SAN DIEGO — A plan to make San Diego State University the home of a prized collection of music recordings has fallen apart due to a dispute in which the archive’s owners and campus executives are accusing each other of deceit and disrespect.
Del Mar philanthropists Bram and Sandra Dijkstra said SDSU reneged on a signed 2020 agreement to accept The John Coltrane Memorial Black Music Archive after they refused the school’s request — a year after the agreement was signed — for $500,000 to further support the project.
The archive, valued at $1 million, contains nearly 50,000 rare jazz, blues, gospel, reggae, soul and rhythm-and-blues albums that were primarily recorded by Black artists.
