Frank E. Owens, 1938-2011

Series II. consists of materials relating to Frank E. Owens, including his personal correspondence, transcripts of his radio program "The Sound of Jazz," the jazz-related writing he completed during the years of the program and its aftermath, and the reel-to-reel audio recordings he created from his home phonograph record collection. A large portion of Owens's correspondence contains both incoming and outgoing letters: Owens, an engineer, organized his mail according to recipient and maintained continuity between his carbon-copied outbound mail and his incoming correspondence. This continuity is seen in Owens's communications with jazz musicians Rudy Powell and John Chilton, jazz enthusiast Paul Burgess, and English professor Thomas Rogers. The series contains extensive materials related to Owens's "The Sound of Jazz" radio program. In 1962, Frank E. Owens and Ashley Speakman began "The Sound of Jazz," a Monday night FM radio program that was broadcast from WDEL in Wilmington, Delaware. According to Owens, the program was developed out of, "a loosely formed group that got together a couple of times monthly to spin jazz records and consume beer." As Owens wrote later, he and Speakman, "…gradually came to the conclusion that jazz was being poorly represented on radio in the Delaware Valley." "The Sound of Jazz," focused primarily on the jazz of the 1920s-1930s by design and maintained that focus throughout its history. Ashley Speakman departed amicably from the show in 1966. The program ran until 1971 when the station manager asked Owens to move the show to Sunday out of concern for ratings, an offer which he declined. After his resignation, Owens concentrated his passion for jazz towards developing his record collection and into writing about a few of the musicians he had befriended over the years as a listener and concertgoer. The series includes nine years of transcripts of "The Sound of Jazz" in their entirety, a yearly index with program summaries, fan mail, news clippings about the show, and Owens's correspondence with the radio station WDEL. The series also includes jazz-related writing Owens began after resigning from the program in 1971. His articles on Rudy Powell, Hank Duncan, and John Chilton are included in this series, and are supplemented with his notes, drafts, and letters to publishers. The series also includes audio recordings of "The Sound of Jazz" show as well as other jazz compilations which are predominantly in reel-to-reel format.