Introduction

In Europe, all countries have some sort of archive or documentation center dedicated to jazz. Some of them are independent, some are part of a larger organization. In general, the task of those archives is to preserve the history of jazz of the country. To do so, they are confronted with a balancing act: how much jazz came from abroad, how much jazz was created in the country. Due to this and other factors, such as limits on space and personal, archiving and documenting jazz in other European countries seems to be a lesser priority. As a consequence, the archives, and documentation centers in Europe, do not collaborate, do hardly exchange information and expertise, do not contribute to collectively present, promote and support jazz in Europe.

Archives and documentation centers on this website

The list of countries, with names of the archives and their websites, serves the visitors of this website to become better informed about jazz in the specific countries. It also helps to obtain a clearer view on jazz in Europe as a whole, which is more than the sum of the parts.