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Archive: 2023 (90 Posts)

Color photograph of a young Wynton Marsalis in suit and ite, holding a trumpet

Wynton Marsalis, “Black Codes” and Thoughts on the Highway

Posted by: Neely Tucker

It is midafternoon on a recent weekday and jazz legend Wynton Marsalis is driving across the Southwest, taking the call on speakerphone that his 1985 album, “Black Codes (From the Underground),” has been inducted into the 2023 class of the National Recording Registry. With endless desert spreading about behind and before him, he took a few minutes to talk about the album and its pointed political statement.

A young woman with close-cropped orange hair and bright red lipstick sings directly into the camera

The 2023 National Recording Registry – Mariah Carey, Eurythmics, Jimmy Buffett, Wynton Marsalis, John Lennon (And Lots More)

Posted by: Neely Tucker

The 2023 class of the National Recording Registry adds music from Mariah Carey, Queen Latifah, Daddy Yankee, the Eurythmics, Jimmy Buffett, Wynton Marsalis, Pulitzer Prize-winning composer Ellen Taaffe Zwilich and several others. The 25 additions range from 1908 to 2012 and includes early blues and Mariachi music, along with radio broadcasts from the 1930s. A highlights video, with interviews with several of the artists, is included.

Mark Dimunation holds a clamshell box as an excited Neil Patrick Harris looks on

Mark Dimunation, Master of Rare Books and Excellent Anecdotes, Retires

Posted by: Neely Tucker

Mark Dimunation has displayed his love for rare books in print, onstage and on television since he was appointed chief of the Rare Book and Special Collections Division at the Library — the largest collection of rare books in North America — a quarter of a century ago, in 1998. He retires this week, telling stories about great books and great personalities he's come across during his tenure.

Medium close up photo of Liz, eyes upturned and hair pulled back neatly, blowing into a clear flute. The wall behind her is white, part of the Library's flute vault.

Fabulous Flutes

Posted by: Mark Hartsell

Lizzo set the social media world afire last fall by playing, in concert, a short solo on a rare crystal flute that once belonged to President James Madison. The flute is one of the Library's most prized musical instruments and a showpiece of the collection of Dayton C. Miller, the famed physicist, astronomer and major flute aficionado. The collection, preserved in a vault at the Library, is not just the world’s largest of flute-related material, it is perhaps the largest collection on a single music subject ever assembled — and it’s what drew Lizzo to the Library in the first place.

Joni Mitchell and Carla Hayden on stage, each seated, in conversation.

Joni Mitchell’s Conversation in the Library

Posted by: Wendi Maloney

The Library wrapped up its tribute to Joni Mitchell on a high note last week with a conversation between the 2023 Gershwin Prize winner and Librarian of Congress Carla Hayden. In an exchange punctuated by laughter and ending in song, Mitchell detailed her unexpected evolution as a musical pathbreaker. The article contains a link to a video of the conversation.