1.
Carl Van Vechten
–
Carl Van Vechten was an American writer and artistic photographer who was a patron of the Harlem Renaissance and the literary executor of Gertrude Stein. Born in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, he was the youngest child of Charles and he graduated from Washington High School in 1898, and later the University of Chicago in 1903. In 1906, he moved to New York City and he was hired as the assistant music critic at The New York Times. His interest in opera had him take a leave of absence from the paper in 1907, while in England he married his long-time friend from Cedar Rapids, Anna Snyder. He returned to his job at the New York Times in 1909, at that time, Isadora Duncan, Anna Pavlova, and Loie Fuller were performing in New York City. The marriage to Anna Snyder ended in divorce in 1912 and he wed actress Fania Marinoff in 1914 and their marriage lasted until the end of his life, even while his relationships with men were an open secret. They continued corresponding for the remainder of Steins life, and at her death she appointed Van Vechten her literary executor, several books of Van Vechtens essays on various subjects such as music and literature were published between 1915 and 1920. Van Vechtens controversial novel Nigger Heaven was published in 1926 and his essay Negro Blues Singers was published in Vanity Fair in 1926. Biographer Edward White suggests Van Vechten was convinced that Negro culture was the essence of America, by the start of the 1930s and at age 50, Van Vechten was finished with writing and took up photography, using his apartment at 150 West 55th Street as a studio. After the 1930s Van Vechten published little writing, though he continued writing letters to many correspondents, Van Vechten died in 1964, at the age of 84, in New York City. Most of Van Vechtens personal papers are held by the Beinecke Rare Book, the Beinecke Library also holds a collection titled Living Portraits, Carl Van Vechtens Color Photographs Of African Americans, 1939–1964, a collection of 1,884 color Kodachrome slides. The Library of Congress has a collection of approximately 1,400 photographs, there is also a collection of Van Vechtens photographs in the Prentiss Taylor collection in the Smithsonians Archives of American Art, and a Van Vechten collection at Fisk University. The Museum of the City of New Yorks collection includes 2,174 of Carl Van Vechtens photographs, brandeis Universitys department of Archives & Special Collections holds 1,689 Carl Van Vechten portraits. Van Vechten also donated materials to Fisk University to form the George Gershwin Memorial Collection of Music, the album ’O, Write My Name’, American Portraits, Harlem Heroes was completed in 1983. That year, the National Endowment for the Arts transferred the Eakins Press Foundation’s prototype albums to the permanent collection of the Smithsonian American Art Museum, dust Tracks on a Road, An Autobiography. Guide to the Carl Van Vechten papers, 1833–1965, manuscripts and Archives, New York Public Library. Carl Van Vechten collection of papers, 1911–1964, berg Collection of English and American Literature, New York Public Library
Carl Van Vechten
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Photographic self-portrait by Carl Van Vechten, taken in 1934
Carl Van Vechten
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Norman Mailer, 1948
Carl Van Vechten
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Eartha Kitt, 1952
Carl Van Vechten
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Arthur Schwartz, 1933
2.
Chattanooga, Tennessee
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Chattanooga is a city in the U. S. state of Tennessee, with a population of 176,588 in 2015. The fourth-largest Tennessee city, it is the seat of Hamilton County, located in southeastern Tennessee in East Tennessee, on the Tennessee River, served by multiple railroads and Interstate highways, Chattanooga is a transit hub. The city, with elevation of approximately 680 feet, lies at the transition between the ridge-and-valley portion of the Appalachian Mountains and the Cumberland Plateau. Surrounded by mountains and ridges, the nickname for Chattanooga is the Scenic City. Unofficial nicknames include River City, Chatt, Nooga, Chattown, Chattanooga is internationally known for the 1941 song Chattanooga Choo Choo by Glenn Miller and his orchestra. Chattanooga is home to the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga and Chattanooga State Community College, the city has its own typeface, Chatype, which was launched in August 2012. The first inhabitants of the Chattanooga area were Native Americans, sites dating back to the Upper Paleolithic period showed continuous occupation through the Archaic, Woodland, Mississippian/Muskogean/Yuchi, and Cherokee. The Chickamauga Mound near the mouth of the Chickamauga Creek is the oldest remaining visible art in Chattanooga, the Citico town and mound site was the most significant Mississippian/Muscogee landmark in Chattanooga up to 1915. The first part of the name Chattanooga derives from the Muskogean word cvto /chắtȯ/ – rock, the latter may be derived from a regional suffix -nuga meaning dwelling or dwelling place. In 1816 John Ross, who later became Principal Chief, established Rosss Landing, located along what is now Broad Street, it became one of the centers of Cherokee Nation settlement, which also extended into Georgia and Alabama. Their journey west became known as the Trail of Tears for their exile, the US Army used Rosss Landing as the site of one of three large internment camps, or emigration depots, where Native Americans were held prior to the journey on the Trail of Tears. One of the internment camps was located in Fort Payne, Alabama, in 1839, the community of Rosss Landing incorporated as the city of Chattanooga. The city grew quickly, initially benefiting from a location well-suited for river commerce, with the arrival of the railroad in 1850, Chattanooga became a boom town. During the American Civil War, Chattanooga was a center of battle, during the Chickamauga Campaign, Union artillery bombarded Chattanooga as a diversion and occupied it on September 9,1863. Following the Battle of Chickamauga, the defeated Union Army retreated to safety in Chattanooga, the next day, the Battle of Lookout Mountain was fought, driving the Confederates off the mountain. On November 25, Grants army routed the Confederates in the Battle of Missionary Ridge and these battles were followed the next spring by the Atlanta Campaign, beginning just over the nearby state line in Georgia and moving southeastward. After the war ended, the city became a railroad hub and industrial. The largest flood in Chattanoogas history occurred in 1867, before the Tennessee Valley Authority system was created in 1933 by Congress, the flood crested at 58 feet and completely inundated the city
Chattanooga, Tennessee
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North Shore and Midtown neighborhoods, October 2012
Chattanooga, Tennessee
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Union troops swarm
Missionary Ridge and defeat Bragg's army during the
Battle of Missionary Ridge, 1863
Chattanooga, Tennessee
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Confederate prisoners at a railroad depot in Chattanooga, 1864
Chattanooga, Tennessee
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Market Street in 1907
3.
Clarksdale, Mississippi
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Clarksdale is a city in Coahoma County, Mississippi, and seat of the county. The western boundary of the county is formed by the Mississippi River, located in the Mississippi Delta region, Clarksdale is an agricultural and trading center. It has been home to blues musicians. Clarksdale is named after John Clark, who founded the city in the mid-19th century, Choctaw and Chickasaw Indians occupied the Delta region prior to the arrival of European settlers. A similar forced removal of the Chickasaw Nation began in 1837, once in Indian Territory, following the removal of the Indians, European-American settlers migrated to the Delta region, where the fertile soil was excellent for growing cotton. They brought or purchased African-American slaves to work the cotton plantations developed in the county. John Clark founded the town in 1848 when he bought land in the area, Clark married the sister of James Lusk Alcorn, a major planter who owned a nearby plantation. Alcorn became a politician, elected by the legislature as US Senator. Thriving from the trade and associated business, Clarksdale soon earned the title The Golden Buckle on the Cotton Belt. African-American slaves made the work and built the wealth of King Cotton in the state. U. S. Census data shows Coahoma County, Mississippis 1860 population was 1,521 whites and 5,085 slaves, James Alcorn was a major planter, owning 77 slaves. When slavery was abolished, many black families labored as sharecroppers and they gained some independence but were often at a disadvantage in negotiations with white planters. Historian Nicholas Lemann writes segregation strengthened the grip of the system by ensuring that most blacks would have no arena of opportunity in life except for the cotton fields. Those gains were short-lived, as insurgent white paramilitary groups such as the Red Shirts worked to suppress black voting from 1868 on, by 1875 white Democrats took control of the state legislature in Mississippi. They later passed Jim Crow laws, including legal segregation of public facilities, on October 9,1875, whites in Clarksdale began hearing rumors that General Peace was preparing his troops to plunder the town, rumors spread that he was planning to murder the whites. A white militia was formed, and they suppressed Peace’s revolt, across Mississippi, white militias frequently formed in response to similar fears of armed black revolt. In Clarksdale it is the story of the riot of October 9,1875. After the Reconstruction era and construction in 1879 of the Louisville, New Orleans and Texas Railway through the town, in 1886, the towns streets were laid out, it was not until 1913 that any were paved
Clarksdale, Mississippi
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Clarksdale, Mississippi
Clarksdale, Mississippi
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The Sunflower River Bridge in Clarksdale, 1890
Clarksdale, Mississippi
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Former Yazoo & Mississippi Valley/Illinois Central Passenger Depot in Clarksdale, early 1900s. This building is now home to the Delta Blues Museum.
Clarksdale, Mississippi
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The crossroads where legend has it blues guitarist Robert Johnson sold his soul to the devil.
4.
Blues
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Blues is a genre and musical form originated by African Americans in the Deep South of the United States around the end of the 19th century. The genre developed from roots in African musical traditions, African-American work songs, spirituals, Blues incorporated spirituals, work songs, field hollers, shouts, chants, and rhymed simple narrative ballads. Blue notes, usually thirds or fifths flattened in pitch, are also a part of the sound. Blues shuffles or walking bass reinforce the trance-like rhythm and form a repetitive effect known as the groove, Blues as a genre is also characterized by its lyrics, bass lines, and instrumentation. Early traditional blues verses consisted of a single line repeated four times, Early blues frequently took the form of a loose narrative, often relating the troubles experienced in African-American society. Many elements, such as the format and the use of blue notes. The origins of the blues are closely related to the religious music of the Afro-American community. The first appearance of the blues is often dated to after the ending of slavery and, later and it is associated with the newly acquired freedom of the former slaves. Chroniclers began to report about blues music at the dawn of the 20th century, the first publication of blues sheet music was in 1908. Blues has since evolved from unaccompanied vocal music and oral traditions of slaves into a variety of styles and subgenres. Blues subgenres include country blues, such as Delta blues and Piedmont blues, as well as urban blues styles such as Chicago blues, World War II marked the transition from acoustic to electric blues and the progressive opening of blues music to a wider audience, especially white listeners. In the 1960s and 1970s, a form called blues rock evolved. The term blues may have come from blue devils, meaning melancholy and sadness, the phrase blue devils may also have been derived from Britain in the 1600s, when the term referred to the intense visual hallucinations that can accompany severe alcohol withdrawal. As time went on, the phrase lost the reference to devils, by the 1800s in the United States, the term blues was associated with drinking alcohol, a meaning which survives in the phrase blue law, which prohibits the sale of alcohol on Sunday. Though the use of the phrase in African-American music may be older, it has been attested to in print since 1912, in lyrics the phrase is often used to describe a depressed mood. The lyrics of traditional blues verses probably often consisted of a single line repeated four times. Two of the first published songs, Dallas Blues and Saint Louis Blues, were 12-bar blues with the AAB lyric structure. Handy wrote that he adopted this convention to avoid the monotony of lines repeated three times, the lines are often sung following a pattern closer to rhythmic talk than to a melody
Blues
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John Lomax (left) shaking hands with musician "Uncle" Rich Brown in Sumterville,
Alabama
Blues
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Charley Patton, one of the originators of the Delta blues style, playing with a
pick or a
bottleneck slide.
Blues
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Sheet music from "
Saint Louis Blues " (1914)
Blues
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Bessie Smith, an early blues singer, was known for her powerful voice.
5.
Jazz blues
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The 12-bar blues or blues changes is one of the most prominent chord progressions in popular music. The blues progression has a form in lyrics, phrase, chord structure. In its basic form, it is based on the I-IV-V chords of a key. The blues can be played in any key, mastery of the blues and rhythm changes are critical elements for building a jazz repertoire. In the key of C, one basic blues progression is as follows, a basic example of the progression would look like this, using T to indicate the tonic, S for the subdominant, and D for the dominant, and representing one chord. In Roman numeral analysis the tonic is called the I, the sub-dominant the IV, using said notations, the chord progression outlined above can be represented as follows. The first line takes four bars, as do the two lines, for a total of twelve bars. However, the vocal or lead phrases, though they come in threes. This overlap between the grouping of the accompaniment and the vocal is part of what creates interest in the twelve bar blues, handy, the Father of the Blues, codified this blues form to help musicians communicate chord changes. The length of sections may be varied to create eight-bar blues or sixteen-bar blues, seventh chords are often used just before a change, and more changes can be added. Basic jazz blues progression Play In jazz, 12-bar blues progressions are expanded with moving substitutions, the cadence uniquely leads to the root by perfect intervals of fourths. The Bebop blues, Play This progression is similar to Charlie Parkers Nows the Time, Billies Bounce, Sonny Rollinss Tenor Madness and it is a bop soloists cliche to arpeggiate this chord from the 3 up to the ♭9. Minor blues Play There are also minor 12-bar blues, such as John Coltranes Equinox and Mr. P. C. made famous by Lil Green with Big Bill Broonzy and then Peggy Lee with the Benny Goodman Orchestra. The chord on the scale degree may be major or minor, in which case it fits a dorian scale along with the minor i7 and iv7 chords. Major and minor can also be mixed together, a characteristic of the music of Charles Brown. While the blues is most often considered to be in strophic form with a verse-chorus pattern. Handys St. Louis Blues However, many using the blues chord progression have lyrics that are not in the three-line form. For instance, Im Moving On has a verse in the first four bars, Im movin on, Ill soon be gone You were flyin too high for my little old sky So Im movin on
Jazz blues
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Typical boogie woogie bassline on 12 bar blues progression in C, chord
roots in red.
6.
Columbia Records
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Columbia Records is an American record label owned by Sony Music Entertainment, a subsidiary of Sony Corporation of America, Inc. the United States division of Sony Corporation. It was founded in 1887, evolving from an enterprise named the American Graphophone Company. Columbia is the oldest surviving brand name in the sound business. Columbia Records went on to release records by an array of singers, instrumentalists. It is one of Sony Musics three flagship record labels alongside RCA Records and Epic Records, rather, as above, it was connected to CBS, a broadcasting media company which had purchased the company in 1938, and had been co-founded in 1927 by Columbia Records itself. Though Arista Records was sold to Bertelsmann Music Group, it would become a sister label of Columbia Records through its mutual connection to Sony Music. The Columbia Phonograph Company was founded in 1887 by stenographer, lawyer and New Jersey native Edward Easton and it derived its name from the District of Columbia, where it was headquartered. At first it had a monopoly on sales and service of Edison phonographs and phonograph cylinders in Washington. As was the custom of some of the regional companies, Columbia produced many commercial cylinder recordings of its own. Columbias ties to Edison and the North American Phonograph Company were severed in 1894 with the North American Phonograph Companys breakup, thereafter it sold only records and phonographs of its own manufacture. In 1902, Columbia introduced the XP record, a brown wax record. According to Gracyk, the molded brown waxes may have sold to Sears for distribution. Columbia began selling records and phonographs in addition to the cylinder system in 1901, preceded only by their Toy Graphophone of 1899. For a decade, Columbia competed with both the Edison Phonograph Company cylinders and the Victor Talking Machine Company disc records as one of the top three names in American recorded sound. In order to add prestige to its catalog of artists. The firm also introduced the internal-horn Grafonola to compete with the extremely popular Victrola sold by the rival Victor Talking Machine Company, during this era, Columbia used the famous Magic Notes logo—a pair of sixteenth notes in a circle—both in the United States and overseas. Columbia was split into two companies, one to make records and one to make players, Columbia Phonograph was moved to Connecticut, and Ed Easton went with it. Eventually it was renamed the Dictaphone Corporation, in late 1923, Columbia went into receivership
Columbia Records
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Original home of Columbia in Washington, D.C., in 1889
Columbia Records
Columbia Records
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A Columbia type AT cylinder
graphophone, first released in 1898
Columbia Records
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This article is about the American record label active worldwide except in Japan. For the Columbia label which was a unit of EMI, see
Columbia Graphophone Company. For the Columbia label in Japan, see
Nippon Columbia.
7.
Ma Rainey
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Ma Rainey was one of the earliest African American professional blues singers and one of the first generation of blues singers to record. She was billed as the Mother of the Blues and she began performing as a young teenager and became known as Ma Rainey after her marriage to Will Rainey, in 1904. They toured with the Rabbit Foot Minstrels and later formed their own group, Rainey and Rainey and her first recording was made in 1923. In the next five years, she made over 100 recordings, including Bo-Weevil Blues, Moonshine Blues, See See Rider Blues, Black Bottom, Rainey was known for her powerful vocal abilities, energetic disposition, majestic phrasing, and a moaning style of singing. Her powerful voice was never captured on her records, because she recorded exclusively for Paramount. However, her other qualities are present and most evident in her early recordings Bo-Weevil Blues, Rainey recorded with Louis Armstrong, and she toured and recorded with the Georgia Jazz Band. She continued to tour until 1935, when she retired and went to live in her hometown, Pridgett claimed to have been born on April 26,1886, in Columbus, Georgia. However, the 1900 census indicates she was born in September 1882 in Alabama and she was the second of five children of Thomas and Ella Pridgett, from Alabama. She had at least two brothers and a sister, Malissa, with whom Gertrude was later confused by some writers and she began her career as a performer at a talent show in Columbus, Georgia, when she was about 12 to 14 years old. A member of the First African Baptist Church, she began performing in minstrel shows. She later claimed that she was first exposed to music around 1902. In 1910, she was described as Mrs. Gertrude Rainey and she continued with the Rabbits Foot Company after it was taken over by a new owner, F. S. Wolcott, in 1912. Beginning in 1914, the Raineys were billed as Rainey and Rainey, wintering in New Orleans, she met numerous musicians, including Joe King Oliver, Louis Armstrong, Sidney Bechet and Pops Foster. As the popularity of blues music increased, she became well known, around this time, she met Bessie Smith, a young blues singer who was also making a name for herself. A story later developed that Rainey kidnapped Smith, forced her join the Rabbits Foot Minstrels, and taught her to sing the blues, from the late 1910s, there was an increasing demand for recordings by black musicians. In 1920, Mamie Smith was the first black woman to be recorded, in 1923, Rainey was discovered by Paramount Records producer J. Mayo Williams. She signed a contract with Paramount, and in December she made her first eight recordings in Chicago, including Bad Luck Blues, Bo-Weevil Blues. She made more than 100 other recordings over the five years
Ma Rainey
–
Ma Rainey
8.
Alberta Hunter
–
Alberta Hunter was an internationally known African-American jazz singer and songwriter who had a successful career from the early 1920s to the late 1950s and then stopped performing. After 20 years of working as a nurse, in 1977 Hunter successfully resumed her singing career until her death. Hunter was born in Memphis, Tennessee, to Laura Peterson, who worked as a maid in a Memphis brothel, and Charles Hunter, Hunter said she never knew her father. She attended Grant Elementary School, off Auction Street, which she called Auction School and she attended school until around age 15. Her father left when she was a child, and to support the family her mother worked as a servant in a brothel in Memphis, although she married again in 1906. Hunter was not happy with her new family and left for Chicago, Illinois, around the age of 11, in the hopes of becoming a paid singer, she had heard that it paid 10 dollars an hour. Instead of finding a job as a singer she had to earn money by working at a boardinghouse that paid six dollars a week as well as room, hunters mother left Memphis and moved in with her soon afterwards. Hunter began her career in a bordello and soon moved to clubs that appealed to men, black. By 1914 she was receiving lessons from a prominent jazz pianist, Tony Jackson and she was still in her early teens when she settled in Chicago. Part of her career was spent singing at Dago Franks. She then sang at Hugh Hoskins saloon and, eventually, in many Chicago bars, one of her first notable experiences as an artist was at the Panama Club, a white-owned club with a white-only clientele that had a chain in Chicago, New York and other large cities. Hunters first act was in a room, far from the main event, thus. Theyd go upstairs to hear us sing the blues, thats where I would stand and make up verses and sing as I go along. Many claim her appeal was based on her gift for improvising lyrics to satisfy the audience and her big break came when she was booked at Dreamland Cafe, singing with King Oliver and his band. She peeled potatoes by day and hounded club owners by night and her persistence paid off, and Hunter began a climb from some of the citys lowest dives to a headlining job at its most prestigious venue for black entertainers, the Dreamland ballroom. She had an association with the Dreamland, beginning in 1917. She first toured Europe in 1917, performing in Paris and London, the Europeans treated her as an artist, showing her respect and even reverence, which made a great impression on her. Her career as singer and songwriter flourished in the 1920s and 1930s, the songs she wrote include the critically acclaimed Downhearted Blues
Alberta Hunter
–
Hunter in 1979
9.
Ethel Waters
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Ethel Waters was an American singer and actress. She frequently performed jazz, big band, and pop music, on the Broadway stage and in concerts and her notable recordings include Dinah, Stormy Weather, Taking a Chance on Love, Heat Wave, Supper Time, Am I Blue. Cabin in the Sky, Im Coming Virginia, and her version of the spiritual His Eye Is on the Sparrow, Waters was the second African American, after Hattie McDaniel, to be nominated for an Academy Award. She was also the first African-American woman to be nominated for an Emmy Award and he played no role in raising Ethel. Soon after she was born, her mother married Norman Howard, Ethel used the surname Howard as a child, before reverting to her fathers name. She was raised in poverty by her grandmother, Sally Anderson, Waters never lived in the same place for more than 15 months. She said of her childhood, I never was a child. I never was cuddled, or liked, or understood by my family, Waters grew tall, standing 5 9½ in her teens. According to the historian and archivist Rosetta Reitz, Waterss birth in the North. Waters married at the age of 13, but her husband was abusive, on her 17th birthday, she attended a costume party at a nightclub on Juniper Street. She was persuaded to sing two songs and impressed the audience so much that she was offered work at the Lincoln Theatre in Baltimore. She later recalled that she earned the rich sum of ten dollars a week, after her start in Baltimore, Waters toured on the black vaudeville circuit. As she described it later, I used to work from nine until unconscious, despite her early success, she fell on hard times and joined a carnival, traveling in freight cars along the carnival circuit and eventually reaching Chicago. She did not last long with them, though, and soon headed south to Atlanta, Smith demanded that Waters not compete in singing blues opposite her. Waters conceded and sang ballads and popular songs, around 1919, Waters moved to Harlem and there became a celebrity performer in the Harlem Renaissance of the 1920s. Her first Harlem job was at Edmonds Cellar, a club with a black patronage and she acted in a blackface comedy, Hello 1919. The jazz historian Rosetta Reitz pointed out that by the time Waters returned to Harlem in 1921, in 1921, Waters became the fifth black woman to make a record, for the tiny Cardinal Records. She later joined Black Swan Records, where Fletcher Henderson was her accompanist, Waters later commented that Henderson tended to perform in a more classical style than she preferred, often lacking the damn-it-to-hell bass
Ethel Waters
–
Waters in 1943.
Ethel Waters
–
Waters
Ethel Waters
–
Waters with
Count Basie in
Stage Door Canteen (1943)
10.
Singer
–
Singing is the act of producing musical sounds with the voice, and augments regular speech by the use of sustained tonality, rhythm, and a variety of vocal techniques. A person who sings is called a singer or vocalist, Singers perform music that can be sung with or without accompaniment by musical instruments. Singing is often done in an ensemble of musicians, such as a choir of singers or a band of instrumentalists, Singers may perform as soloists, or accompanied by anything from a single instrument up to a symphony orchestra or big band. Singing can be formal or informal, arranged or improvised and it may be done as a form of religious devotion, as a hobby, as a source of pleasure, comfort, or ritual, as part of music education, or as a profession. Excellence in singing requires time, dedication, instruction, and regular practice, if practice is done on a regular basis then the sounds can become more clear and strong. Professional singers usually build their careers around one specific genre, such as classical or rock. They typically take voice training provided by teachers or vocal coaches throughout their careers. Though these four mechanisms function independently, they are coordinated in the establishment of a vocal technique and are made to interact upon one another. During passive breathing, air is inhaled with the diaphragm while exhalation occurs without any effort, exhalation may be aided by the abdominal, internal intercostal and lower pelvis/pelvic muscles. Inhalation is aided by use of external intercostals, scalenes and sternocleidomastoid muscles, the pitch is altered with the vocal cords. With the lips closed, this is called humming, humans have vocal folds which can loosen, tighten, or change their thickness, and over which breath can be transferred at varying pressures. The shape of the chest and neck, the position of the tongue, any one of these actions results in a change in pitch, volume, timbre, or tone of the sound produced. Sound also resonates within different parts of the body and an individuals size, Singers can also learn to project sound in certain ways so that it resonates better within their vocal tract. This is known as vocal resonation, another major influence on vocal sound and production is the function of the larynx which people can manipulate in different ways to produce different sounds. These different kinds of function are described as different kinds of vocal registers. The primary method for singers to accomplish this is through the use of the Singers Formant and it has also been shown that a more powerful voice may be achieved with a fatter and fluid-like vocal fold mucosa. The more pliable the mucosa, the more efficient the transfer of energy from the airflow to the vocal folds, Vocal registration refers to the system of vocal registers within the voice. A register in the voice is a series of tones, produced in the same vibratory pattern of the vocal folds
Singer
–
American jazz singer and songwriter
Billie Holiday in New York City in 1947
Singer
–
"Vocalist" redirects here. See also:
Lead vocalist and
Backing vocalist.
Singer
–
Ercole de' Roberti: Concert, c. 1490
Singer
–
Rock singer Ian Gillan performing live with
Deep Purple in
Hoyos del Espino in 2013.
11.
Jazz
–
Jazz is a music genre that originated amongst African Americans in New Orleans, United States, in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, and developed from roots in Blues and Ragtime. Since the 1920s jazz age, jazz has become recognized as a form of musical expression. Jazz is characterized by swing and blue notes, call and response vocals, polyrhythms, Jazz has roots in West African cultural and musical expression, and in African-American music traditions including blues and ragtime, as well as European military band music. Although the foundation of jazz is deeply rooted within the Black experience of the United States, different cultures have contributed their own experience, intellectuals around the world have hailed jazz as one of Americas original art forms. As jazz spread around the world, it drew on different national, regional, and local musical cultures, New Orleans jazz began in the early 1910s, combining earlier brass-band marches, French quadrilles, biguine, ragtime and blues with collective polyphonic improvisation. In the 1930s, heavily arranged dance-oriented swing big bands, Kansas City jazz, bebop emerged in the 1940s, shifting jazz from danceable popular music toward a more challenging musicians music which was played at faster tempos and used more chord-based improvisation. Cool jazz developed in the end of the 1940s, introducing calmer, smoother sounds and long, modal jazz developed in the late 1950s, using the mode, or musical scale, as the basis of musical structure and improvisation. Jazz-rock fusion appeared in the late 1960s and early 1970s, combining jazz improvisation with rock rhythms, electric instruments. In the early 1980s, a form of jazz fusion called smooth jazz became successful. Other styles and genres abound in the 2000s, such as Latin, the question of the origin of the word jazz has resulted in considerable research, and its history is well documented. It is believed to be related to jasm, a term dating back to 1860 meaning pep. The use of the word in a context was documented as early as 1915 in the Chicago Daily Tribune. Its first documented use in a context in New Orleans was in a November 14,1916 Times-Picayune article about jas bands. In an interview with NPR, musician Eubie Blake offered his recollections of the slang connotations of the term, saying, When Broadway picked it up. That was dirty, and if you knew what it was, the American Dialect Society named it the Word of the Twentieth Century. Jazz has proved to be difficult to define, since it encompasses such a wide range of music spanning a period of over 100 years. Attempts have been made to define jazz from the perspective of other musical traditions, in the opinion of Robert Christgau, most of us would say that inventing meaning while letting loose is the essence and promise of jazz. As Duke Ellington, one of jazzs most famous figures, said, although jazz is considered highly difficult to define, at least in part because it contains so many varied subgenres, improvisation is consistently regarded as being one of its key elements
Jazz
–
Louis Armstrong (1901–1971) is considered one of the pivotal musicians in jazz for his contributions as a trumpet player, composer and singer.
Jazz
–
Double bassist
Reggie Workman, saxophone player
Pharoah Sanders, and drummer
Idris Muhammad performing in 1978
Jazz
–
Albert Gleizes, 1915, Composition pour Jazz, gouache on cardboard, mounted on Masonite, 73 x 73 cm,
Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York
Jazz
–
In the late 18th-century painting
The Old Plantation, African-Americans dance to banjo and percussion.
12.
Baptist
–
Other tenets of Baptist churches include soul competency, salvation through faith alone, Scripture alone as the rule of faith and practice, and the autonomy of the local congregation. Baptists recognize two ministerial offices, elders and deacons, Baptist churches are widely considered to be Protestant churches, though some Baptists disavow this identity. Historians trace the earliest church labeled Baptist back to 1609 in Amsterdam, in accordance with his reading of the New Testament, he rejected baptism of infants and instituted baptism only of believing adults. Baptist practice spread to England, where the General Baptists considered Christs atonement to extend to all people, while the Particular Baptists believed that it extended only to the elect. Thomas Helwys formulated a distinctively Baptist request that the church and the state be kept separate in matters of law, Helwys died in prison as a consequence of the religious persecution of English dissenters under King James I. In 1638, Roger Williams established the first Baptist congregation in the North American colonies, in the mid-18th century, the First Great Awakening contributed to Baptist growth in both New England and the South. Baptist missionaries have spread their church to every continent, the largest Baptist denomination is the Southern Baptist Convention, with the membership of associated churches totaling more than 15 million. Modern Baptist churches trace their history to the English Separatist movement in the century after the rise of the original Protestant denominations and this view of Baptist origins has the most historical support and is the most widely accepted. Adherents to this position consider the influence of Anabaptists upon early Baptists to be minimal and it was a time of considerable political and religious turmoil. Both individuals and churches were willing to give up their theological roots if they became convinced that a more biblical truth had been discovered, during the Protestant Reformation, the Church of England separated from the Roman Catholic Church. There were some Christians who were not content with the achievements of the mainstream Protestant Reformation, there also were Christians who were disappointed that the Church of England had not made corrections of what some considered to be errors and abuses. Of those most critical of the Churchs direction, some chose to stay and they became known as Puritans and are described by Gourley as cousins of the English Separatists. Others decided they must leave the Church because of their dissatisfaction, historians trace the earliest Baptist church back to 1609 in Amsterdam, with John Smyth as its pastor. Three years earlier, while a Fellow of Christs College, Cambridge, reared in the Church of England, he became Puritan, English Separatist, and then a Baptist Separatist, and ended his days working with the Mennonites. He began meeting in England with 60–70 English Separatists, in the face of great danger, Smyth and his lay supporter, Thomas Helwys, together with those they led, broke with the other English exiles because Smyth and Helwys were convinced they should be baptized as believers. In 1609 Smyth first baptized himself and then baptized the others, in 1609, while still there, Smyth wrote a tract titled The Character of the Beast, or The False Constitution of the Church. In it he expressed two propositions, first, infants are not to be baptized, and second, Antichristians converted are to be admitted into the true Church by baptism. Hence, his conviction was that a church should consist only of regenerate believers who have been baptized on a personal confession of faith
Baptist
–
Print from Anglican theologian
Daniel Featley 's book, "The Dippers Dipt, or, The Anabaptists Duck'd and Plung'd Over Head and Ears, at a Disputation in Southwark", published in 1645.
Baptist
–
The
First Baptist Church in America. Baptists constitute roughly one-third of
U.S. Protestants.
Baptist
–
(
The Ninety-Five Theses)
13.
Gospel
–
A gospel is an account describing the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth. Christianity places a value on the four canonical gospels, which it considers to be revelations from God. This position however, requires a view of Biblical inerrancy. The word gospel derives from the Old English gōd-spell, meaning good news or glad tidings, the gospel was considered the good news of the coming Kingdom of Messiah, and of redemption through the life and death and resurrection of Jesus, the central Christian message. The Greek word euangelion is also the source of the terms evangelist, the authors of the four canonical Christian gospels are known as the Four Evangelists. Paul the Apostle used the term εὐαγγέλιον when he reminded the people of the church at Corinth of the gospel I preached to you, the earliest extant use of gospel to denote a particular genre of literature dates to the 2nd century. Justin Martyr in the Apology wrote of. the apostles, in the memoirs composed by them, more generally, gospels compose a genre of early Christian writings. Gospels that did not become canonical also circulated in Early Christianity, many, such as the work known today as Gospel of Thomas, lack the narrative framework typical of a gospel. Scholars hold a wide spectrum of views on the origins and composition of the gospels, for example, the vast majority of material in Mark is also present in either Luke or Matthew or both, suggesting that Mark was a source for Matthew and Luke. He writes that the four gospels were probably all written by the end of the first century. But they did not yet at that time have a consistent narrative, in 170 Tatian sought to find a solution by composing a single narrative out of Matthew, Mark, and Luke, with some additional oral material. Richies concludes that the gospel passages themselves can be unclear, and some of the messages within are straightforwardly ambiguous, the gospels of Matthew, Mark, and Luke are considered synoptic gospels on the basis of many similarities between them that are not shared by the Gospel of John. Synoptic means here that they can be seen or read together, the fourth gospel, the Gospel of John, presents a very different picture of Jesus and his ministry from the synoptics. Of the many gospels written in antiquity, only four came to be accepted as part of the New Testament. An insistence upon there being a canon of four gospels, and no others, was a theme of Irenaeus of Lyons. Irenaeus was ultimately successful in declaring that the four gospels collectively and he also supported reading each gospel in light of the others. This canon, which corresponds to the modern Catholic canon, was used in the Vulgate, Gospel of Matthew Gospel of John Gospel of Luke Gospel of Mark This order is found in the following manuscripts, Bezae, Monacensis, Washingtonianus, Tischendorfianus IV, Uncial 0234. Although there is no set order of the four gospels in patristic lists or discussions, moody Smith suggests that the standard order of Matthew-Mark-Luke-John projects a kind of intention that can scarcely be ignored
Gospel
–
The first page of the
Gospel of Mark in
Armenian, by
Sargis Pitsak, 14th century.
Gospel
14.
Moulton, Alabama
–
Moulton is a city in Lawrence County, Alabama, United States and is included in the Decatur Metropolitan Area, as well as the Huntsville-Decatur Combined Statistical Area. Although it incorporated in 1819, along with its rival of Courtland, to compete for the honor of county seat, as of the 2010 census, the population of the city is 3,471, its record high. The city has been the county seat of Lawrence County since 1820 and it has been the largest community in the county since the 1920 U. S. Census. Moulton is located at 34°28′56″N 87°17′8″W, according to the U. S. Census Bureau, the city has a total area of 5.9 square miles, all land. As of the census of 2010, there were 3,471 people,1,482 households, the population density was 552.1 people per square mile. There were 1,486 housing units at a density of 251.7 per square mile. The racial makeup of the city was 78. 2% White,13. 1% Black or African American,4. 1% Native American,0. 4% Asian,0. 2% from other races,1. 6% of the population were Hispanic or Latino of any race. 36. 1% of all households were made up of individuals and 18. 1% had someone living alone who was 65 years of age or older, the average household size was 2.19 and the average family size was 2.84. In the city, the population was out with 20. 7% under the age of 18,7. 6% from 18 to 24,26. 7% from 25 to 44,23. 1% from 45 to 64. The median age was 41 years, for every 100 females there were 81.7 males. For every 100 females age 18 and over, there were 77.2 males, the median income for a household in the city was $32,639, and the median income for a family was $49,243. Males had an income of $52,279 versus $30,000 for females. The per capita income for the city was $20,696, about 8. 3% of families and 15. 8% of the population were below the poverty line, including 23. 9% of those under age 18 and 15. 2% of those age 65 or over. Moulton is home to one station, WALW-LP. The countys only newspaper resides in Moulton, representative representing Alabamas 8th congressional district from 1915 to 1933. Mary Lee Cagle, one of the first influential women and pastors in the Church of the Nazarene Kimberley Conrad, model and actress Asa Hodges, john Wallace Jones, Mayor of Shreveport, Louisiana from 1854 to 1858
Moulton, Alabama
–
Lawrence County Courthouse in Moulton, March 1934
15.
Busking
–
Street performance or busking is the act of performing in public places for gratuities. In many countries the rewards are generally in the form of money but other such as food. Street performance is practiced all over the world by men, women and children, People engaging in this practice are called street performers or buskers. Performances are anything that people find entertaining, the term busking was first noted in the English language around the middle 1860s in Great Britain. The verb to busk, from the word busker, comes from the Spanish root word buscar, the Spanish word buscar in turn evolved from the Indo-European word *bhudh-skō. It was used for many acts, and title of a famous Spanish book about one of them. Today, the word is used in Spanish but mostly relegated for female street sex workers. There have been performances in places for gratuities in every major culture in the world. For many musicians street performance was the most common means of employment before the advent of recording and personal electronics. Prior to that, a person had to any music or entertainment, save for a few mechanical devices such as the barrel organ, the music box. Organ grinders were commonly found busking in the old days, Busking is common among some Romani people, who are called gypsies, a description that is no longer socially acceptable in some societies. Romantic mention of Romani music, dancers and fortune tellers are found in all forms of poetry, prose. The Roma brought the word busking to England by way of their travels along the Mediterranean coast to Spain and the Atlantic Ocean and then up north to England, in medieval France buskers were known by the terms troubadours and jongleurs. In northern France they were known as trouveres, in old German buskers were known as Minnesingers and Spielleute. In obsolete French it evolved to busquer for seek, prowl and was used to describe prostitutes. In Russia buskers are called skomorokh and their first recorded history appears around the 11th century, mariachis, Mexican bands that play a style of music by the same name, frequently busk when they perform while traveling through streets and plazas, as well as in restaurants and bars. Around the mid-19th century Japanese Chindonya started to be using their skills for advertising. Another Japanese street performance form dating from the Edo period is Nankin Tamasudare, in the United States, medicine shows proliferated in the 19th century
Busking
–
A "one-man band"
Busking
–
1855 painting of a street musician,
O Pobre Rabequista (The Poor Rebec Player), by
José Rodrigues
Busking
–
An organ grinder in Paris, photographed by
Eugène Atget ca. 1898–99
Busking
–
German street performers play for pedestrians in 1948
16.
Chattanooga
–
Chattanooga is a city in the U. S. state of Tennessee, with a population of 176,588 in 2015. The fourth-largest Tennessee city, it is the seat of Hamilton County, located in southeastern Tennessee in East Tennessee, on the Tennessee River, served by multiple railroads and Interstate highways, Chattanooga is a transit hub. The city, with elevation of approximately 680 feet, lies at the transition between the ridge-and-valley portion of the Appalachian Mountains and the Cumberland Plateau. Surrounded by mountains and ridges, the nickname for Chattanooga is the Scenic City. Unofficial nicknames include River City, Chatt, Nooga, Chattown, Chattanooga is internationally known for the 1941 song Chattanooga Choo Choo by Glenn Miller and his orchestra. Chattanooga is home to the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga and Chattanooga State Community College, the city has its own typeface, Chatype, which was launched in August 2012. The first inhabitants of the Chattanooga area were Native Americans, sites dating back to the Upper Paleolithic period showed continuous occupation through the Archaic, Woodland, Mississippian/Muskogean/Yuchi, and Cherokee. The Chickamauga Mound near the mouth of the Chickamauga Creek is the oldest remaining visible art in Chattanooga, the Citico town and mound site was the most significant Mississippian/Muscogee landmark in Chattanooga up to 1915. The first part of the name Chattanooga derives from the Muskogean word cvto /chắtȯ/ – rock, the latter may be derived from a regional suffix -nuga meaning dwelling or dwelling place. In 1816 John Ross, who later became Principal Chief, established Rosss Landing, located along what is now Broad Street, it became one of the centers of Cherokee Nation settlement, which also extended into Georgia and Alabama. Their journey west became known as the Trail of Tears for their exile, the US Army used Rosss Landing as the site of one of three large internment camps, or emigration depots, where Native Americans were held prior to the journey on the Trail of Tears. One of the internment camps was located in Fort Payne, Alabama, in 1839, the community of Rosss Landing incorporated as the city of Chattanooga. The city grew quickly, initially benefiting from a location well-suited for river commerce, with the arrival of the railroad in 1850, Chattanooga became a boom town. During the American Civil War, Chattanooga was a center of battle, during the Chickamauga Campaign, Union artillery bombarded Chattanooga as a diversion and occupied it on September 9,1863. Following the Battle of Chickamauga, the defeated Union Army retreated to safety in Chattanooga, the next day, the Battle of Lookout Mountain was fought, driving the Confederates off the mountain. On November 25, Grants army routed the Confederates in the Battle of Missionary Ridge and these battles were followed the next spring by the Atlanta Campaign, beginning just over the nearby state line in Georgia and moving southeastward. After the war ended, the city became a railroad hub and industrial. The largest flood in Chattanoogas history occurred in 1867, before the Tennessee Valley Authority system was created in 1933 by Congress, the flood crested at 58 feet and completely inundated the city
Chattanooga
–
North Shore and Midtown neighborhoods, October 2012
Chattanooga
–
Union troops swarm
Missionary Ridge and defeat Bragg's army during the
Battle of Missionary Ridge, 1863
Chattanooga
–
Confederate prisoners at a railroad depot in Chattanooga, 1864
Chattanooga
–
Market Street in 1907
17.
Lionel Hampton
–
Lionel Leo Hampton was an American jazz vibraphonist, pianist, percussionist, bandleader and actor. Hampton worked with musicians from Teddy Wilson, Benny Goodman, and Buddy Rich to Charlie Parker, Charles Mingus. In 1992, he was inducted into the Alabama Jazz Hall of Fame, Lionel Hampton was born in 1908 in Louisville, Kentucky, and was raised by his mother. Shortly after he was born, he and his moved to her hometown Birmingham. He spent his childhood in Kenosha, Wisconsin, before he and his family moved to Chicago, Illinois. As a youth, Hampton was a member of the Bud Billiken Club, an alternative to the Boy Scouts of America, during the 1920s—while still a teenager—Hampton took xylophone lessons from Jimmy Bertrand and started playing drums. Hampton was raised Roman Catholic, and started out playing fife, Lionel Hampton began his career playing drums for the Chicago Defender Newsboys Band while still a teenager in Chicago. He moved to California in 1927 or 1928, playing drums for the Dixieland Blues-Blowers and he made his recording debut with The Quality Serenaders led by Paul Howard, then left for Culver City and drummed for the Les Hite band at Sebastians Cotton Club. One of his trademarks as a drummer was his ability to do stunts with multiple pairs of such as twirling and juggling without missing a beat. During this period he began practicing on the vibraphone, in 1930 Louis Armstrong came to California and hired the Les Hite band, asking Hampton if he would play vibes on two songs. So began his career as a vibraphonist, popularizing the use of the instrument in the process, invented ten years earlier, the vibraphone is essentially a xylophone with metal bars, a sustain pedal, and resonators equipped with electric-powered fans that add vibrato. While working with the Les Hite band, Hampton also occasionally did some performing with Nat Shilkret, during the early 1930s, he studied music at the University of Southern California. In 1934 he led his own orchestra, and then appeared in the Bing Crosby film Pennies From Heaven alongside Louis Armstrong, also in November 1936, the Benny Goodman Orchestra came to Los Angeles to play the Palomar Ballroom. The Trio and Quartet were among the first racially integrated jazz groups to perform before audiences, while Hampton worked for Goodman in New York, he recorded with several different small groups known as the Lionel Hampton Orchestra, as well as assorted small groups within the Goodman band. In 1940 Hampton left the Goodman organization under amicable circumstances to form his own big band, Hamptons orchestra became popular during the 1940s and early 1950s. His third recording with them in 1942 produced a version of Flying Home. The selection became popular, and so in 1944 Hampton recorded Flyin Home #2 featuring Arnett Cobb, the song went on to become the theme song for all three men. Guitarist Billy Mackel first joined Hampton in 1944, and would perform, in 1947, Hamp performed Stardust at a Just Jazz concert for producer Gene Norman, also featuring Charlie Shavers and Slam Stewart, the recording was issued by Decca
Lionel Hampton
–
Lionel Hampton, 1946. Photo by
William P. Gottlieb.
Lionel Hampton
–
Lionel Hampton during a concert in Aachen (Germany) on May 19, 1977
18.
American South
–
The Southern United States, commonly referred to as the American South, Dixie, or simply the South, is a region of the United States of America. The South does not fully match the geographic south of the United States, arizona and New Mexico, which are geographically in the southern part of the country, are rarely considered part, while West Virginia, which separated from Virginia in 1863, commonly is. Some scholars have proposed definitions of the South that do not coincide neatly with state boundaries, while the states of Delaware and Maryland, as well as the District of Columbia permitted slavery prior to the start of the Civil War, they remained with the Union. However, the United States Census Bureau puts them in the South, usually, the South is defined as including the southeastern and south-central United States. The region is known for its culture and history, having developed its own customs, musical styles, and cuisines, the Southern ethnic heritage is diverse and includes strong European, African, and some Native American components. Since the late 1960s, black people have many offices in Southern states, especially in the coastal states of Virginia. Historically, the South relied heavily on agriculture, and was rural until after 1945. It has since become more industrialized and urban and has attracted national and international migrants, the American South is now among the fastest-growing areas in the United States. Houston is the largest city in the Southern United States, sociological research indicates that Southern collective identity stems from political, demographic, and cultural distinctiveness from the rest of the United States. The region contains almost all of the Bible Belt, an area of high Protestant church attendance and predominantly conservative, indeed, studies have shown that Southerners are more conservative than non-Southerners in several areas, including religion, morality, international relations and race relations. Apart from its climate, the experience in the South increasingly resembles the rest of the nation. The arrival of millions of Northerners and millions of Hispanics meant the introduction of cultural values, the process has worked both ways, however, with aspects of Southern culture spreading throughout a greater portion of the rest of the United States in a process termed Southernization. The question of how to define the subregions in the South has been the focus of research for nearly a century, as defined by the United States Census Bureau, the Southern region of the United States includes sixteen states. As of 2010, an estimated 114,555,744 people, or thirty-seven percent of all U. S. residents, lived in the South, the nations most populous region. Other terms related to the South include, The Old South, the New South, usually including the South Atlantic States. The Solid South, region largely controlled by the Democratic Party from 1877 to 1964, before that, blacks were elected to national office and many to local office through the 1880s, Populist-Republican coalitions gained victories for Fusionist candidates for governors in the 1890s. Includes at least all the 11 former Confederate States, Southeastern United States, usually including the Carolinas, the Virginias, Tennessee, Kentucky, Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, and Florida. The Deep South, various definitions, usually including Louisiana, Alabama, Mississippi, Georgia, occasionally, parts of adjoining states are included
American South
–
Texas Hill Country
American South
–
The Southern United States as defined by the
United States Census Bureau. The "South" and its regions are defined in various ways, however. (See
Geography section.)
American South
–
Bluegrass region in Kentucky
American South
–
Glass Mountains at Glass Mountains State Park, Oklahoma
19.
Okeh Records
–
Okeh Records was a record label founded by the Otto Heinemann Phonograph Corporation, a phonograph supplier established in 1916, which branched out into phonograph records in 1918. Since 1926, it has been a subsidiary of Columbia Records, today, Okeh is an imprint of Sony Masterworks, a specialty label of Columbia. Okeh was founded by Otto K. E. Heinemann, a German-American manager for the U. S. branch of German-owned Odeon Records, Heinemann formed the name of the record label from his initials, on early disc labels, the name is spelled OkeH. The first discs were vertical cut, in 1919, Okeh switched to the lateral-cut method of sound recording, more commony used for disc records. In that year the parent company was renamed the General Phonograph Corporation. The common 10-inch discs retailed for 75 cents each, the 12-inch discs for $1.25, the companys musical director was Fred Hager, who was also credited under the pseudonym Milo Rega. Okeh produced lines of recordings in German, Czech, Polish, Swedish, some were pressed from masters leased from European labels, others were recorded by Okeh in New York. In 1920, Ralph Peers recordings of the African-American blues singer Mamie Smith were a smash hit for Okeh. The company perceived the significant, little-tapped market for blues and jazz by African-American artists, in 1922, Okeh hired Clarence Williams as director of race recordings for Okehs New York studios, in addition to making recordings under his own name. Okeh then opened a studio in Chicago, the center of jazz in the 1920s. Many classic jazz performances by prominent artists as King Oliver, Lucille Bogan, Sidney Bechet, Hattie McDaniel, Louis Armstrong. As part of the Carl Lindstrom Company, Okeh recordings were distributed by other Lindstrom labels, King Oliver and Bennie Moten recorded for Okeh before moving on to other labels. The 8000 race series is highly prized by collectors, partly because Okeh recorded many blues, in 1926, Okeh was sold to Columbia Records. Columbia and its subsequent parent companies have controlled Okeh since then, the original Mamie Smith recording was in 1920, of Crazy Blues. General Phonograph Corp, Okehs manufacturer, used Smith’s success as the press to cultivate the new found market. Okeh had further prominence in the demographic, as African-American artists such as Sara Martin, Eva Taylor, Shelton Brooks, Esther Bigeou, Okeh started a special 8000 series devoted exclusively to race artists. The success of this series led Okeh to start recording where the music was being performed, the 8000 series, which began in 1921, lasted until late 1934, the final number being 8966. Okeh Records pioneered the practice of recording in 1922
Okeh Records
–
Okeh Records
Okeh Records
–
A lateral recording of
Billy Murray, from 1919
Okeh Records
–
1927 Okeh 78, 40916, "In a Mist".
20.
Mamie Smith
–
Mamie Smith was an American vaudeville singer, dancer, pianist and actress. As a vaudeville singer she performed in styles, including jazz. In 1920, she entered blues history as the first African-American artist to make vocal blues recordings, willie The Lion Smith described the background of that recording in his autobiography, Music on My Mind. Robinson was probably born in Cincinnati, Ohio, but no records of her birth are known, the year of her birth is usually given as 1883, but the researchers Bob Eagle and Eric LeBlanc state that she was recorded as 20 years old in the 1910 census. When she was 10 years old, she found work touring with a white act, as a teenager, she danced in Salem Tutt Whitneys Smart Set. In 1913, she left the Tutt Brothers to sing in clubs in Harlem and married William Smitty Smith and this was the first recording by a black blues singer, the musicians, however, were all white. Hagar had received threats from Northern and Southern pressure groups saying they would boycott the company if he recorded a black singer, despite these threats the record was a commercial success and opened the door for more black musicians to record. Many copies of the record were bought by African Americans, although other African Americans had been recorded earlier, such as George W. Johnson in the 1890s, they were performing music that had a substantial following among European-American audiences. The success of Smiths record prompted record companies to seek to record other female blues singers, Smith continued to make popular recordings for Okeh throughout the 1920s. In 1924 she made three releases for Ajax Records, which, while heavily promoted, did not sell well and she made some records for Victor. She toured the United States and Europe with her band, Mamie Smith & Her Jazz Hounds and she was billed as The Queen of the Blues. Mamie found that the new medium of radio provided a means of gaining additional fans. For example, she and several members of her band performed on KGW in Portland, Oregon, in early May 1923, Smith appeared in an early sound film, Jailhouse Blues, in 1929. She retired from recording and performing in 1931 and she returned to performing in 1939 to appear in the motion picture Paradise in Harlem, produced by her husband, Jack Goldberg. She also appeared in films, including Mystery in Swing, Sunday Sinners, Stolen Paradise, Murder on Lenox Avenue. NPR special on the selection on Crazy Blues
Mamie Smith
–
Mamie Smith gravure in the
New York Clipper, 1921
Mamie Smith
–
Mamie Smith
21.
Race records
–
Race records were 78-rpm phonograph records marketed to African Americans between the 1920s and 1940s. They primarily contained race music, comprising various African-American musical genres, including blues, jazz, and gospel music and these records were, at the time, the majority of commercial recordings of African-American artists in the US. Few African-American artists were marketed to white audiences, Race records were marketed by Okeh Records, Emerson Records, Vocalion Records, Victor Talking Machine Company, Paramount Records, and several other companies. Such records were labeled race records in reference to their marketing to African Americans, in the 16 October 1920 issue of the Chicago Defender, an African-American newspaper, an advertisement for Okeh records identified Mamie Smith as Our Race Artist. Most of the recording companies issued race series of records from the mid-1920s to the 1940s. Billboard published a Race Records chart between 1945 and 1949, initially covering juke box plays and from 1948 also covering sales and this was a revised version of the Harlem Hit Parade chart, which it had introduced in 1942. In June 1949, at the suggestion of Billboard journalist Jerry Wexler, the magazine changed the name of the chart to Rhythm & Blues Records. Wexler wrote, Race was a term then, a self-referral used by blacks. On the other hand, Race Records didnt sit well. I came up with a handle I thought suited the music well – rhythm. A label more appropriate to more enlightened times, the chart has since undergone further name changes, becoming the Soul chart in August 1969, the Black chart in June 1982, the R&B chart in October 1990, and the R&B/Hip-Hop chart in December 1999. Race Music, Black Cultures from Bebop to Hip-Hop, Music of the African Diaspora,7. Berkeley and London, University of California Press, Chicago, Illinois, Center for Black Music Research, Columbia College. NPR, Mamie Smith and the Birth of the Blues Market St. James Encyclopedia of Pop Culture, Race music PBS, Race records NPR, Black and White, Crossing the Border, Closing the Gap
Race records
–
The cover of race records catalogue of Victor Talking Machine Company
22.
Downhearted Blues
–
Downhearted Blues is a blues song composed by American jazz singer Alberta Hunter and musician Lovie Austin. The first line sets the theme for the song, Gee, Hunter sang it during her engagement at the Dreamland Cafe, in Chicago, where she performed with Joe King Olivers band. She made a recording of the song in 1922, Blues singer Bessie Smith recorded the song with piano accompaniment by Clarence Williams on February 16,1923. It was released as her first single,780,000 copies were sold in the first six months, the National Recording Preservation Board included Smiths recording in the inaugural National Recording Registry of the Library of Congress in 2002. The board recognizes songs that are culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant, in 2001, the Recording Industry Association of America, with the National Endowment for the Arts, included it at number 315 in the list of the Top 365 Songs of the Century. The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame identified it as one of the 500 Songs That Shaped Rock, in 2006, Smiths recording received a Grammy Hall of Fame Award. Lyrics of this song at MetroLyrics
Downhearted Blues
–
Sheet music for "Down Hearted Blues"
23.
Paramount Records
–
Paramount Records was an American record label known for its recordings of jazz and blues in the 1920s and early 1930s, including such artists as Ma Rainey and Blind Lemon Jefferson. Paramount Records was founded in 1917 by the Wisconsin Chair Company, the labels offices were located in Port Washington, Wisconsin and the pressing plant was in Grafton. The label was managed by Fred Dennett Key, the Wisconsin Chair Company made wooden phonograph cabinets for Edison Records. In 1915 it started making its own phonographs in the name of its subsidiary and it made phonographs under the Vista brand name through the end of the decade, the line failed commercially. In 1918, a line of gramophone records debuted on the Paramount label, advertisements, however, stated, Paramounts are recorded in our own New York laboratory. In its early years, the Paramount label fared only slightly better than the Vista phonograph line, the product had little to distinguish itself. Paramount released pop recordings with average audio quality pressed on average quality shellac, in the early 1920s, Paramount was accumulating debt while producing no profit. Paramount began offering to press records for other companies on a basis at low prices. Paramount was contracted to press discs for Black Swan Records, when the Black Swan company later floundered, Paramount bought out Black Swan and made records by and for African-Americans. These so-called race music records became Paramounts most famous and lucrative business, Paramounts race record series was launched in 1922 with vaudeville blues songs by Lucille Hegamin and Alberta Hunter. The company had a large mail-order operation which was a key to its early success, most of Paramounts race music recordings were arranged by black entrepreneur J. Mayo Williams. Williams did not know at the time that the market had become Paramounts prime business. Problems with low fidelity and poor pressings continued, Blind Lemon Jeffersons 1926 hits, Got the Blues and Long Lonesome Blues, were quickly rerecorded in the superior facilities of Marsh Laboratories, and subsequent releases used the rerecorded version. Both versions were released on compilation albums, in 1927, Ink Williams moved to competitor Okeh Records, taking Blind Lemon Jefferson with him for just one recording, Matchbox Blues. Paramounts recording of the song can be compared with Okehs on compilation albums. In 1929, Paramount was building a new studio in Grafton, so it sent Charley Patton —sent up by Jackson, Mississippi, storeowner H. C. Speir —to the studio of Gennett Records in Richmond, Indiana, where on June 14 he cut 14 famous sides, as the 12000 race series sold well, Paramounts 20000 popular series floundered. Paramount turned to its label, Broadway Records, which was taken over by Paramount following the collapse of Bridgeport Die & Machine Company in 1924
Paramount Records
–
Label of a Paramount record from 1926
Paramount Records
–
Paramount Records ad, 1919
24.
Contralto
–
A contralto is a type of classical female singing voice whose vocal range is the lowest female voice type. The contralto voice type is divided into the coloratura, lyric. Contralto is primarily meaningful only in reference to classical and operatic singing, the term contralto is only applied to female singers, men singing in a similar range are called countertenors. A true contralto is often regarded as the rarest of the female voices, some vocal theorists have found that the vocal folds are thicker than those present in other female voices. Studies have used cameras to photograph visible differences which are found in countertenors. The contralto has the lowest vocal range of the voice types. The contralto voice range is between tenor and mezzo-soprano, although tenors and baritones are usually male singers, some women can sing as low and are called female tenors or female baritones. With the exception of very rare female singers, such terms are usually informal, more formal terminology would be contralto profundo and contralto basso or oktavistka but these are not traditionally named among the fach system. Some of the rare contraltos that can sing the female equivalent of tenor and baritone include Zarah Leander, Ruby Helder, within the contralto voice type category are three generally recognized subcategories, coloratura contralto, lyric contralto, and dramatic contralto. Given its deviations from the norms, this voice type is quite rare. The lyric contralto voice is lighter than a dramatic contralto but not capable of the ornamentation and this class of contralto, lighter in timbre than the others, is the most common today and usually ranges from the E below middle C to the second G above middle C. The dramatic contralto is the deepest, darkest, and heaviest contralto voice, usually having a heavier tone, singers in this class are rare. True operatic contraltos are rare, and the operatic literature contains few roles written specifically for them, a common saying among contraltos is that they may play only witches, bitches, or britches. Examples of contralto roles in the operatic repertoire include the following. * indicates a role that may also be sung by a mezzo-soprano, category of contraltos List of operatic contraltos Fach, the German system for classifying voices Voice classification in non-classical music List of contraltos in non-classical music Coffin, Berton. Coloratura, Lyric and Dramatic Soprano, Vol.1, vocal Workouts for the Contemporary Singer. Media related to Contralto vocalists at Wikimedia Commons The dictionary definition of Contralto at Wiktionary
Contralto
–
Contralto voice range (F3–F5) indicated in sheet music (left) and on piano keyboard in green with dot marking middle C (C4).
25.
Louis Armstrong
–
Louis Armstrong, nicknamed Satchmo or Satch, was an American trumpeter, composer, singer and occasional actor who was one of the most influential figures in jazz. His career spanned five decades, from the 1920s to the 1960s and he was also skilled at scat singing. Armstrong was one of the first truly popular African-American entertainers to cross over and he rarely publicly politicized his race, often to the dismay of fellow African Americans, but took a well-publicized stand for desegregation in the Little Rock crisis. His artistry and personality allowed him socially acceptable access to the upper echelons of American society which were restricted for black men of his era. Armstrong often stated that he was born on July 4,1900, although he died in 1971, it was not until the mid-1980s that his true birth date, August 4,1901, was discovered by the researcher Tad Jones through the examination of baptismal records. Armstrong was born into a family in New Orleans, Louisiana. He spent his youth in poverty, in a neighborhood known as the Battlefield. His father, William Armstrong, abandoned the family when Louis was an infant and his mother, Mary Mayann Albert, then left Louis and his younger sister, Beatrice Armstrong Collins, in the care of his grandmother, Josephine Armstrong, and at times his uncle Isaac. At five, he moved back to live with his mother, her relatives and he attended the Fisk School for Boys, where he most likely had early exposure to music. He hung out in dance halls close to home, where he observed everything from licentious dancing to the quadrille, after dropping out of the Fisk School at age eleven, Armstrong joined a quartet of boys who sang in the streets for money. He also started to get into trouble, Cornet player Bunk Johnson said he taught Armstrong to play by ear at Dago Tonys Tonk in New Orleans, although in his later years Armstrong gave the credit to Oliver. It has given me something to live for and he also worked for a Lithuanian-Jewish immigrant family, the Karnofskys, who had a junk-hauling business and gave him odd jobs. They took him in and treated him like family, knowing he lived without a father and he later wrote a memoir of his relationship with the Karnofskys, Louis Armstrong + the Jewish Family in New Orleans, La. the Year of 1907. Armstrong wore a Star of David pendant for the rest of his life and wrote about what he learned from them, how to live—real life, professor Peter Davis instilled discipline in and provided musical training to the otherwise self-taught Armstrong. Eventually, Davis made Armstrong the band leader, the home band played around New Orleans and the thirteen-year-old Louis began to draw attention by his cornet playing, starting him on a musical career. At fourteen he was released from the home, living again with his father and new stepmother, Gertrude, Armstrong got his first dance hall job at Henry Ponces, where Black Benny became his protector and guide. He hauled coal by day and played his cornet at night, later, he played in brass bands and riverboats of New Orleans, and began traveling with the well-regarded band of Fate Marable, which toured on a steamboat up and down the Mississippi River. He described his time with Marable as going to the University, in 1919, Joe Oliver decided to go north and resigned his position in Kid Orys band, Armstrong replaced him
Louis Armstrong
–
Armstrong photographed in 1953.
Louis Armstrong
–
Handcolored
etching Louis Armstrong (2002) by Adi Holzer
Louis Armstrong
–
Armstrong with his first trumpet instructor, Peter Davis, in 1965
Louis Armstrong
–
Label for
gramophone record, "
Heebie Jeebies " by
Louis Armstrong and his Hot Five
26.
Coleman Hawkins
–
Coleman Randolph Hawkins, nicknamed Hawk and sometimes Bean, was an American jazz tenor saxophonist. One of the first prominent jazz musicians on his instrument, as Joachim E. Berendt explained, there were some tenor players before him, but the instrument was not an acknowledged jazz horn. While Hawkins is strongly associated with the music and big band era. Fellow saxophonist Lester Young, known as Pres, commented in a 1959 interview with The Jazz Review, As far as Im concerned, I think Coleman Hawkins was the President first, as far as myself, I think Im the second one. Miles Davis once said, When I heard Hawk, I learned to play ballads, Hawkins was born in Saint Joseph, Missouri, in 1904. He was named Coleman after his mother Cordelias maiden name and he attended high school in Chicago, then in Topeka, Kansas at Topeka High School. He later stated that he studied harmony and composition for two years at Washburn College in Topeka while still attending high school. In his youth he played piano and cello, and started playing saxophone at the age of nine, by the age of fourteen he was playing around eastern Kansas. Hawkinss first major gig was with Mamie Smiths Jazz Hounds in 1921, and he was with the band full-time from April 1922 to 1923, in the Jazz Hounds, he coincided with Garvin Bushell, Everett Robbins, Bubber Miley and Herb Flemming, among others. Hawkins joined Fletcher Hendersons Orchestra, where he remained until 1934, sometimes doubling on clarinet, Hawkinss playing changed significantly during Louis Armstrongs tenure with the Henderson Orchestra. In the late 1920s, Hawkins also participated in some of the earliest interracial recording sessions with the Mound City Blue Blowers, during his time with Henderson he became a star soloist with increasing prominence on records. He was also featured on a Benny Goodman session on February 2,1934 for Columbia, which also featured Mildred Bailey as guest vocalist. In a landmark recording of the era, captured as an afterthought at the session, Hawkins ignores almost all of the melody. In its exploration of harmonic structure it is considered by many to be the next step in jazz recording after Louis Armstrongs West End Blues in 1928. Hawkins time touring Europe between 1934 and 1939 allowed many other tenor saxophonists to establish themselves back in the U. S. including Lester Young, Ben Webster, and Chu Berry. After an unsuccessful attempt to establish a big band, he led a combo at Kellys Stables on Manhattans 52nd Street with Thelonious Monk, Oscar Pettiford, Miles Davis, later he toured with Howard McGhee and recorded with J. J. Johnson and Fats Navarro. He also toured with Jazz at the Philharmonic, after 1948 Hawkins divided his time between New York and Europe, making numerous freelance recordings. In 1948 Hawkins recorded Picasso, a piece for unaccompanied saxophone
Coleman Hawkins
–
Coleman Hawkins, c. September 1946. Photo:
William P. Gottlieb.
Coleman Hawkins
–
The grave of Coleman Hawkins
27.
Fletcher Henderson
–
James Fletcher Hamilton Henderson, Jr. was an American pianist, bandleader, arranger and composer, important in the development of big band jazz and swing music. He was one of the most prolific black musical arrangers and and he helped bridge the gap between the Dixieland and the swing eras. He was often known as Smack Henderson, James Fletcher Henderson was born in Cuthbert, Georgia, in 1897. He grew up in a middle-class African-American family and his father, Fletcher H. Henderson Sr. was the principal of the nearby Howard Normal Randolph School from 1880 until 1942. His home, now known as the Fletcher Henderson House, is a historic site and his mother, a teacher, taught him and his brother Horace to play the piano. He began lessons by the age of six and his father would occasionally lock Fletcher in his room to practice for hours. By age 13, Henderson possessed an ability to read music. He pursued the studies with his mother and further engaged himself in lessons on European art, although a talented musician, Henderson decided to dedicate himself to math and science. At age 18 he moved to Atlanta, Georgia, and changed his name to Fletcher Henderson, giving up James and he attended Atlanta University and graduated in 1920 with a bachelors degree in chemistry and mathematics. After graduation, he moved to New York City to attend Columbia University for a degree in chemistry. Finding his job prospects in chemistry to be poor because of his race, after arriving in New York City, Henderson shared an apartment with a pianist who worked as a musician. During the 1920s, he played piano accompaniment for blues singers and he also led the backing group for Ethel Waters during one of her national tours. Before 1923, Hendersons group was more of a band than a jazz band. In 1922 he formed his own band, which was resident first at Club Alabam, then at the Roseland Ballroom, in the 1920s, he did not do very many band arrangements. Although Armstong played in the band for only a year, he influenced its members, Hendersons band boasted the formidable arranging talents of Don Redman from 1922 to 1927. Henderson developed his skills from 1931 to the mid-1930s. His band c.1925 included Howard Scott, Coleman Hawkins, Louis Armstrong, Charlie Dixon, Kaiser Marshall, Buster Bailey, Elmer Chambers, Charlie Green, Ralph Escudero, and Don Redman. In 1925, with Henry Troy, he wrote Gin House Blues, recorded by Bessie Smith and his other compositions include Soft Winds
Fletcher Henderson
–
Fletcher Henderson
Fletcher Henderson
–
Built by his father in 1888, the Fletcher Henderson House in
Cuthbert,
Georgia is where Fletcher Henderson was born in 1897. The house was added to the
National Register of Historic Places on June 17, 1982
28.
James P. Johnson
–
James Price Johnson was an American pianist and composer. As such, he was a model for Count Basie, Duke Ellington, Art Tatum, Johnson was born in New Brunswick, New Jersey, United States. The proximity to New York City meant that the full spectrum of the citys musical experience, from bars, to cabarets. Johnsons father, William H. Johnson, was a helper and mechanic while his mother. Harrison was a part of the choir at the Methodist Church and was also a self-taught pianist, Johnson later attributed the popular African-American songs and dances at home and around the city as early influences on his musical taste. In 1908, Johnsons family moved to the San Juan Hill section of New York City, with perfect pitch and excellent recall he was soon able to pick out on the piano tunes that he had heard. Johnson, who got his first job as a pianist in 1912, from 1913 to 1916 Johnson spent time studying the European piano tradition with Bruto Giannini. Over the next four to five years Johnson continued to progress his ragtime piano skills by studying other pianists, in 1914, while performing in Newark, New Jersey with singer Lillie Mae Wright, who became his wife three years later, Johnson met Willie Smith. Smith and Johnson shared many of the ideas regarding entertainers. These beliefs and their complementary personalities led the two to become best friends, starting in 1918, Johnson and Wright began touring together in the Smart Set Revue before settling back in New York in 1919. During this period he met George Gershwin, who was also a young piano-roll artist at Aeolian, Johnson was a pioneer in the stride playing of the jazz piano. Johnson honed his craft, playing night after night, catering to the egos and idiosyncrasies of the singers he encountered. He developed into a sensitive and facile accompanist, the favorite accompanist of Ethel Waters, Ethel Waters wrote in her autobiography that working with musicians such as, and most especially, Johnson. made you want to sing until your tonsils fell out. Johnson seemed to be at his finest when he attacked the piano as if it were a drum set, the majority of his phonograph recordings of the 1920s and early 1930s were done for Black Swan and Columbia. In 1922, Johnson branched out and became the director for the revue Plantation Days. This revue took him to England for our months in 1923, during the summer of 1923 Johnson, along with the help of lyricist Cecil Mack, wrote the revue Runnin Wild. This revue stayed on tour for more than five years as well as showing on Broadway, in the depression era, Johnsons career slowed down somewhat. As the swing era began to gain popularity within the African-American communities, Johnson had a hard time adapting, Johnson began to write for musical revues and composed many forgotten orchestral music pieces
James P. Johnson
–
James P. Johnson,
Fess Williams, Freddie Moore,
Joe Thomas 1948. Photography by
William P. Gottlieb.
James P. Johnson
–
James P. Johnson
29.
St. Louis Blues (1929 film)
–
St. Louis Blues is a 1929 American two-reel short film starring Bessie Smith. The early sound film features Smith in an African-American speakeasy of the prohibition era singing the W. C, directed by Dudley Murphy, it is the only known film of Bessie Smith, and the soundtrack is her only recording not controlled by Columbia Records. Bessie Smith had a hit on the song in 1925 and Handy himself asked Bessie Smith to appear in the movie, Handy co-authored the film and was the musical director. The film was a dramatization of the song, a woman left alone by her roving man. It features a band that included James P. Johnson on piano, Thomas Morris and Joe Smith on cornet, the film has an all African-American cast. Bessie Smith co-stars with the dancer and actor Jimmy Mordecai as the boyfriend and it was filmed in June 1929 in Astoria, Queens. The film is about 16 minutes long, in 2006, this version was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant
St. Louis Blues (1929 film)
–
Film poster
30.
Short film
–
A short film, is a cinema format, denoting any film not long enough to be considered a feature film. The term featurette originally applied to a longer than a short subject. The increasingly rare term short subject means approximately the same thing and it is an industry term which carries more of an assumption that the film is shown as part of a presentation along with a feature film. Short is an abbreviation for either term, Short films are often screened at local, national, or international film festivals and made by independent filmmakers for non profit, either with a low budget or no budget at all. They are usually funded by grants, non profit organizations. Short films are used by filmmakers to gain experience or prove their talent in order to gain funding for future films from private investors, entertainment companies. Longer and shorter films coexisted with similar popularity throughout the days of film. However, comedy films were produced in large numbers compared to lengthy features such as D. W. Griffiths The Birth of a Nation. By the 1920s, a ticket purchased a varied program including a feature and several supporting works from such as second feature, short comedy, 5–10 minute cartoon, travelogue. Short comedies were popular, and typically came in a serial or series. Even though there was no set release schedule, these series could be considered somewhat like a modern TV sitcom – lower in status than feature films. Animated cartoons came principally as short subjects, in the 1930s, the distribution system changed in many countries owing to the Great Depression. Instead of the cinema owner assembling a program of their own choice, the studios sold a package centered on a main and supporting feature, with the rise of the double feature, two reel shorts went into decline as a commercial category. Hal Roach, for example, moved Laurel and Hardy full-time into feature films after 1935, by the mid-1950s, with the rise of television, the commercial live-action short was virtually dead, The Three Stooges being the last major series of 2-reelers, ending in 1959. Short films had become a medium for student, independent and specialty work, cartoon shorts had a longer life, due in part to the implementation of lower-cost limited animation techniques, but also declined in this period. Warner Bros. one of the most prolific of the golden era, the Pink Panther was the last regular theatrical cartoon short series, having begun in 1964 and ended in 1980. By the 1960s, the market for animated shorts had largely shifted to television, a few animated shorts continue within mainstream commercial distribution. For instance, Pixar has screened a short along with each of its feature films during its theatrical run since 1995
Short film
–
William Garwood starred in numerous short films, many of which were only 20 minutes in length
Short film
31.
W. C. Handy
–
William Christopher Handy was an American composer and musician, known as the Father of the Blues. Handy was one of the most influential American songwriters and he was one of many musicians who played the distinctively American blues music, and he is credited with giving it its contemporary form. Handy was a musician who used elements of folk music in his compositions. He was scrupulous in documenting the sources of his works, which frequently combined stylistic influences from various performers, Handy was born in Florence, Alabama, the son of Elizabeth Brewer and Charles Barnard Handy. His father was the pastor of a church in Guntersville. The log cabin of Handys birth has been preserved near downtown Florence, growing up he apprenticed in carpentry, shoemaking and plastering. Handy was deeply religious, and his style was influenced by the church music he sang. It was also influenced by the sounds of the natural world, Handys father believed that musical instruments were tools of the devil. Without his parents permission, Handy bought his first guitar, which he had seen in a shop window and secretly saved for by picking berries and nuts. Upon seeing the guitar, his father asked him, What possessed you to bring a sinful thing like that into our Christian home, and ordered him to take it back where it came from, but he also arranged for his son to take organ lessons. The organ lessons did not last long, but Handy moved on to learn to play the cornet and he joined a local band as a teenager, but he kept this fact a secret from his parents. He purchased a cornet from a band member and spent every free minute practicing it. With a dozen men participating, the effect was sometimes remarkable. It was better to us than the music of a drum corps. He wrote, Southern Negroes sang about everything. They accompany themselves on anything from which they can extract a musical sound or rhythmical effect and he would later reflect that In this way, and from these materials, they set the mood for what we now call blues. In September 1892, Handy travelled to Birmingham, Alabama, to take an exam, which he passed easily. Learning that it poorly, he quit the position and found employment at a pipe works plant in nearby Bessemer. In his time off from his job, he organized a string orchestra. He later organized the Lauzetta Quartet, when the group read about the upcoming Worlds Fair in Chicago, they decided to attend
W. C. Handy
–
In July 1941, by
Carl Van Vechten
W. C. Handy
–
W.C. Handy at age 19
W. C. Handy
–
W. C. Handy, ca. 1900, Director of the Alabama Agriculture & Mechanical College Band
W. C. Handy
–
Bronze Statue of W.C. Handy in Handy Park,
Beale Street,
Memphis
32.
St. Louis Blues (song)
–
Saint Louis Blues is a popular American song, composed by W. C. Handy in the style and published in September 1914. It remains a part of jazz musicians repertoire. It was also one of the first blues songs to succeed as a pop song and it has been performed by numerous musicians in various styles, from Louis Armstrong and Bessie Smith to Count Basie, Glenn Miller, Guy Lombardo, and the Boston Pops Orchestra. It has been called the jazzmans Hamlet, the 1925 version sung by Bessie Smith, with Louis Armstrong on cornet, was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame in 1993. The 1929 version by Louis Armstrong & His Orchestra was inducted in 2008, Handys autobiography recounts his hearing the tune in St. Louis in 1892, It had numerous one-line verses and they would sing it all night. The song was a massive and enduring success, athe time of his death in 1958, Handy was earning royalties of upwards of US$25,000 annually for the song. The original published sheet music is available online from the United States Library of Congress in a database of African-American music from Brown University. The tango-like rhythm is notated as a quarter note followed by an eighth note. It is played in the introduction and in the sixteen-measure bridge, while blues often became simple and repetitive in form, Saint Louis Blues has multiple complementary and contrasting strains, similar to classic ragtime compositions. Handy said his objective in writing the song was to combine ragtime syncopation with a melody in the spiritual tradition. With traditional New Orleans and New Orleans–style bands, the tune is one of a handful that includes a set traditional solo, the clarinet solo, with a distinctive series of rising partials, was first recorded by Larry Shields with the Original Dixieland Jass Band in 1921. It is not found on any earlier recordings or published orchestrations of the tune, Shields is often credited with creating this solo, but claims have been made for other early New Orleans clarinetists, including Emile Barnes. Writing about the first time Saint Louis Blues was played, Handy noted that The one-step, when St Louis Blues was written the tango was in vogue. I tricked the dancers by arranging a tango introduction, breaking abruptly into a low-down blues and my eyes swept the floor anxiously, then suddenly I saw lightning strike. Something within them came suddenly to life, an instinct that wanted so much to live, to fling its arms to spread joy, took them by the heels. It has long been reputed that Ethel Waters was the first to sing Saint Louis Blues in public and this backs the claim by Waters, who said she learned it from Anderson and featured it herself during a 1917 engagement in Baltimore. However, Columbias house band, directed by Charles A. Prince, had recorded a released instrumental version in December 1915
St. Louis Blues (song)
–
Sheet music cover
St. Louis Blues (song)
–
Excerpt from "St. Louis Blues" by W.C. Handy (1914). The left hand plays the habanera rhythm.
St. Louis Blues (song)
–
"Saint Louis Blues"
33.
Dudley Murphy
–
Dudley Murphy was an American film director. Murphy was born on July 10,1897 in Winchester, Massachusetts and he began making films in the early 1920s after working as a journalist. Murphys then-wife Chase Harringdine played the dryad, Murphy followed this with Danse Macabre featuring Adolph Bolm, Olin Howland, and Ruth Page. Both of these films are in the DVD collection Unseen Cinema issued in October 2005. Murphys eighth film, Ballet mécanique, which he co-directed with the French artist Fernand Léger, the film was scheduled to be screened with George Antheils masterpiece of the same name. However, the music ran close to 30 minutes, while the film was 17 minutes long, in 2000, Paul Lehrman produced a married print of the film. Ballet mécanique, with the George Antheil music originally written for the film, was included in the DVD collection Unseen Cinema released in October 2005, in addition to Ballet mécanique, Murphy is best remembered for St. In 1932, Murphy helped introduce the Mexican artist David Alfaro Siqueiros to prominent people in the Los Angeles community, to show his gratitude, Siqueiros painted a mural on a wall in Murphys Pacific Palisades home. The only intact mural by Siqueiros in the United States, Portrait of Mexico Today was donated anonymously to the Santa Barbara Museum of Art in 1999. From the late 1940s through the 1960s Murphy and his wife, Virginia, owned and operated Holiday House
Dudley Murphy
–
Murphy Directing
34.
Astoria, Queens
–
Astoria is a middle-class and commercial neighborhood with a population of 78,793 in the northwestern corner of the New York City borough of Queens. Located in Community Board 1, Astoria is bounded by the East River and is adjacent to three other Queens neighborhoods, Long Island City, Sunnyside, and Woodside, Astoria is patrolled by the New York City Police Departments 114th Precinct. The area now known as Astoria was originally called Halletts Cove, after its first landowner William Hallett, beginning in the early 19th century, affluent New Yorkers constructed large residences around 12th and 14th streets, an area that later became known as Astoria Village. Halletts Cove, incorporated on April 12,1839 and previously founded by fur merchant Stephen A. Halsey, was a recreational destination. The area was renamed for John Jacob Astor, then the wealthiest man in America with a net worth of over $40 million and he only invested $500, but the name stayed nonetheless, as a bitter battle over naming the village finally was won by Astors supporters and friends. From Astors summer home in Hell Gate, Manhattan—on what is now East 87th Street near York Avenue—he could see across the East River the new Long Island village named in his honor, Astor, however, never actually set foot in Astoria. During the second half of the 19th century, economic and commercial growth brought increased immigration from German settlers, mostly furniture and cabinet makers. One such settler was Heinrich Engelhard Steinweg, patriarch of the Steinway family who founded the piano company Steinway & Sons in 1853, later on the Steinways built a sawmill and foundry, as well as a streetcar line. The family eventually established Steinway Village for their workers, a town that provided school instruction in German as well as English. Astoria and several surrounding villages, including Steinway, were incorporated into Long Island City in 1870. Long Island City remained an independent municipality until it was incorporated into New York City in 1898, the areas farms were turned into housing tracts and street grids to accommodate the growing number of residents. Astoria also figured prominently in early American filmmaking as one of its initial centers and that heritage is preserved today by the Museum of the Moving Image and Kaufman Astoria Studios. Today, much of the Astoria waterfront is being redeveloped and underutilized industrial sites in historic neighborhoods are being revived. The development will include new waterfront parks, a supermarket, retail shops and restaurants. These waterfront projects were designed by a New York architectural firm, in conjunction with private developers, city agencies and landscape architects. Based on data from the 2010 United States Census, the population of Astoria was 78,793, covering an area of 902.94 acres, the neighborhood had a population density of 87.3 inhabitants per acre. The racial makeup of the neighborhood was 49. 2% White,4. 5% African American,0. 2% Native American,16. 2% Asian,0. 0% Pacific Islander,1. 2% from other races, and 2. 2% from two or more races. Hispanic or Latino of any race were 26. 5% of the population, Astoria was first settled by the Dutch and Germans in the 17th century
Astoria, Queens
–
36th Street between 30th Avenue and 31st Avenue in Astoria
Astoria, Queens
Astoria, Queens
–
30th Avenue, Astoria, Queens, NYC
Astoria, Queens
–
31st Avenue at 33rd Street in Astoria
35.
Billie Holiday
–
Eleanora Fagan, professionally known as Billie Holiday, was an American jazz musician and singer-songwriter with a career spanning nearly thirty years. Nicknamed Lady Day by her friend and music partner Lester Young, Holiday had a influence on jazz music. Her vocal style, strongly inspired by jazz instrumentalists, pioneered a new way of manipulating phrasing and she was known for her vocal delivery and improvisational skills, which made up for her limited range and lack of formal music education. There were other singers with equal talent, but Holiday had a voice that captured the attention of her audience. After a turbulent childhood, Holiday began singing in nightclubs in Harlem, where she was heard by the producer John Hammond and she signed a recording contract with Brunswick Records in 1935. Collaborations with Teddy Wilson yielded the hit What a Little Moonlight Can Do, Throughout the 1930s and 1940s, Holiday had mainstream success on labels such as Columbia Records and Decca Records. By the late 1940s, however, she was beset with legal troubles, after a short prison sentence, she performed a sold-out concert at Carnegie Hall, but her reputation deteriorated because of her drug and alcohol problems. Her final recordings were met with mixed reaction to her voice but were mild commercial successes. Her final album, Lady in Satin, was released in 1958, Holiday died of cirrhosis of the liver in 1959. A posthumous album, Last Recording, was released following her death, much of Holidays material has been rereleased since her death. She is considered a performer with an ongoing influence on American music. She is the recipient of four Grammy awards, all of them posthumous awards for Best Historical Album, Holiday herself was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame in 1973. Lady Sings the Blues, a film about her life, starring Diana Ross, was released in 1972, Eleanora Fagan was born on April 7,1915, in Philadelphia, the daughter of Sarah Julia Sadie Fagan and Clarence Holiday, an unmarried teenaged couple. Her father did not live with her mother, not long after Eleanora was born, Clarence abandoned his family to pursue a career as a jazz banjo player and guitarist. Sarah moved to Philadelphia at age 19, after she was evicted from her parents home in the Sandtown-Winchester neighborhood of Baltimore, Maryland, for becoming pregnant. With no support from her parents, she made arrangements with her older, married half-sister, Eva Miller, the child was of African-American ancestry and was also said to have had Irish ancestors through her mothers mixed heritage. Her mother often took what were known as transportation jobs. Holidays autobiography, Lady Sings the Blues, first published in 1956, is sketchy on details of her early life, some historians have disputed Holidays paternity, as a copy of her birth certificate in the Baltimore archives lists the father as a man named Frank DeViese
Billie Holiday
–
At the
Downbeat club, in
New York. c. February 1947
Billie Holiday
–
Holiday aged 2 in 1917
Billie Holiday
–
Billie Holiday and her dog Mister, New York, c. June 1946
Billie Holiday
–
Billie Holiday,
Downbeat club, New York, c. February 1947.
36.
Trombone
–
The trombone is a musical instrument in the brass family. Like all brass instruments, sound is produced when the players vibrating lips cause the air column inside the instrument to vibrate, nearly all trombones have a telescoping slide mechanism that varies the length of the instrument to change the pitch. Many modern trombone models also utilize a rotary valve as a means to lower pitch of the instrument, variants such as the valve trombone and superbone have three valves like those on the trumpet. The word trombone derives from Italian tromba and -one, so the name means large trumpet, the trombone has a predominantly cylindrical bore like its valved counterpart the baritone and in contrast to its conical valved counterparts, the euphonium and the horn. The most frequently encountered trombones are the trombone and bass trombone. The most common variant, the tenor, is an instrument pitched in B♭, an octave below the B♭ trumpet. A person who plays the trombone is called a trombonist or trombone player, the trombone is a predominantly cylindrical tube bent into an elongated S shape. Rather than being completely cylindrical from end to end, the tube is a series of tapers with the smallest at the mouthpiece receiver. The design of these affects the intonation of the instrument. As with other instruments, sound is produced by blowing air through pursed lips producing a vibration that creates a standing wave in the instrument. The detachable cup-shaped mouthpiece is similar to that of the baritone horn and it has the venturi, a small constriction of the air column that adds resistance greatly affecting the tone of the instrument, and is inserted into the mouthpiece receiver in the slide section. The slide section consists of a leadpipe, the inner and outer tubes. Modern stays are soldered, while sackbuts were made with loose, the slide, the most distinctive feature of the trombone, allows the player to extend the length of the air column, lowering the pitch. To prevent friction from slowing the action of the slide, additional sleeves were developed during the Renaissance, and this part of the slide must be lubricated frequently. Additional tubing connects the slide to the bell of the instrument through a neckpipe, for example, second position A is not in exactly the same place on the slide as second position E. Many types of trombone also include one or more rotary valves used to increase the length of the instrument by directing the air flow through additional tubing. This allows the instrument to reach notes that are not possible without the valve as well as play other notes in alternate positions. Like the trumpet, the trombone is considered a cylindrical bore instrument since it has sections of tubing, principally in the slide section
Trombone
–
A tenor trombone
Trombone
–
A disassembled trombone. From left to right: mouthpiece, outer slide, bell section, inner slide.
Trombone
–
A tenor trombone mouthpiece
Trombone
–
The trombone section of the Eau Claire Municipal Band is featured at a Fourth of July celebration in Owen Park.
37.
Jack Teagarden
–
Weldon Leo Jack Teagarden, was a jazz trombonist and singer. Born in Vernon, Texas, his brothers Charlie and Clois Cub and his father was an amateur brass band trumpeter and started him on baritone horn, by age seven he had switched to trombone. His first public performances were in theaters, where he accompanied his mother. Teagardens trombone style was largely self-taught, and he developed many unusual alternative positions, chief among his contributions to the language of jazz trombonists was his ability to interject the blues or merely a blue feeling into virtually any piece of music. By 1920 Teagarden was playing professionally in San Antonio, including with the band of pianist Peck Kelley, in the mid-1920s he started traveling widely around the United States in a quick succession of different bands. In 1927, he went to New York City where he worked with several bands, by 1928 he played for the Ben Pollack band. Within a year of the commencement of his career, he became a regular vocalist, first doing blues material. He is often mentioned as one of the best jazz vocalists of the era, his style is like his trombone playing. His singing is best remembered for duets with Louis Armstrong and Johnny Mercer, in the early 1930s Teagarden was based in Chicago, for some time playing with the band of Wingy Manone. He played at the Century of Progress exposition in Chicago, Teagarden sought financial security during the Great Depression and signed an exclusive contract to play for the Paul Whiteman Orchestra from 1933 through 1938. The contract with Whitemans band provided him financial security but prevented him from playing an active part in the musical advances of the mid-thirties swing era. Teagarden then started leading his own big band, in 1946 Teagarden joined Louis Armstrongs All Stars. In late 1951 Teagarden left to lead his own band, then co-led a band with Earl Hines. Teagarden appeared in the movies Birth of the Blues, The Strip, The Glass Wall, and Jazz on a Summers Day and he recorded for RCA Victor, Columbia, Decca, Capitol, and MGM Records. As a jazz artist he won the 1944 Esquire magazine Gold Award, was rated in the Metronome polls of 1937-42 and 1945. Teagarden was the performer at the Newport Jazz Festival of 1957. In 1969, Jack Teagarden was inducted into the Down Beat Jazz Hall of Fame and he was inducted into the Big Band and Jazz Hall of Fame in 1985. Other honors have included induction in the ASCAP Jazz Wall of Fame in 2005 and inclusion in the Houston Institute for Cultures Texas Music Hall of Fame
Jack Teagarden
–
Jack Teagarden
Jack Teagarden
–
From left: Jack Teagarden, Sandy DeSantis,
Velma Middleton,
Fraser MacPherson,
Cozy Cole,
Arvell Shaw,
Earl Hines,
Barney Bigard at Palomar Supper Club, Vancouver B.C. (March 17, 1951)
Jack Teagarden
–
"'Jack-Armstrong' Blues" by the V-Disc All Stars featuring Jack Teagarden and Louis Armstrong, V-Disc 384A, Hot Jazz, U.S. War Department release, March, 1945.
38.
Trumpet
–
A trumpet is a musical instrument commonly used in classical and jazz ensembles. The trumpet group contains the instruments with the highest register in the brass family, trumpets are used in art music styles, for instance in orchestras, concert bands, and jazz ensembles, as well as in popular music. They are played by blowing air through almost-closed lips, producing a sound that starts a standing wave vibration in the air column inside the instrument. Since the late 15th century they have primarily been constructed of brass tubing, there are many distinct types of trumpet, with the most common being pitched in B♭, having a tubing length of about 1.48 m. Early trumpets did not provide means to change the length of tubing, most trumpets have valves of the piston type, while some have the rotary type. The use of rotary-valved trumpets is more common in orchestral settings, each valve, when engaged, increases the length of tubing, lowering the pitch of the instrument. A musician who plays the trumpet is called a trumpet player or trumpeter, the earliest trumpets date back to 1500 BC and earlier. The bronze and silver trumpets from Tutankhamuns grave in Egypt, bronze lurs from Scandinavia, trumpets from the Oxus civilization of Central Asia have decorated swellings in the middle, yet are made out of one sheet of metal, which is considered a technical wonder. The Shofar, made from a ram horn and the Hatzotzeroth and they were played in Solomons Temple around 3000 years ago. They were said to be used to blow down the walls of Jericho and they are still used on certain religious days. The Salpinx was a straight trumpet 62 inches long, made of bone or bronze, Salpinx contests were a part of the original Olympic Games. The Moche people of ancient Peru depicted trumpets in their art going back to AD300, the earliest trumpets were signaling instruments used for military or religious purposes, rather than music in the modern sense, and the modern bugle continues this signaling tradition. Improvements to instrument design and metal making in the late Middle Ages, the natural trumpets of this era consisted of a single coiled tube without valves and therefore could only produce the notes of a single overtone series. Changing keys required the player to change crooks of the instrument, the development of the upper, clarino register by specialist trumpeters—notably Cesare Bendinelli—would lend itself well to the Baroque era, also known as the Golden Age of the natural trumpet. During this period, a vast body of music was written for virtuoso trumpeters, the art was revived in the mid-20th century and natural trumpet playing is again a thriving art around the world. The melody-dominated homophony of the classical and romantic periods relegated the trumpet to a role by most major composers owing to the limitations of the natural trumpet. Berlioz wrote in 1844, Notwithstanding the real loftiness and distinguished nature of its quality of tone, there are few instruments that have been more degraded. The attempt to give the trumpet more chromatic freedom in its range saw the development of the keyed trumpet, the symphonies of Mozart, Beethoven, and as late as Brahms, were still played on natural trumpets
Trumpet
–
B ♭ trumpet
Trumpet
–
Written range:
Trumpet
–
Ceramic trumpet. 300 AD
Larco Museum Collection Lima, Peru.
Trumpet
–
Reproduction
baroque trumpet by Michael Laird
39.
Tenor saxophone
–
The tenor saxophone is a medium-sized member of the saxophone family, a group of instruments invented by Adolphe Sax in the 1840s. The tenor and the alto are the two most commonly used saxophones, the tenor is pitched in the key of B♭, and written as a transposing instrument in the treble clef, sounding an octave and a major second lower than the written pitch. Modern tenor saxophones which have a high F♯ key have a range from A♭2 to E5 and are pitched one octave below the soprano saxophone. People who play the saxophone are known as tenor saxophonists or tenor sax players. The tenor saxophone uses a larger mouthpiece, reed and ligature than the alto, visually, it is easily distinguished by the bend in its neck, or its crook, near the mouthpiece. The alto saxophone lacks this and its neck goes straight to the mouthpiece, the tenor saxophone is commonly used in classical music, military bands, marching bands and jazz. In concert bands, the plays mostly a supporting role, sometimes sharing parts with the euphonium, horn. In jazz ensembles, the plays a more prominent role as a member of a section that includes the alto. Many of the most innovative and influential musicians have been tenor saxophonists. These include Coleman Hawkins, Lester Young, Ben Webster, Dexter Gordon, Wardell Gray, Stan Getz, Sonny Rollins, John Coltrane, the work of younger players such as Michael Brecker and Chris Potter has been an important influence in more recent jazz. The tenor saxophone was one of a family of fourteen instruments constructed in 1846 by Adolphe Sax, saxs patent, granted on 28 June 1846, divided the family into two groups of seven instruments, each ranging from sopranino down to contrabass. One family, pitched alternatively in B♭ and E♭, was designed specifically to integrate with the instruments then common in military bands. The tenor saxophone, pitched in B♭, is the member of this family. The tenor saxophone, like all saxophones, consists of a conical tube of thin brass. The wider end of the tube is flared slightly to form a bell, at intervals down the bore are placed between 20 and 23 tone holes, these are covered by pads which can be pressed onto the holes to form an airtight seal. There are also two small holes which, when opened, disrupt the lower harmonics of the instrument. The pads are controlled by pressing a number of keys with the fingers of the left and right hands, the tenor saxophone is also curved at the top, above the highest tone-hole but below the highest speaker hole. While the alto is usually bent only through 80–90° to make the mouthpiece fit more easily in the mouth, the reed is shaved to come to an extremely thin point, and is clamped over the mouthpiece by the use of a ligature
Tenor saxophone
–
Tenor saxophone
Tenor saxophone
–
Tenor (left) and
soprano saxophones, showing their comparative sizes
Tenor saxophone
–
A silver-plated
Conn 'New Wonder' Series II tenor saxophone, with a serial number which dates manufacture to 1934. It is a very late "Transitional" model tenor sax with split bell-keys, and was manufactured just before production of the Conn 10M started.
Leon "Chu" Berry played a tenor saxophone which was very similar to this instrument.
Tenor saxophone
–
Tenor saxophone manufactured in 2008
40.
Chu Berry
–
Leon Brown Chu Berry was an American swing tenor saxophonist. Had he lived, there is no doubt that he would be ensconced in the jazz pantheon alongside Coleman Hawkins, Berry was born in Wheeling, West Virginia. He graduated from Lincoln High School, in Wheeling, then attended West Virginia State College, near Charleston and his sister Ann played piano and Chu became interested in music at an early age, playing alto saxophone, at first with local bands. He was inspired to take up the tenor sax after hearing Coleman Hawkins on tour, although Berry based his style on Hawkins playing, Hawkins regarded Berry as his equal, saying Chu was about the best. Berry got his much-misspelled moniker from musicians, because he chewed on his mouthpiece or had Fu Manchu facial hair or both, stated jazz historian Gary Giddins and he did not take the place of Herschel Evans, but did, however, deputize for him at a recording date. Berrys mastery of advanced harmony and his solos on uptempo tunes influenced such young innovators as Dizzy Gillespie and Charlie Parker. The latter named his first son Leon in Chus honor, Berry was one of the jazz musicians who took part in jam sessions at Mintons Playhouse in New York City, which led to the development of bebop. Christopher Columbus, which Berry composed with lyrics by Andy Razaf, was the last important hit recording of the Fletcher Henderson orchestra and it is one of the most popular riff tunes from the swing era. It was incorporated into Jimmy Mundys arrangement of Sing, Sing, Sing for Benny Goodmans band and this was used as the final showstopper in Goodmans first Carnegie Hall jazz concert of January 16,1938. Visibility was poor due to heavy fog, approximately 15 miles from Conneaut, Ohio, the car in which he was a passenger skidded and crashed into the end of a steel bridge. Berry suffered a fracture and other internal injuries in the accident. He was taken to Brown Memorial Hospital in Conneaut, where he died on October 30,1941 aged 33, Berry was survived by his wife, Geraldine Berry, mother, Margaret Berry, and sister, Anne Berry. Over a thousand people viewed Berrys coffin before his funeral at the Simpson Church, cab Calloway came by plane from Rochester, N. Y. to attend the funeral. Hundreds of cars were in the funeral procession towards Peninsula Cemetery in Wheeling, author Jack Kerouac was a Berry fan, referring to him as the great Chu Berry near the beginning of The Subterraneans. Chu Berry is the name of a series of saxophones produced by the C. G. Conn company during the 1920s. First, C. G. Conn never used the term Chu Berry to refer to any of their saxophones, furthermore, Berry actually played a model of tenor sax generally known as the Conn Transitional, and is not known to have ever played a New Wonder Series II. The term Chu Berry saxophone is misleading because it has no accurate and this easily causes confusion, for example, to non-experts, the Conn New Wonder Series II looks very similar to the New Wonder Series I or the New Invention model of around 1910. To complicate matters further, there was no abrupt cut-off point between the New Wonder Series II and the 6M or 10M, instead, there was a gradual evolution in the design
Chu Berry
–
A silver-plated
Conn 'New Wonder' Series II tenor saxophone, with a serial number which dates manufacture to 1934. It is a very late "Transitional" model tenor sax with split bell-keys, and was manufactured just before production of the Conn 10M started. Berry played a tenor saxophone almost identical to this one. However, the front of the bell of Berry's saxophone was more ornately engraved with various
art deco designs
Chu Berry
–
A straight-necked
Conn C melody saxophone with split bell-keys and a serial number which dates manufacture to 1922. Note:- Chu Berry did not play the C Melody saxophone and in any case this example is a Conn New Wonder Series 1. Even so, some
eBay sellers (wrongly) describe this instrument as a "Chu Berry saxophone"
Chu Berry
–
A very late model "Transitional" Conn 6M alto with adjustable thumb-hook. It does not have the Conn microtuner or the 6M stamp. Again, some eBay sellers mistakenly refer to this alto as a "Chu Berry saxophone", even though Berry actually played a Conn tenor with an earlier transitional design featuring split bell-keys.
41.
Piano
–
The piano is an acoustic, stringed musical instrument invented around the year 1700, in which the strings are struck by hammers. It is played using a keyboard, which is a row of keys that the performer presses down or strikes with the fingers and thumbs of both hands to cause the hammers to strike the strings. The word piano is a form of pianoforte, the Italian term for the early 1700s versions of the instrument. The first fortepianos in the 1700s had a sound and smaller dynamic range. An acoustic piano usually has a wooden case surrounding the soundboard and metal strings. Pressing one or more keys on the keyboard causes a padded hammer to strike the strings. The hammer rebounds from the strings, and the continue to vibrate at their resonant frequency. These vibrations are transmitted through a bridge to a soundboard that amplifies by more efficiently coupling the acoustic energy to the air, when the key is released, a damper stops the strings vibration, ending the sound. Notes can be sustained, even when the keys are released by the fingers and thumbs and this means that the piano can play 88 different pitches, going from the deepest bass range to the highest treble. The black keys are for the accidentals, which are needed to play in all twelve keys, more rarely, some pianos have additional keys. Most notes have three strings, except for the bass that graduates from one to two, the strings are sounded when keys are pressed or struck, and silenced by dampers when the hands are lifted from the keyboard. There are two types of piano, the grand piano and the upright piano. The grand piano is used for Classical solos, chamber music and art song and it is used in jazz. The upright piano, which is compact, is the most popular type, as they are a better size for use in private homes for domestic music-making. During the nineteenth century, music publishers produced many works in arrangements for piano, so that music lovers could play. The piano is widely employed in classical, jazz, traditional and popular music for solo and ensemble performances, accompaniment, with technological advances, amplified electric pianos, electronic pianos, and digital pianos have also been developed. The electric piano became an instrument in the 1960s and 1970s genres of jazz fusion, funk music. The piano was founded on earlier technological innovations in keyboard instruments, pipe organs have been used since Antiquity, and as such, the development of pipe organs enabled instrument builders to learn about creating keyboard mechanisms for sounding pitches
Piano
–
A grand piano (left) and an upright piano (right)
Piano
Piano
–
Grand piano by Louis Bas of
Villeneuve-lès-Avignon, France, 1781. Earliest French grand piano known to survive; includes an inverted wrestplank and action derived from the work of Bartolomeo Cristofori (ca. 1700) with ornately decorated soundboard.
Piano
–
Early piano replica by the modern builder Paul McNulty, after Walter & Sohn, 1805
42.
Bassist
–
A bassist, or bass player, is a musician who plays a bass instrument such as a double bass, bass guitar, keyboard bass or a low brass instrument such as a tuba or sousaphone. Different musical genres tend to be associated with one or more of these instruments. Since the 1960s, the bass has been the standard bass instrument for funk, R&B, soul music, rock and roll, reggae, jazz fusion, heavy metal, country. The double bass is the bass instrument for classical music, bluegrass, rockabilly. Low brass instruments such as the tuba or sousaphone are the bass instrument in Dixieland. Despite the associations of different bass instruments with certain genres, there are exceptions, some fusion jazz groups use a lightweight, stripped-down electric upright bass rather than a double bass. Some composers of art music use the electric bass in a chamber music setting. Some jazz big bands use electric bass, some funk, R&B and jazz, fusion groups use synth bass or keyboard bass rather than electric bass. Bootsy Collins and Stevie Wonder used synth bass, some Dixieland bands use double bass or electric bass instead of a tuba. In some jazz groups and jam bands, the basslines are played by a Hammond organ player, electric bassists play the bass guitar. In most rock, pop, metal and country genres, the bass line outlines the harmony of the music being performed, in addition, there are many different standard bass line types for different genres and types of song. Bass lines often emphasize the root note, with a role for the third. In addition, pedal tones, ostinatos, and bass riffs are also used as bass lines, while most electric bass players rarely play chords, chords are used in some styles, especially funk, R&B, soul music, jazz, Latin and heavy metal music. A shortlist of the notable bassists in these genres includes, Barry Bales Herbie Flowers Willie Dixon Danny Thompson List of double bassists in popular music
Bassist
–
Jaco Pastorius (1951–1987) was an influential American
jazz bassist, composer and big band leader. He is best known for his work with
Weather Report from 1976 to 1981, as well as work with artists including
Joni Mitchell,
Pat Metheny, and his own solo projects.
Bassist
–
Geddy Lee
43.
Billy Taylor
–
William Billy Taylor was an American jazz pianist, composer, broadcaster and educator. Critic Leonard Feather once said, It is almost indisputable that Dr. Billy Taylor is the worlds foremost spokesman for jazz, Taylor was born in Greenville, North Carolina, but moved to Washington, D. C. when he was five years old. He grew up in a family and learned to play different instruments as a child, including guitar, drums. He was most successful at the piano, and had classical piano lessons with Henry Grant, Taylor made his first professional appearance playing keyboard at the age of 13 and was paid one dollar. Taylor attended Dunbar High School, the U. S. s first high school for African-American students and he went to Virginia State College and majored in sociology. Pianist Dr. Undine Smith Moore noticed young Taylors talent in piano and he changed his major to music, Taylor moved to New York City after graduation and started playing piano professionally from 1944, first with Ben Websters Quartet on New Yorks 52nd Street. The same night he joined Websters Quartet, he met Art Tatum, among the other musicians Taylor worked with was Machito and his mambo band, from whom he developed a love for Latin music. After an eight-month tour with the Don Redman Orchestra in Europe, Taylor stayed there with his wife Theodora and worked in Paris and the Netherlands. Taylor returned to New York later that year and cooperated with Bob Wyatt and Sylvia Syms at the Royal Roost jazz club and Billie Holiday in a successful show called Holiday on Broadway. A year later, he became the house pianist at Birdland and performed with Charlie Parker, J. J. Johnson, Stan Getz, Dizzy Gillespie, Taylor played at Birdland longer than any other pianist in the history of the club. In 1949, Taylor published his first book, a textbook about bebop piano styles. In 1952 Taylor composed one of his most famous tunes, I Wish I Knew How It Would Feel to Be Free, nina Simone covered the song in her 1967 album Silk & Soul. The tune is known in the UK as a piano instrumental version. In 1958, he became the Musical Director of NBCs The Subject Is Jazz, Taylor also worked as a DJ and program director on radio station WLIB in New York in the 1960s. During the 1960s, the Billy Taylor Trio was a feature of the Hickory House on West 55th Street in Manhattan. From 1969 to 1972, he served as the director for The David Frost Show and was the first African American to lead a talk-show band. Louis Armstrong, Count Basie, Benny Goodman and Buddy Rich were just a few of the musicians who played on the show, in 1981, Jazzmobile produced a jazz special for National Public Radio, for which the program received the Peabody Award for Excellence in Broadcasting Programs. Jazzmobiles 1990 Tribute Concert to Dr. Taylor at Avery Fisher Hall, part of the JVC Jazz Festival, featured Nancy Wilson, Ahmad Jamal Trio and Terence Blanchard Quintet
Billy Taylor
–
Billy Taylor performing a
Jazzmobile concert 1977
Billy Taylor
–
Billy Taylor performing at
Usdan Center for the Creative and Performing Arts, Long Island, New York, June 25, 2007
44.
Benny Goodman
–
Benjamin David Benny Goodman was an American jazz and swing musician, clarinetist and bandleader, known as the King of Swing. In the mid-1930s, Goodman led one of the most popular groups in America. Goodmans bands launched the careers of many jazz artists. During an era of segregation, he led one of the first well-known integrated jazz groups. Goodman performed nearly to the end of his life while exploring an interest in classical music, Goodman was born in Chicago, the ninth of twelve children of poor Jewish immigrants from the Russian Empire. His father, David Goodman, came to America in 1892 from Warsaw in partitioned Poland and his mother, Dora, came from Kaunas, Lithuania. His parents met in Baltimore, Maryland, and moved to Chicago before Benny was born, hundreds of houses are unconnected with the street sewer. Money was a constant problem in the family, Bennys father earned at most $20 per week. On Sundays, his father took the children to free concerts in Douglas Park. The following year Benny joined the club band at Jane Addamss Hull House. By joining the band, he was entitled to two weeks at a summer camp about fifty miles from Chicago. It was the time he was able to get away from the bleak environment of his urban neighborhood. He also received two years of instruction from the classically trained clarinetist Franz Schoepp and his early influences were New Orleans jazz clarinetists working in Chicago, notably Johnny Dodds, Leon Roppolo and Jimmie Noone. Goodman learned quickly, becoming a player at an early age. Goodman made his debut in 1921 at the Central Park Theater on Chicagos West Side. He entered Harrison High School in Chicago in 1922 and he joined the musicians’ union in 1923 and by the age of 14 was in a band featuring Bix Beiderbecke. Goodman attended Lewis Institute in 1924 as a sophomore, while also playing the clarinet in a dance hall band. When Goodman was 16, he joined one of Chicagos top bands, when he was 17, his father was killed by a passing car after stepping off a streetcar
Benny Goodman
–
Goodman in 1942
Benny Goodman
–
Goodman c. 1970
Benny Goodman
–
An eager crowd of Goodman fans in
Oakland
Benny Goodman
–
Benny Goodman (third from left) in 1952 with some of his former musicians, seated around piano left to right:
Vernon Brown,
George Auld,
Gene Krupa, Clint Neagley,
Ziggy Elman,
Israel Crosby and
Teddy Wilson (at piano)
45.
U.S. Route 61
–
U. S. Route 61 is the official designation for a United States highway that runs 1,400 miles from New Orleans, Louisiana, to the city of Wyoming, Minnesota. The highway generally follows the course of the Mississippi River, and is designated the Great River Road for much of its route, as of 2004, the highways northern terminus in Wyoming, Minnesota, is at an intersection with Interstate 35. Until 1991, the highway extended north on what is now Minnesota State Highway 61 through Duluth to the Canada–US border near Grand Portage and its southern terminus in New Orleans, Louisiana, is at an intersection with Tulane Avenue at South Broad Street. The highway is called the Blues Highway because it connects Saint Paul, Minnesota, St. Louis, Missouri, Memphis, Tennessee, the Mississippi Delta. The route was an important south-north connection in the days before the highway system. Many southerners traveled north along US61 while going to St. Louis, the highway has a long musical history, being the supposed location where singer-songwriter Robert Johnson made a deal with the Devil for his successes. The road later gave its name to Minnesota native Bob Dylans album Highway 61 Revisited, and in the song of the same name, which imagines all sorts of fantastical events occurring alongside it. Other notable songs of the include a blues song recorded in 1957 by Sunnyland Slim, one in 1962 by Johnny Young. US61 in Louisiana is four-laned from its terminus in New Orleans to the Mississippi state line. The section of US61 from New Orleans to Baton Rouge is known as the Airline Highway, legend has it former Louisiana Gov. Huey P. On Airline Highway in Jefferson Parish in 1987, Baton Rouge televangelist Jimmy Swaggart was confronted by rival preacher Marvin Gorman as Swaggart exited the Texas Motel with a prostitute and this incident increased the areas reputation as a locale of seedy motels. Partly because of that reputation, the section in Jefferson Parish was later renamed Airline Drive, US61 is divided from the Tennessee state line to US82 in Leland. The highway south of Vicksburg to Natchez is mostly divided and four-lane, from Natchez to the Louisiana state line, US61 is now divided and four lanes. The Mississippi Department of Transportation is now upgrading the highway between Vicksburg and Leland to four lanes, beginning with replacement of the Yazoo River bridge at Redwood in Warren County. The road is known as the Blues Highway because it runs through the Mississippi Delta country. Highway 61 has been referenced in music by artists with roots in the region. It was on this stretch of highway that blues singer Bessie Smith died as a result of a car accident on September 26,1937. Like Route 66 in the Western U. S. the iconic US61 sign is so identified with the Clarksdale area that it is used to market different products
U.S. Route 61
–
The legendary "Crossroads" at
Clarksdale inspired the song
Cross Road Blues.
U.S. Route 61
–
U.S. Route 61
U.S. Route 61
–
US 61 with US 49 and US 278
U.S. Route 61
–
Bequette-Ribault Historic House c1789, in Ste. Genevieve, MO
46.
Memphis, Tennessee
–
Memphis is a city in the southwestern corner of the U. S. state of Tennessee and the county seat of Shelby County. The city is located on the fourth Chickasaw Bluff, south of the confluence of the Wolf, Memphis had a population of 653,450 in 2013, making it the largest city in the state of Tennessee. It is the largest city on the Mississippi River, the third largest in the greater Southeastern United States, the greater Memphis metropolitan area, including adjacent counties in Mississippi and Arkansas, had a 2014 population of 1,317,314. This makes Memphis the second-largest metropolitan area in Tennessee, surpassed by metropolitan Nashville, Memphis is the youngest of Tennessees major cities, founded in 1819 as a planned city by a group of wealthy Americans including judge John Overton and future president Andrew Jackson. A resident of Memphis is referred to as a Memphian, and the Memphis region is known, particularly to media outlets, as Memphis and the Mid-South. Occupying a substantial bluff rising from the Mississippi River, the site of Memphis has been a location for human settlement by varying cultures over thousands of years. The historic Chickasaw Indian tribe, believed to be their descendants, French explorers led by René-Robert Cavelier, Sieur de La Salle and Spanish explorer Hernando de Soto would encounter the Chickasaw in that area, in the 16th century. J. D. L. Chickasaw Bluffs, located on the Mississippi River at the present day location of Memphis, spain and the United States vied for control of this site, which was a favorite of the Chickasaws. The United States gained the right to navigate the Mississippi River, the Spanish dismantled the fort, shipping its lumber and iron to their locations in Arkansas. Captain Isaac Guion led an American force down the Ohio River to claim the land, by this time, the Spanish had departed. The forts ruins went unnoticed twenty years later when Memphis was laid out as a city, the city of Memphis was founded on May 22,1819 by John Overton, James Winchester and Andrew Jackson. They named it after the ancient capital of Egypt on the Nile River, Memphis developed as a trade and transportation center in the 19th century because of its flood-free location high above the Mississippi River. Located in the delta region along the river, its outlying areas were developed as cotton plantations. The cotton economy of the antebellum South depended on the labor of large numbers of African-American slaves. Through the early 19th century, one million slaves were transported from the Upper South, Many were transported by steamboats along the Ohio and Mississippi rivers. This gave planters and cotton brokers access to the Atlantic Coast for shipping cotton to England, the citys demographics changed dramatically in the 1850s and 1860s under waves of immigration and domestic migration. Due to increased immigration since the 1840s and the Great Famine, ethnic Irish made up 9.9 percent of the population in 1850, but 23.2 percent in 1860, when the total population was 22,623. They had encountered considerable discrimination in the city but by 1860 and they also gained many elected and patronage positions in the Democratic Party city government, and an Irish man was elected as mayor before the Civil War
Memphis, Tennessee
–
From top to bottom and left to right:
Downtown Memphis skyline,
Beale Street,
Graceland,
Orpheum Theatre, Beale Street Landing, and the
Hernando de Soto Bridge
Memphis, Tennessee
–
A
Mississippian era priest (Digital illustration, 2004)
Memphis, Tennessee
–
Memphis in the mid-1850s
Memphis, Tennessee
–
Cotton merchants on Union Avenue (1937)
47.
Jim Crow laws
–
Jim Crow laws were state and local laws enforcing racial segregation in the Southern United States. Enacted after the Reconstruction period, these continued in force until 1965. They mandated de jure segregation in all public facilities in the states of the former Confederate States of America, starting in 1890 with a separate. Facilities for African Americans were consistently inferior and underfunded compared to available to European Americans. This body of law institutionalized a number of economic, educational, the U. S. military was also segregated, as were federal workplaces, initiated in 1913 under President Woodrow Wilson. By requiring candidates to submit photos, his administration practiced racial discrimination in hiring and these Jim Crow laws followed the 1800–1866 Black Codes, which had previously restricted the civil rights and civil liberties of African Americans. The phrase Jim Crow Law can be found as early as 1892 in the title of a New York Times article about voting laws in the South, as a result of Rices fame, Jim Crow by 1838 had become a pejorative expression meaning Negro. When southern legislatures passed laws of racial segregation which were directed against blacks at the end of the 19th century, during the Reconstruction period of 1865–1877, federal laws provided civil rights protections in the U. S. South for freedmen, the African Americans who had formerly been slaves, extensive voter fraud was also used. Gubernatorial elections were close and had been disputed in Louisiana for years, in 1877, a national Democratic Party compromise to gain Southern support in the presidential election resulted in the governments withdrawing the last of the federal troops from the South. White Democrats had regained power in every Southern state. These Southern, white, Democratic Redeemer governments legislated Jim Crow laws, grandfather clauses temporarily permitted some illiterate whites to vote but gave no relief to most blacks. Voter turnout dropped drastically through the South as a result of such measures, in Louisiana, by 1900, black voters were reduced to 5,320 on the rolls, although they comprised the majority of the states population. By 1910, only 730 blacks were registered, less than 0. 5% of eligible black men, in 27 of the states 60 parishes, not a single black voter was registered any longer, in 9 more parishes, only one black voter was. The cumulative effect in North Carolina meant that voters were completely eliminated from voter rolls during the period from 1896–1904. The growth of their middle class was slowed. Alabama had tens of thousands of poor whites disenfranchised and those who could not vote were not eligible to serve on juries and could not run for local offices. They effectively disappeared from political life, as they could not influence the state legislatures, like schools, Jim Crow public libraries were underfunded and often stocked with secondhand books and other resources
Jim Crow laws
–
Cover to an early edition of "
Jump Jim Crow " sheet music (c 1832)
Jim Crow laws
–
Freedmen voting in New Orleans, 1867
Jim Crow laws
–
Sign for the "colored" waiting room at a bus station in
Durham, North Carolina, 1940
Jim Crow laws
–
1904 caricature of "White" and "Jim Crow" rail cars by
John T. McCutcheon. Despite Jim Crow's legal pretense that the races be "separate but equal" under the law, non-whites were given inferior facilities and treatment.
48.
Down Beat
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Downbeat, down beat or Down Beat may refer to, Downbeat, the first beat of a measure in music. This term originated from orchestral conducting, where the lowest point on the signals the first beat in a given measure. It is now used widely throughout music to indicate the beginning of a piece of music. Downbeat, a club in New York City. See, List of jazz venues in the United States
Down Beat
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Edward Albee
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Edward Franklin Albee III was an American playwright known for works such as The Zoo Story, The Sandbox, Whos Afraid of Virginia Woolf. and A Delicate Balance. Three of his plays won the Pulitzer Prize for Drama, and his works are often considered as frank examinations of the modern condition. His early works reflect a mastery and Americanization of the Theatre of the Absurd that found its peak in works by European playwrights such as Samuel Beckett, Eugène Ionesco and his middle period comprised plays that explored the psychology of maturing, marriage, and sexual relationships. Younger American playwrights, such as Paula Vogel, credit Albees daring mix of theatricality, later in his life, Albee continued to experiment in works such as The Goat, or Who Is Sylvia. Edward Albee was born in 1928 and he was placed for adoption two weeks later and taken to Larchmont in Westchester County, New York, where he grew up. Albees adoptive father, Reed A. Albee, the son of vaudeville magnate Edward Franklin Albee II. His adoptive mother, Reeds third wife, Frances, was a socialite and he would later base the main character of his 1991 play Three Tall Women on his mother, with whom he had a conflicted relationship. Albee attended the Clinton High School, then the Lawrenceville School in New Jersey and he then was sent to Valley Forge Military Academy in Wayne, Pennsylvania, where he was dismissed in less than a year. He enrolled at The Choate School in Wallingford, Connecticut, graduating in 1946 and his formal education continued at Trinity College in Hartford, Connecticut, where he was expelled in 1947 for skipping classes and refusing to attend compulsory chapel. Albee left home for good when he was in his late teens, in a later interview, he said, I never felt comfortable with the adoptive parents. I dont think knew how to be parents. I probably didnt know how to be a son, either, in a 1994 interview, he stated that he left home at age 18 because had to get out of that stultifying, suffocating environment. In a 2008 interview, he told interviewer Charlie Rose that he was out because his parents wanted him to become a corporate thug. Albee moved into New Yorks Greenwich Village, where he supported himself with odd jobs while learning to write plays and his first play, The Zoo Story, which was written in three weeks, was first staged in Berlin in 1959 before eventually premiering Off-Broadway in 1960. His next play, The Death of Bessie Smith, similarly premiered in Berlin before arriving in New York. Albees most iconic play, Whos Afraid of Virginia Woolf. opened on Broadway at the Billy Rose Theatre on October 13,1962, the two members of the jury, John Mason Brown and John Gassner, subsequently resigned in protest. An Academy Award-winning film adaptation of the play was released in 1966 starring Elizabeth Taylor, Richard Burton, George Segal. In 2013, the film was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being culturally, historically, according to the New York Times, Albee was widely considered to be the foremost American playwright of his generation
Edward Albee
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Edward Albee, photographed by
Carl Van Vechten, 1961
Edward Albee
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Edward Albee by Irish artist
Reginald Gray (The New York Times, 1966), inspired by a photograph taken in 1962 from
Bettmann /
Corbis.
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