Dan Carkner🎻Apr 6

In my research at YIVO I've been getting into the RG 123 collection which is just hundreds of folders from random old NY Jewish mutual aid societies. Was interested to see a woman drummer & bandleader which are both quite rare among all the old docs I've been looking at. Shirley Baron of Queens/ the Bronx.

#YIVO #WomenInMusic #MusicHistory #Bronx #Drummers #Orphans

Show threadDan Carkner🎻Apr 6

She was playing this concert for the Hebrew Orphan Asylum 100th anniversary celebration in 1960. She herself was an orphan there with her sister from the late 30s onwards after her father died and her mother got cancer and was too sick to take care of them.

I hadn't heard of her and neither had a few friends interested in this kind of local history but I googled her name and found this oral history with her from 1988. very cool, I will have to read it all later.

https://digitalcollections.nypl.org/items/89cf63a0-035d-0131-6e53-58d385a7b928#/?uuid=8831f4b0-035d-0131-f5af-58d385a7b928

Shirley Baron

One of hundreds of thousands of free digital items from The New York Public Library.

NYPL Digital Collections
Show threadDan Carkner🎻
Dave Levitt, local trombone player and carrier of arcane knowledge about old NY Jewish music circles said he had played a handful of gigs with her in the late 80s. as he recalled she wasn't drumming much by then and divided her time between NY and Florida but was still semi active. 😲
Apr 6 at 4:26pmWeb
Show threadDan Carkner🎻Apr 6

Here's another pamphlet that was in the same folder, a smaller handout for the same 100th anniversary event she played at.

#MusicHistory #WomenInMusic #Drummers #Bronx

Show threadDan Carkner🎻Apr 6
I said the Bronx but the address in the ad is Queens. 🫣 But anyway she lived in both at various times