Oberlin Alumni Magazine

John Lewis Talks Jazz

January 24, 2023

Oberlin Alumni Magazine

John Lewis of the Modern Jazz Quartet talks jazz and more in a 1956 radio interview with Jim Neumann ’58, host of “Jazz Hot and Cool!” on WOBC.
Collage of jazz album covers.

Meet Joe Smith

January 24, 2023

Oberlin Alumni Magazine Staff

That was Joe Smith’s approach to making friends and taking photographs, both of which he did prodigiously as an Oberlin College student in the 1980s. Smith ’86, now a computer network...
Self portrait in a mirror using a 35 mm camera (black & white).

On the Record with Rhiannon Giddens ’00

January 24, 2023

Oberlin Alumni Magazine

Rhiannon Giddens began 2022 with a starring role in Porgy and Bess, the iconic Gershwin opera often criticized for its derogatory depictions of Black characters. The widely hailed production...
Seated in comfortable chairs, Rhiannon and a writer speak. The writer is taking notes.

Rhiannon Giddens’ American Tunes

January 24, 2023

Jeff Hagan ’86

A 2000 graduate of Oberlin, Giddens was trained as an opera singer under Marlene Rosen, and so the opera part is easy to understand. But it was after she returned home to North Carolina that she took...
Giddens sings emotively.

Still Hot, Still Cool

January 24, 2023

Erich Burnett

To some, jazz signaled a decadent departure from the European masters who had inspired the work of conservatory faculty and students for more than a century. But there were also students smitten by...
Neumann holds an LP, Dizzy in Greece. Behind him is an endless shelf filled to the ceiling with labelled boxes.