William Russell

William Russell (1905-1992) was born Russell William Wagner in Canton, Missouri. In the 1930s he wrote pioneering percussion music, using found objects among the instruments, and his Fugue for eight percussion instruments was heard at Carnegie Hall in 1933 on a programme with Varèse's Ionisation. He was associated with John Cage and Henry Cowell. He then became a leading historian of New Orleans jazz, wrote for the book Jazzmen, founded American Music Records, and after moving to New Orleans in 1956 co-founded the Hogan Jazz Archive at Tulane in 1958. Mode collects his complete works.