Jack Towers

Jack Towers (November 15, 1914 – December 23, 2010 ) was in charge of radio broadcasting at the U.S. Department of Agriculture from 1952 to 1974 and became a noted remastering engineer of musical recordings after his retirement. He moved to Washington in 1941 to work for the U.S. Department of Agriculture, served in the Army from 1942 to 1946, and then returned to the USDA.

Towers was in charge of radio broadcasting at the USDA from 1952 to 1974, where he developed agriculture-related programs for broadcast on American radio networks.

His first notable work was when, as young extension service employee, he and fellow jazz aficionado Richard Burris made an amateur live recording of Duke Ellington and His Orchestra at a concert in Fargo, North Dakota in 1940. Towers saw Ellington live in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, and, when Burris learned Ellington would be in Fargo in 1940, he asked the William Morris Agency, Ellington's agent, for permission to record the session.

In 1980, At Fargo won the Grammy Award for Best Jazz Instrumental Performance, Big Band at the 22nd Grammy Awards. The original acetate disks of this recording have since been donated to the Archives Center of the Smithsonian Institution's National Museum of American History. Towers also remastered works by Count Basie, Benny Goodman, Glenn Miller and other notable jazz performers.

Following Towers' death, Patricia Willard, a former jazz consultant to the Library of Congress said, "It was amazing to watch him. What Jack achieved in sound restoration was beyond what anybody did before and, I think, since."