Big Horn Jazz Festival Button: Museum Object and Cultural History

The object in the museum catalogue

This button is from the Big Horn Jazz Festival. It is made of yellow paper with black and red ink covered with a clear film, on a two-piece metal button with a pin back. The button is printed:

I WAS THERE! BIG HORN JAZZ FESTIVAL TRIBUTE TO WILD BILL DAVIDSON February 23, 24, 25, 1990

Big Horn Jazz Festival, an annual swing, dixieland, and traditional jazz party was first held on Memorial Day, 1970, at a club named Big Horn in Ivanhoe, Illinois. After the first jazz party, the event was presented at various venues and dates outside of Chicago.

Floyd Levin (1922-2007) was a Los Angeles textile manufacturer who turned his passion for jazz into a second career as an influential jazz journalist and historian. His numerous reviews, profiles, and articles were published in magazines such as Down Beat, Jazz Journal International, Metronome, and American Rag. He also authored Classic Jazz: A Personal View of the Music and the Musicians. Items in this collection (2011.3086) were acquired from Levin’s attendance at Jazz Festivals, conferences, and other music events.

Materials, dates and provenance

• date made: 1990
• user: Levin, Floyd
• Object Name: button
• Physical Description: metal (overall material)
• Physical Description: paper (overall material)
• Physical Description: ink (overall material)
• Measurements: overall: 1/4 in x 3 1/2 in; x .635 cm x 8.89 cm
• place made: United States
• ID Number: 2011.3086.045
• nonaccession number: 2011.3086
• catalog number: 2011.3086.045
• Credit Line: Gift of Lucille Levin
• Data Source: National Museum of American History

Sources and reuse

Catalogue descriptions and facts adapted from National Museum of American History through the Smithsonian's official Open Access dataset. This record explicitly marks its metadata CC0 1.0; formatting and selection have been changed.