The Peter K. Johnston fonds contains documentation pertaining to the American Jazz musician Harry James (1916-1983) and the Big band era. The fonds primarily documents the musical career of Harry James as bandleader and trumpeter. It also includes information on the Montreal Vintage Music Society (MVMS), and on other jazz musicians, such as Ella Fitzgerald, Louis Metcalf, Oscar Peterson, and Glenn Miller, among many others.
The fonds contains memorabilia, correspondence, magazines, discographies, photographs, newspaper clippings, reference documentation, posters, moving images, and an audio recording, among other material. Some of the documents are arranged in scrapbooks.
The fonds is arranged in the following series :
P0199 / A Harry James
P0199 / B Other Jazz musicians
P0199 / C Peter Johnston as a collector