Let's say that jazz begins with an angelic entertainer from New Orleans named Louis Satchmo Armstrong.
Louis Armstrong (4 August 1901– July 6, 1971), nicknamed Satchmo, ("Satchel mouth") was an American jazz trumpeter and singer.
Coming to prominence in the 20s as an innovative cornet and trumpet virtuoso, Armstrong was a foundational influence on jazz, shifting the music's focus from collective improvisation to solo performers.
With his distinctive gravelly voice, Armstrong was an influential singer, demonstrating great dexterity as an improviser, bending the lyrics and melody of a song for expressive purposes. He was also greatly skilled at scat singing, or wordless vocalizing.
Renowned for his charismatic stage presence, Armstrong's influence extended well beyond jazz, and by the end of his career in the '60s, he was widely regarded as a profound influence on popular music in general, and perhaps the most important American musician of the 20th century.
Armstrong died of a heart attack on July 6, 1971, at age 69, 11 months after playing a famous show at the Waldorf-Astoria's Empire Room. Shortly before his death he stated, "I think I had a beautiful life. I didn't wish for anything that I couldn't get and I got pretty near everything I wanted because I worked for it."
His residence was Corona, Queens, New York City. Today his house has become a museum for jazz history.
Wednesday, December 9, 2009
African Atlantic diaspora / African-American post-WWI diaspora
Blues & jazz develop along the trail of the Black American dispora
As Black Americans left the field hand work of Louisiana, Mississippi and other southern states, they took their culture and went north. In cities such as St Louis and Chicago they found factory work, housing in tenement buildings and a different - if not particularly better - life.
The story of Louis Armstrong and Joe King Oliver was to leave New Orleans and go to Chicago - where they were much in demand for performing and recording.
Eventually both pushed on to NYC, the Big Apple. It became the center of Jazz for decades.
The word diaspora (dispersal) also applies to the Jews (Palestine to Europe, etc), to Africans in the Atlantic slave trade and to the Irish, among others.
As Black Americans left the field hand work of Louisiana, Mississippi and other southern states, they took their culture and went north. In cities such as St Louis and Chicago they found factory work, housing in tenement buildings and a different - if not particularly better - life.
The story of Louis Armstrong and Joe King Oliver was to leave New Orleans and go to Chicago - where they were much in demand for performing and recording.
Eventually both pushed on to NYC, the Big Apple. It became the center of Jazz for decades.
The word diaspora (dispersal) also applies to the Jews (Palestine to Europe, etc), to Africans in the Atlantic slave trade and to the Irish, among others.
Monday, December 7, 2009
Birthplace of Jazz: the curious, Creole city of New Orleans
1904 :: Map of New Orleans Showing Street Railway System of the New Orleans Railways Co.
Originally uploaded by regional.modernism
From its early development until the present, jazz has incorporated music from 19th and 20th century American popular music.[1]
Its West African pedigree is evident in its use of blue notes, improvisation, polyrhythms, syncopation, and the swung note[2] but one of jazz's iconic figures Art Blakey has been quoted as saying, "No America, no jazz. I’ve seen people try to connect it to other countries, for instance to Africa, but it doesn’t have a damn thing to do with Africa".[3]
The word "jazz" began as a West Coast slang term of uncertain derivation and was first used to refer to music in Chicago in about 1915.
From its beginnings in the early 20th century, Jazz has spawned a variety of subgenres, from New Orleans Dixieland dating from the early 1910s, big band-style swing from the 1930s and 1940s, bebop from the mid-1940s, a variety of Latin jazz fusions such as Afro-Cuban and Brazilian jazz from the 1950s and 1960s, jazz-rock fusion from the 1970s and late 1980s developments such as acid jazz, which blended jazz influences into funk and hip-hop.
While jazz may be difficult to define, improvisation is clearly one of its key elements. Early blues was commonly structured around a repetitive call-and-response pattern, a common element in the African American oral tradition. A form of folk music which rose in part from work songs and field hollers of rural Blacks, early blues was also highly improvisational.
By 1808 the Atlantic slave trade had brought almost half a million Africans to the United States. The slaves largely came from West Africa and brought strong tribal musical traditions with them.[17] Lavish festivals featuring African dances to drums were organized on Sundays at Place Congo, or Congo Square, in New Orleans until 1843, as were similar gatherings in New England and New York. African music was largely functional, for work or ritual, and included work songs and field hollers.
In the early 19th century an increasing number of black musicians learned to play European instruments, particularly the violin, which they used to parody European dance music in their own cakewalk dances. In turn, European-American minstrel show performers in blackface popularized such music internationally, combining syncopation with European harmonic accompaniment.
The music of New Orleans had a profound effect on the creation of early jazz. Many early jazz performers played in the brothels and bars of the red-light district around Basin Street, called "Storyville."[25] In addition, numerous marching bands played at lavish funerals arranged by the African American community. The instruments used in marching bands and dance bands became the basic instruments of jazz: brass and reeds tuned in the European 12-tone scale and drums.
The cornetist Buddy Bolden is often mentioned as "the first man of jazz."
Map of New Orleans -
- Lake Pontchartrain
- Miss R
- Canal St
- Elysian Fields Ave
- Vieux Carre, French Quarter
- Jackson Square, St Louis Cathedral
- Cafe do Monde
- Antoine's Restaurant
- Place Congo, Louis Armstrong Park
- Central Business District (CBD)
- St Charles Ave
- Tulane U, Loyola U, Xavier U, Dillard U, SUNO, UNO
- Audubon Park & Zoo
Thursday, December 3, 2009
When Sandy met the Duke: describe a public art collaboration between Alxander Caldwell and Duke Ellington
It is Xmas, 1963. Rockefeller Center is to be the site of a month-long event that brings to the public a cultural gift that combines the talents of sculptor Alexander Calder and musician Duke Ellington.
Describe the event, briefly, emphasizing the achievements and strengths of the 2 artists.
Describe the event, briefly, emphasizing the achievements and strengths of the 2 artists.
Your listening portfolio . . .
Your teacher wants to have a profile of your music listening patterns.
Please help develop a profile of student listening by listing
a) favorite groups and categories:
ex: Kanye West, hip-hop/pop
b) where you get your music, typically:
c) How much you listen to
- jazz
- classical
- ethnic, electronic or other unusual musics
d) Your radio stations - and the music format of each.
Please help develop a profile of student listening by listing
a) favorite groups and categories:
ex: Kanye West, hip-hop/pop
b) where you get your music, typically:
c) How much you listen to
- jazz
- classical
- ethnic, electronic or other unusual musics
d) Your radio stations - and the music format of each.
Wednesday, December 2, 2009
Sophisticated jazz: American composer-pianist Duke Ellington
Edward Kennedy Ellington was born on April 29, 1899 to James Edward Ellington and Daisy Kennedy Ellington.
J.E. made blueprints for the United States Navy. He also worked as a butler for Dr. Middleton F. Cuthbert, a prominent white physician, and occasionally worked as a White House caterer.[9] Daisy and J.E. were both piano players—she played parlor songs and he operatic airs.
At the age of seven, Ellington began taking piano lessons from Marietta Clinkscales.[10] Daisy surrounded her son with dignified women to reinforce his manners and teach him to live elegantly.
Ellington’s childhood friends noticed that "his casual, offhand manner, his easy grace, and his dapper dress gave him the bearing of a young nobleman",[11] and began calling him Duke.
From 1917 through 1919, Ellington launched his musical career, painting commercial signs by day and playing piano by night. Ellington moved out of his parents' home and bought his own as he became a successful pianist.
Ellington played throughout the Washington, D.C. area and into Virginia for private society balls and embassy parties. The band thrived, performing for both African-American and white audiences, a rarity during the racially divided times.
In June 1923, a gig in Atlantic City, New Jersey led to a play date at the prestigious Exclusive Club in Harlem, followed in September 1923 by a move to the Hollywood Club, 49th and Broadway, and a four-year engagement, which gave Ellington a solid artistic base.
In 1925, Ellington contributed four songs to Chocolate Kiddies, an all-African-American revue which introduced European audiences to African-American styles and performers. "Duke Ellington and his Kentucky Club Orchestra" grew to a ten-piece organization, developing their distinct sound, displaying the non-traditional expression of Ellington’s arrangements, the street rhythms of Harlem, and the exotic-sounding trombone growls and wah-wahs, high-squealing trumpets, and sultry saxophone blues licks of the band members.
In 1927 Harlem's Cotton Club offered a weekly radio broadcast and famous white clientèle nightly pouring in to see the latest. Ellington and his band thrived in the period from 1932 to 1942, a "golden age" for the band.
In 1927 Ellington made a career-advancing agreement with agent-publisher Irving Mills giving Mills a 45% interest in Ellington's future.[20] Mills had an eye for new talent and early on published compositions by Hoagy Carmichael, Dorothy Fields, and Harold Arlen. During the 1930s, Ellington's popularity continued to increase, largely as a result of the promotional skills of Mills, who got more than his fair share of co-composer credits. Mills arranged recording sessions on the Brunswick, Victor, and Columbia labels which gave Ellington popular recognition. Mills took the management burden off of Ellington's shoulders, allowing him to focus on his band's sound and his compositions.
At the Cotton Club, Ellington's group performed all the music for the revues, which mixed comedy, dance numbers, vaudeville, burlesque, music, and illegal alcohol.
In 1929, Ellington appeared in his first movie, a nineteen-minute all-African-American RKO short, Black and Tan, in which he played the hero "Duke". In the same year, The Cotton Club Orchestra appeared on stage for several months in Florenz Ziegfeld's Show Girl, along with vaudeville stars Jimmy Durante, Eddie Foy, Jr., Al Jolson, Ruby Keeler, and with music and lyrics by George Gershwin and Gus Kahn.
As the Depression worsened, the recording industry was in crisis, dropping over 90% of its artists by 1933.[22] Ellington and his orchestra survived the hard times by taking to the road in a series of tours. Radio exposure also helped maintain popularity. Ivie Anderson was hired as their featured vocalist.
Ellington led the orchestra by conducting from the keyboard using piano cues and visual gestures; very rarely did he conduct using a baton. As a bandleader, Ellington was not a strict disciplinarian but he maintained control of his orchestra with a crafty combination of charm, humor, flattery, and astute psychology. A complex, private person, he revealed his feelings to only his closest intimates and effectively used his public persona to deflect attention away from himself.
While their United States audience remained mainly African-American in this period, the Cotton Club had a near exclusive white clientèle and the band had a huge following overseas, demonstrated both in a trip to England in 1933 and a 1934 visit to the European mainland.
On their tour through the segregated South in 1934, they avoided some of the traveling difficulties of African-Americans by touring in private railcars, which provided easy accommodations, dining, and storage for equipment, while avoiding the indignities of segregated facilities.
Ellington delivered some huge hits during the 1930s, which greatly helped to build his overall reputation. Some of them include: "Mood Indigo" (1930), "It Don't Mean a Thing (If It Ain't Got That Swing)" (1932), "Sophisticated Lady" (1933), "Solitude" (1934), "In a Sentimental Mood" (1935), "Caravan" (1937), "I Let A Song Go Out Of My Heart" (1938). "Take the "A" Train" which hit big in 1941, was written by Billy Strayhorn.
The band reached a creative peak in the early 1940s, when Ellington wrote for an orchestra of distinctive voices and displayed tremendous creativity.
Meanwhile, the development of modern jazz, or bebop, the music industry's shift to solo vocalists such as the young Frank Sinatra as the Big Band era receded. Bebop rebelled against commercial jazz, dancing to jazz, and strict forms to become the music of jazz aficionados. Furthermore, by 1950 the emerging African-American popular music style known as Rhythm and Blues drew away the young African-American audience and Rock & Roll soon followed. In the face of these major social shifts, Ellington continued on his own course.
J.E. made blueprints for the United States Navy. He also worked as a butler for Dr. Middleton F. Cuthbert, a prominent white physician, and occasionally worked as a White House caterer.[9] Daisy and J.E. were both piano players—she played parlor songs and he operatic airs.
At the age of seven, Ellington began taking piano lessons from Marietta Clinkscales.[10] Daisy surrounded her son with dignified women to reinforce his manners and teach him to live elegantly.
Ellington’s childhood friends noticed that "his casual, offhand manner, his easy grace, and his dapper dress gave him the bearing of a young nobleman",[11] and began calling him Duke.
From 1917 through 1919, Ellington launched his musical career, painting commercial signs by day and playing piano by night. Ellington moved out of his parents' home and bought his own as he became a successful pianist.
Ellington played throughout the Washington, D.C. area and into Virginia for private society balls and embassy parties. The band thrived, performing for both African-American and white audiences, a rarity during the racially divided times.
In June 1923, a gig in Atlantic City, New Jersey led to a play date at the prestigious Exclusive Club in Harlem, followed in September 1923 by a move to the Hollywood Club, 49th and Broadway, and a four-year engagement, which gave Ellington a solid artistic base.
In 1925, Ellington contributed four songs to Chocolate Kiddies, an all-African-American revue which introduced European audiences to African-American styles and performers. "Duke Ellington and his Kentucky Club Orchestra" grew to a ten-piece organization, developing their distinct sound, displaying the non-traditional expression of Ellington’s arrangements, the street rhythms of Harlem, and the exotic-sounding trombone growls and wah-wahs, high-squealing trumpets, and sultry saxophone blues licks of the band members.
In 1927 Harlem's Cotton Club offered a weekly radio broadcast and famous white clientèle nightly pouring in to see the latest. Ellington and his band thrived in the period from 1932 to 1942, a "golden age" for the band.
In 1927 Ellington made a career-advancing agreement with agent-publisher Irving Mills giving Mills a 45% interest in Ellington's future.[20] Mills had an eye for new talent and early on published compositions by Hoagy Carmichael, Dorothy Fields, and Harold Arlen. During the 1930s, Ellington's popularity continued to increase, largely as a result of the promotional skills of Mills, who got more than his fair share of co-composer credits. Mills arranged recording sessions on the Brunswick, Victor, and Columbia labels which gave Ellington popular recognition. Mills took the management burden off of Ellington's shoulders, allowing him to focus on his band's sound and his compositions.
At the Cotton Club, Ellington's group performed all the music for the revues, which mixed comedy, dance numbers, vaudeville, burlesque, music, and illegal alcohol.
In 1929, Ellington appeared in his first movie, a nineteen-minute all-African-American RKO short, Black and Tan, in which he played the hero "Duke". In the same year, The Cotton Club Orchestra appeared on stage for several months in Florenz Ziegfeld's Show Girl, along with vaudeville stars Jimmy Durante, Eddie Foy, Jr., Al Jolson, Ruby Keeler, and with music and lyrics by George Gershwin and Gus Kahn.
As the Depression worsened, the recording industry was in crisis, dropping over 90% of its artists by 1933.[22] Ellington and his orchestra survived the hard times by taking to the road in a series of tours. Radio exposure also helped maintain popularity. Ivie Anderson was hired as their featured vocalist.
Ellington led the orchestra by conducting from the keyboard using piano cues and visual gestures; very rarely did he conduct using a baton. As a bandleader, Ellington was not a strict disciplinarian but he maintained control of his orchestra with a crafty combination of charm, humor, flattery, and astute psychology. A complex, private person, he revealed his feelings to only his closest intimates and effectively used his public persona to deflect attention away from himself.
While their United States audience remained mainly African-American in this period, the Cotton Club had a near exclusive white clientèle and the band had a huge following overseas, demonstrated both in a trip to England in 1933 and a 1934 visit to the European mainland.
On their tour through the segregated South in 1934, they avoided some of the traveling difficulties of African-Americans by touring in private railcars, which provided easy accommodations, dining, and storage for equipment, while avoiding the indignities of segregated facilities.
Ellington delivered some huge hits during the 1930s, which greatly helped to build his overall reputation. Some of them include: "Mood Indigo" (1930), "It Don't Mean a Thing (If It Ain't Got That Swing)" (1932), "Sophisticated Lady" (1933), "Solitude" (1934), "In a Sentimental Mood" (1935), "Caravan" (1937), "I Let A Song Go Out Of My Heart" (1938). "Take the "A" Train" which hit big in 1941, was written by Billy Strayhorn.
The band reached a creative peak in the early 1940s, when Ellington wrote for an orchestra of distinctive voices and displayed tremendous creativity.
Meanwhile, the development of modern jazz, or bebop, the music industry's shift to solo vocalists such as the young Frank Sinatra as the Big Band era receded. Bebop rebelled against commercial jazz, dancing to jazz, and strict forms to become the music of jazz aficionados. Furthermore, by 1950 the emerging African-American popular music style known as Rhythm and Blues drew away the young African-American audience and Rock & Roll soon followed. In the face of these major social shifts, Ellington continued on his own course.
Tuesday, December 1, 2009
Alexander Calder : Paris 1926-1933 à Pompidou
The man credited with establishing the kinetic art form known as the mobile was, in the 1920's, an American in Paris: he was the engineer-turned-sculptor Alexander Calder. Please see an earlier Fine Arts post.
Cirque du Calder was his name for his circus-inspired early creations. It was articulated (hinged) art.
His stabiles - opposite of mobiles - were usually gigantic and made of steel.
reticulated: net-like; such as a Greek key design in a frieze.
Cirque du Calder was his name for his circus-inspired early creations. It was articulated (hinged) art.
His stabiles - opposite of mobiles - were usually gigantic and made of steel.
reticulated: net-like; such as a Greek key design in a frieze.
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