Evans, William (father of Annie E. Weightman)

6b ...Everett, Henry
4c ...Everett, Rebecca
6a ...Grandmother Galina




Walton Ruggles (2f on grid)

2f ...Ruggles, Walton
5d ...Ruggles, George
6d ...Ruggles, Jamie
7b ... Ruggles, Simon
7d ...Ruggles, Elizabeth

1c ...Shanks, Naomie (b. Naomie Scudder m. to William)
3a ...Shanks, William (m. to Naomi)
4b ...Shanks, Sarah (possibly a dau. of Naomie & William)

1b ...Smeaton, David D. (son of William & Harriet)
2c ...Smeaton, Douglas P. (son of William & Harriet)
*2e ...Smeaton, William (husb of Harrie L.) (research indicates had initial 'P' like son)
5c ...Smeaton, Willie H. (son of William & Harriet)

5e ...Smeaton, Harriet L. (wife of William P.) (she may be a Shanks)

*(Numerous articles in the New York Times archives about William P. Smeaton. He was a school teacher and he gave testimony in court proceedings upon the brutal murder inn 1860 of his mother-in-law a Mrs. Susan or Sarah Shanks—both first names were reported.)

3c ...Stanhope John

2a ...Weightman, Annie E. (maiden name EVANS. b. Nov 1842. Died 1 Spt 1911)
4e ...Weightman, George (b. 23 July 1843 NYC) (research shows middle initial 'W')
6f ...Weightman, Mary E. (Mary Elizabeth was born 1866)

(More children in this Weightman family later but next child not born until 1870 and is not included on this quilt, nor is the one born in 1873 and 1874. Perhaps this could help us penpoint the date of this quilt since it bears no date of its own.)



All 42 Blocks of New York Signatuure Quilt
Click on each photo to enlarge so that you can see the details of the fabrics.



ROW-1












ROW-2












ROW-3












ROW-4











ROW-5











ROW-6












ROW-7







The research will continue on this quilt until we have identified everyone on the quilt and confirmed a common connection, if it exists.

This quilt is now a part of The Quilt Index's Signature Quilt Pilot Project. You can see it at The Index here.


WEB ARTICLES:

1) "Friendship Quilts"Precious Remerances" by Judy Anne Breneman

2) "Album Quilts" by Laurette Carroll (lots of photos)

3) "Antique Signature and Album Quilt Types" by Kimberly Wulfert

4) "Friendship Signature Quilt Top, Signed and Dated, 1910 - 1916" by Kimberly Wulfert
Lots of close up pictures of a variety of signature types as well as an invitation to help locate the people who have signed one of the quilts.

5) "Signature Quilts" by Xenia Cord

6) "Signature Quilt Workshop Leads the Way for Future Researchers" by Patricia L.Cummings

7) "Signature Quilts/Album Quilts/Friendship Quilts"

8) Black gospel music being preserved thru fund raiser Signature quilt





SIGNATURE QUILTS ON-LINE:

1) Wisconscin Historical Society Signature Quilts on-line

2) Lubec Historical Society - an 1889 Signature quilt

Bruce County Military History - Signature quilts of WW I

3) Australian National Pioneer Women's Hall of Fame Signature quilt project

4) Elgin County Museum in St. Thomas - "Elgin Beat: Signature Quilts - Community Patterns" by Dave Ferguson

5) Historical Society of Talbot County Album quilt with list of names, Easton, MD

6) Clay County Historical Society Signature quilt, Moorehead MN

7) Three Iowa Signature Quilts

BOOKS:

"The Signature Quilt: Traditions, Techniques and Signature Block Collection" by Pepper Cory

"Keepsake Signature Quilts" by Sally Saulmon

"PHILENA’S FRIENDSHIP QUILT: A Quaker Farewell to Ohio" by Lynda Salter Chenoweth