Steiner, John. Collection, 1860-2001

© The contents of this finding aid are the copyright of the University of Chicago Library

Jazz

Chicago and Illinois

Series XI, Audio-Visual, does not include access copies for part or all of the material in this series. Researchers will need to consult with staff before requesting material from this series.

The remainder of the collection is open for research.

When quoting material from this collection, the preferred citation is: Steiner, John. Collection, [Box#, Folder#], Special Collections Research Center, University of Chicago Library

John Franklin Steiner was born on July 21, 1908 in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. He graduated with a Bachelor of Science in 1929 and a Doctorate in Chemistry in 1933, both from the University of Wisconsin - Madison. Steiner married Nina Davis in 1948.

Steiner's interest in music began as a young child. When he was twelve, he became the hat check person at his father's music lodge in Milwaukee. He also took piano lessons and while a student at the University of Wisconsin - Madison he took lessons from Jessie Cohen. He also attended Axel Christianson's music school. As a teenager, Steiner fixed his friends' radios and would hear a variety of music, which prompted him to spend many hours listening to music broadcasts. The interest expanded when his aunt Julianna, who worked at a music store, would bring home chipped phonographs for him to listen to, during the era when not everyone owned a phonograph player. One record that made an early impression was the Dixieland Jazz Band.

Steiner started going to music performances at venues around Milwaukee, such as Humboldt Park, where he heard military and brass bands and songs such as “Tiger Rag” and “St. Louis Blues.” He started going to clubs and concerts in Chicago around 1924, traveling by train or hitchhiking as well as sleeping outdoors in parks and alleys to save money for clubs and albums. He went to music stores as well as theatres including the Oriental, McVicker’s, Chicago, and State-Lake.

Steiner was heavily influenced early on by Chicago music, partially because of its proximity to Milwaukee; it was more difficult for New York music to make its way to the Midwest. The first record he ever bought was by Cleo Brown, the second was Louis Armstrong, and the third Louis Prima. Other early influences include Jelly Roll Morton, whom he heard play at the Alhambra Theater in Milwaukee in 1926, as well as Woody Herman, Chuck Hedges, Bunny Berigan, Gene Schroeder, and Norm Cox. He later said that Duke Ellington and Bix Beiderbecke were his top favorites.

It was in the 1930s that Steiner started visiting the South Side clubs. His first was the Grand Terrace in 1935 where he saw Earl Hines. During this time he wrote for Tempo magazine and was also a correspondent for Jazz Information. With Harry Lim and Helen Oakley Dance he helped create the Hot Club of Chicago in 1935. The club continued into the 1940s by organizing performances of musicians such as Benny Goodman, Gene Krupa, Teddy Wilson, Woody Herman, and Artie Shaw.

In the mid-1930s, Steiner moved to Chicago and from 1937-1952 he worked at Miner Laboratories, after which he became the Director of Chemical Research Laboratories. Miner Laboratories was on Clinton Street, located near many “joints” including the Hamilton Hotel, Clark Theatre, Terrace Garden, and Morrison Hotel.

Steiner's interest in recording was prompted mostly through the people he knew, such as his next door neighbor Paul Edward Miller, a writer for Downbeat. In 1938, Steiner met Hugh Davis, an engineer, in a record shop on Melrose Place in Chicago. Davis worked for Seeburg, the jukebox company, and had access to equipment for pressing records. Around 1939, Steiner and Davis started recording music in the clubs. By 1943 they formed S/D Records and recorded musicians such as Squirrel Ashcraft, Cassino Simpson, Jimmy McPartland, and Bud Freeman.

Initially, they ran S/D Records from Steiner's basement but eventually moved to downtown Chicago. As part of the new business, Steiner also started a "record exchange" for collectors interested in rare jazz records. Their focus was on new artists as well as reissuing records from the 1920s and 1930s, many of them from Paramount Records. In 1945, Davis sold out to Steiner and created his own company called Technical Recording Service, though Steiner continued the S/D label for another ten years. After Davis' departure, Steiner moved the headquarters to the Uptown Playhouse Theater, where he worked as their promoter and also lived. Though a fire at the theater in 1946 destroyed most of S/D Records documentation and record stock, Steiner continued to organize recording sessions as well as release reissues.

Starting in 1943, John Steiner began leasing the rights to recordings from Paramount Records, owned by the Wisconsin Chair Company, and releasing them on the S/D label. He bought all the rights to Paramount Records in 1949, which also included the rights to Broadway, Puritan, QRS, Rialto, and others. Steiner continued to reissue early Paramount recordings not just in the United States but also Australia, Japan, England, and Italy. In addition to his reissues, Steiner leased Paramount records to many producers and companies, including Frank Driggs (Biograph Records label from Columbia Records), George Buck (G.H.B. Records), Bill Grauer Productions (Riverside Records), Orrin Keepnews (Milestone Records), and Decca Records. Steiner also managed New York Recording Laboratories in 1946 and became owner in 1948.

During his time in Chicago, Steiner worked with many musicians and often hosted them at his apartment on Ashland and later at his renovated house on Greenview (formerly the Kosciuszko Public Bath) for social events and recording sessions. Some of these artists include Little Brother Montgomery, Lil Armstrong, Baby Dodds, and Austin High Gang Members Jimmy McPartland and Bud Freeman. He recorded some of these musicians for the Paramount Records label and over time he also interviewed many of them.

During the 1950s and 1960s Steiner worked with Bill Russell (American Music Corporation) and together they interviewed many of the classic jazz musicians living in Chicago, such as Natty Dominique, Baby Dodds, Preston Jackson, Jimmy Bertrand, Roy Palmer, Ikey Robinson, and Glover Compton. In 1958, Steiner met Charles Sengstock and a few years later began the massive project of going through microfilmed copies of the Chicago Defender at the Chicago Public Library to create an index of clubs, venues, performances, musicians, and all instances of jazz mentioned in the paper. Steiner also started teaching chemistry at the University of Illinois-Chicago in 1955.

In the 1970s, Steiner helped found the Chicago Jazz Institute, which started as a series of concerts at places such as the Field Museum. Later, he was a founding member of, and very active in, the Jazz Institute of Chicago. He was also involved with the Chicago Jazz Archive at the University of Chicago Library and served on the Visiting Committee to the Department of Music at the University of Chicago.

Steiner retired from his position as a chemistry professor from University of Illinois-Chicago in 1976, at which time he and Nina moved back to Milwaukee. He continued to stay involved in the Chicago jazz scene.

For nearly eighty years, Steiner collected material about jazz music, musicians, recording companies, and many other topics of interest. He was internationally known as an expert on jazz and especially Chicago jazz and often acted as a source or consultant for articles, books, dissertations and theses, documentaries, and other productions of jazz history.

John Steiner died in Milwaukee in June 3, 2000.

The John Steiner Collection contains sheet music, articles, photographs, scrapbooks, correspondence, interviews, ephemera, and publications. The collection spans 140 years and documents Chicago jazz and blues, musicians, clubs, printed music, recording companies, and recording technology. The main focus of the collection is jazz and Chicago jazz, but the collection also documents other music styles such as blues, swing, boogie woogie, minstrel, and rag.

The John Steiner Collection is organized into twelve series: Series I, Personal and Professional; Series II, Correspondence, Series III, Record Industry and Collecting; Series IV, Musicians and People; Series V, Clubs, Events and Ephemera; Series VI, Photographs; Series VII, Subject Files; Series VIII, Printed Music; Series IX, Publications; Series X, Artifacts; Series XI, Audio-Visual; and Series XII, Oversize. Much of the original arrangement and description by Steiner was retained in the guide. Researchers will notice a certain amount of topical overlap between series. See each individual series description for more detail.

Series I, Personal and Professional, contains correspondence, addresses, a stamp collection, academic appointment letters, and documents about the renovations of the Kosciuszko Public Bath into a house. There are also research notes and articles, reports, correspondence, and other material that documents his career as a chemist.

Series II, Correspondence, contains letters with family, friends, musicians and their relatives, students, researchers, authors, editors, producers, collectors, and record dealers, and may include manuscripts, invitations, photographs, advertisements, announcements, and articles. Most correspondence is between Steiner and jazz researchers.

Series III, Record Industry and Collecting, contains job tickets, recording session documents, invoices, catalogs and music lists, and other administrative documents for Paramount Records and S/D Records. There are also catalogs, correspondence, and material about other record companies.

Series IV, Musicians and People, contains articles, research notes, and ephemera about musicians and other people related to the music industry, including record producers, composers, songwriters, conductors, bandleaders, accompanists, singers, dancers, writers, actors, comedians, radio and television programmers and producers, instrument makers, jukebox repairmen, club and ballroom owners, disc jockeys and announcers, agents, record shop owners, architects, collectors, authors, and others.

Series V, Clubs, Events, and Ephemera, contains articles, reviews, publications, maps, advertisements, pluggers, postcards, fliers, programs, playbills, tickets, correspondence, matchbooks, brochures, invitations, research notes, and other ephemera about clubs, club memberships, restaurants, bars, pubs, cafes, lounges, theatres, dance halls, ballrooms, hotels, buildings, schools, universities, concerts, performances, festivals, cruises, and other jazz venues, neighborhoods, events, and people in Chicago and the surrounding area.

Series VI, Photographs, contains photographic prints, negatives, and slides of musicians, clubs, locations, and other subjects. Steiner's research notes contain documentation or attempted verification of musicians' names, where they played and who they played with, as well as where clubs were located, moved to, and who played there.

Series VII, Subject Files, contains articles, fliers, brochures, book reviews, radio schedules, directories, catalogs, correspondence, cartoons, ephemera, essays, book chapters, and research notes. The material documents the history of jazz, Chicago jazz, and other musical styles such as gospel, blues, swing, rock and pop, boogie woogie, country, hillbilly, minstrel, and bluegrass.

Series VIII, Printed Music, contains sheet music, music books, and stock arrangements for jazz and popular music. The majority of the music is for piano, but also saxophone, banjo, and ukulele.

Series IX, Publications, contains magazines, newspapers, and journals primarily about jazz but also the entertainment industry.

Series X, Artifacts, contains print blocks, souvenirs and other jazz related objects, electrical items, and science equipment.

Series XI, Audio-Visual, contains an audio cassette, 8 and 16 mm film, a videocassette, microfilm, and product sample records.

Series XII, Oversize, contains artwork, articles, posters, ephemera, advertisements, records lists, album and sheet music images, and photographs.

Browse finding aids by topic.

University of Chicago. Committee on Social Thought. Records

• NamesSteiner, John
• Subject
  • African American jazz musicians -- Illinois -- Chicago
  • African Americans -- Music
  • Big band music
  • Blues (Music)
  • Chicago (Ill.) -- History
  • Dance orchestra music
  • Dixieland music
  • Jazz
  • Jazz Festivals
  • Jazz -- History and Criticism
  • Jazz -- Illinois -- Chicago
  • Jazz musicians -- Illinois -- Chicago
  • Jazz musicians -- United States
  • Jazz vocals
  • Motion picture music
  • Music -- United States -- History and criticism
  • New York Recording Laboratories
  • Paramount (Sound recording label)
  • Piano music (Jazz)
  • Popular music -- United States
  • Sound recording industry
  • University of Chicago. Chicago Jazz Archive
  • Wisconsin Chair Company