Ken Colyer's Letters from America

Whilst in New Orleans and also during his travels as a merchant seaman, Ken Colyer wrote a number of letters to his brother, Bill Colyer. These were an important source of material for the book 'New Orleans and Back' and were also used in a series of articles in 'Melody Maker' and 'Jazz Journal.'

We should like to reproduce unedited versions of these letters, but without the originals or copies of them, we do not know to what extent, if any, the letters were edited in the jazz magazines or added to in the book. Although the originals and copies were in the possession of the Webmaster for a while, these were returned to the Colyer family and loaned respectively and cannot now be found. If you know the whereabouts of the originals or have copies, the Trust would like to hear from you and borrow them for a while.

Meanwhile, the following are the letters/articles as they appeared in the magazines.

Arrival in New Orleans