Every July, Halifax hosts the largest summer festival in the Atlantic region, the TD Halifax Jazz Festival. If the festival has put you in the mood for even more jazz, why don’t you check out the music collection at the Killam Library? We have an exceptional selection of jazz albums.

In the spring of 2011, an excellent collection of 442 classic jazz CDs was donated to the Killam Library music collection by the widow of Douglas McQueen. She wanted to share her husband’s love and appreciation of quality jazz with future generations.

Most of the collection was produced over the last decade by such famous jazz record labels as Blue Note, Concord Jazz, Verve, Sackville and Vanguard. Noted jazz artists represented in the collection include Louis Armstrong, Ruby Braff, Dave Brubeck, Nat King Cole, Kenny Davern, Ella Fitzgerald, Scott Hamilton, Lionel Hampton, Johnny Hodges, Keith Ingham, Oscar Peterson, George Shearing and Ben Webster.

The McQueen collection  is a perfect fit with Dalhousie’s music program and is a most welcome update to the Killam’s strong pre-2000 jazz collection. Due to the efforts of our hard-working music cataloguer Paul Duffy, all of the CDs are now fully accessible via the catalogue.

All members of the Dalhousie academic community and the general public are invited to enjoy this carefully selected collection of jazz recordings. For more information, contact the music librarian Karen Smith or phone 494-8803.