R.I.P.: Frank Driggs

Jazz Producer, Historian Frank Driggs Dies at 81
Associated Press - September 21, 2011

Frank Driggs, a music historian and producer who amassed a world-class archive of more than 100,000 jazz-related images, has died. He was 81.

Friend and co-worker Donna Ranieri told the Associated Press that Driggs was found dead in his Manhattan home on Tuesday. She says he died of natural causes.

A 1952 Princeton University graduate, Driggs became enamored with jazz and swing while listening to late-night broadcasts in the 1930s. He later joined Marshall Stearns, founder of the Rutgers University-based Institute of Jazz Studies, and began documenting jazz history.

Driggs produced numerous recordings, including Columbia Records' "Robert Johnson: The Complete Recordings." He received a Grammy for it in 1991.

Driggs also co-published "Black Beauty, White Heat," a pictorial history of classic jazz culled from his vast collection.