Encyclopedia of African American Music
Advisory Board James Abbington, DMA Associate Professor of Church Music and Worship Candler School of Theology, Emory University William C. Banfield, DMA Professor of Africana Studies, Music, and Society Berklee College of Music Johann Buis, DA Associate Professor of Music History Wheaton College Eileen M. Hayes, PhD Associate Professor of Ethnomusicology College of Music, University of North Texas Cheryl L. Keyes, PhD Professor of Ethnomusicology University of California, Los Angeles Portia K. Maultsby, PhD Professor of Folklore and Ethnomusicology Director of the Archives of African American Music and Culture Indiana University, Bloomington Ingrid Monson, PhD Quincy Jones Professor of African American Music Harvard University Guthrie P. Ramsey, Jr., PhD Edmund J. and Louise W. Kahn Term Professor of Music University of Pennsylvania
Encyclopedia of African American Music Volume 1: A–G
Emmett G. Price III, Executive Editor Tammy L. Kernodle and Horace J. Maxile, Jr., Associate Editors
Copyright 2011 by Emmett G. Price III, Tammy L. Kernodle, and Horace J. Maxile, Jr. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, except for the inclusion of brief quotations in a review, without prior permission in writing from the publisher. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Encyclopedia of African American music / Emmett G. Price III, executive editor ; Tammy L. Kernodle and Horace J. Maxile, Jr., associate editors. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-0-313-34199-1 (set hard copy : alk. paper) — ISBN 978-0-313-34200-4 (set ebook) — ISBN 978-0-313-34201-1 (volume 1 hard copy : alk. paper) — ISBN 978-0313-34202-8 (volume 1 ebook) — ISBN 978-0-313-34203-5 (volume 2 hard copy : alk. paper) — ISBN 978-0-313-34204-2 (volume 2 ebook) — ISBN 978-0-313-34205-9 (volume 3 hard copy : alk. paper) — ISBN 978-0-313-34206-6 (volume 3 ebook) 1. African Americans—Music—Encyclopedias. I. Price, Emmett George. ML101.U6.E53 2011 780.890 96073003—dc22 2010039693 ISBN: 978-0-313-34199-1 EISBN: 978-0-313-34200-4 15 14
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This book is also available on the World Wide Web as an eBook. Visit www.abc-clio.com for details. Greenwood An Imprint of ABC-CLIO, LLC ABC-CLIO, LLC 130 Cremona Drive, P.O. Box 1911 Santa Barbara, California 93116-1911 This book is printed on acid-free paper Manufactured in the United States of America
Contents
Alphabetical List of Entries
vii
Topical List of Entries
xiii
Acknowledgments
xxvii
Introduction
xxxi
A Timeline of Significant Moments in African American Music
xxxv
Entries A–Z
1
Appendix 1. Significant Compositions by African American Concert, Jazz, and Gospel Composers
1015
Appendix 2. Significant Music Videos of African American Music
1023
Appendix 3. Major Archives, Research Centers, and Web Sites for African American Music
1031
A Selected Bibliography of Resources and Reference Works in African American Music
1039
A Selected Bibliography of African American Music: Genre Specific, 1989–2010
1059
About the Editors and Contributors
1071
Index
1089
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Alphabetical List of Entries
Acid Jazz. See Jazz Adams, Alton Augustus (1889–1987) Adams, Yolanda (1961– ) Adderley, Cannonball (1928–1975) African Influences Afrofuturism Allen, Richard (1760–1831) Allen, William Duncan (1906–1999) Alston, Lettie Beckon (1953– ) American Federation of Musicians, The Anderson, Marian (1902–1993) Antebellum Period (1784–1860) Antiphony (Call and Response) Appropriation of African American Music Armstrong, Louis (1900–1971) Associations. See Organizations and Associations for African American Music and Musicians Atlanta Symphony Orchestra. See Concert Music—Conductors and Performers Badu, Erykah (1971– ) Bailey, DeFord (1899–1982) Baiocchi, Regina Harris (1956– ) Baker, Lavern (1928–1997) Bambaataa, Afrika (1960– ) Banfield, William C. (1961– ) Banjo
Basie, Count (1904–1984) Battle, Kathleen (1948– ) Beach Music Beale Street Bebop. See Jazz Bechet, Sidney (1897–1959) Belafonte, Harry (1927– ) Berry, Chuck (1926– ) Big Bands Black Arts Movement Black Church Music—History Black Church Music—Hymnists and Psalmists Black Rock Music Black-Owned Music Publishing Companies Black-Owned Record Labels Blake, Eubie (ca. 1883–1983) Blakey, Art (1919–1990) Blind Boys of Alabama Blues Blues Revival. See Blues Boogie-Woogie Booker T. and the MGs Boyer, Horace Clarence (1935–2009) Boys’ Choir Movement, The. See Educators, Schools, Colleges, and Universities Brass Bands
viii | Alphabetical List of Entries
Brown, James (1933–2006) Brown, Oscar, Jr. (1926–2005) Brown, William Albert (1938–2004) Caesar, Shirley (1939– ) Calloway, Cab (1907–1994) Camp Meeting Songs Carter, Betty (1929–1998) Charles, Ray (1930–2004) Charleston, South Carolina, and Surrounding Areas Chenier, Clifton (1925–1987) Chicago Blues. See Blues Chicago, Illinois Chicago Renaissance. See Renaissance, Chicago: 1935–1950 Church Music. See Black Church Music—History; Black Church Music—Hymnists and Psalmists Civil Rights Movement Music Classic Blues. See Blues Classical Music. See Concert Music—Composers and Repertoire; Concert Music— Conductors and Performers; Opera Cleveland, James (1932–1991) Clinton, George (1940– ) Cole, Nat King (1919–1965) Coleman, Ornette (1930– ) Colleges and Universities. See Educators, Schools, Colleges, and Universities; Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) Coltrane, John (1926–1967) Concert Music—Composers and Repertoire Concert Music—Conductors and Performers Congo Square Cooke, Sam (1931–1964) Cool Jazz. See Jazz Cooper, William Benjamin (1920–1993) Country Blues. See Blues Country Music Covers of African American Music. See Appropriation of African American Music
Cox, Ida (1896–1967) Cube, Ice (1969– ) Dance and Music Dance Halls. See Popular Venues (Cafe Society, Nightclubs, and Dance Halls) Davis, Miles (1926–1991) Davis, Rev. Gary (1896–1972) Davis, Sammy, Jr. (1925–1990) Dawson, William Levi (1899–1990) Delta Blues/Country Blues. See Blues Detroit, Michigan Detroit Symphony. See Concert Music—Conductors and Performers Diddley, Bo (1928–2008) Diddy (1969– ) Disco Dixie Hummingbirds Dixieland Jazz. See Jazz Dixon, Willie James (1915–1992) Domino, Fats (1928– ) Doo-Wop Dorsey, Thomas A. (1899–1993) Dre, Dr. (1965– ) Drifters, The Eckstine, Billy (1914–1993) Edmonds, Kenneth ‘‘Babyface’’ (1959– ) Educators, Schools, Colleges, and Universities Ellington, Duke (1899–1974) Elliott, Missy (1971– ) European Reception of Jazz. See Jazz Experimental Music Female Impersonators. See Transgendered Performers Field Hollers Fife and Drum Fitzgerald, Ella (1917–1996) Flack, Roberta (1937– ) Floyd, Samuel A., Jr. (1937– ) Franklin, Aretha (1942– ) Free Jazz. See Jazz Funk Game Songs
Alphabetical List of Entries | ix Gangsta Rap. See Rap Music Gaye, Marvin (1939–1984) Gillespie, Dizzy (1917–1993) Go-Go Gordy, Berry (1929– ) Gospel Music Gospel Quartets. See Gospel Music Graves, Denyce (1964– ) Green, Al (1946– ) Griot Hailstork, Adolphus (1941– ) Hairston, Jester (1901–2000) Hampton, Lionel (1909–2002) Hancock, Herbie (1940– ) Handy, W. C. (1873–1958) Hard Bop. See Jazz Hardcore Rap. See Rap Music Harlem Renaissance. See Renaissance, Harlem: 1917–1935 Harris, Corey (1969– ) Hathaway, Donny (1945–1979) Hawkins, Coleman (1904–1969) Hawkins, Edwin (1943– ), and the Edwin Hawkins Singers Hawkins, Erskine (1914–1993) Hayes, Isaac (1942–2008) Henderson, Fletcher (1897–1952) Hendrix, Jimi (1942–1970) Hinderas, Natalie (1927–1987) Hines, Earl (‘‘Fatha’’) (1905–1983) Hip Hop and Jazz. See Jazz Hip Hop Culture Hip Hop Music. See Rap Music Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) Holiday, Billie (1915–1959) Holland, Jonathan Bailey (1974– ) Hooker, John Lee (1917–2001) Horn, Shirley (1934–2005) Horne, Lena (1917–2010) House Music Houston, Whitney (1963– ) Humes, Helen (1913–1981) Hunter, Alberta (1895–1984)
Hymns. See Black Church Music— Hymnists and Psalmists Improvisation Ink Spots Instruments, Folk Jackson, Mahalia (1911–1972) Jackson, Michael (1958–2009) Jay-Z (1970– ) Jazz Jazz Age. See Jazz Jefferson, Blind Lemon (1897–1929) Johnson, George W. (ca. 1850–ca. 1910) Johnson, Robert (1911–1938) Joplin, Scott (1868–1917) Jordan, Louis (1908–1975) Jubilee Singers Jump Blues. See Blues Kansas City, Missouri, and the Territories Kay, Ulysses (1917–1995) Kerr, Thomas (1915–1988) Keys, Alicia (1981– ) King, B. B. (1925– ) King, Betty Jackson (1928–1994) Knowles, Beyonce (1981– ) LaBelle, Patti (1944– ) Lane, William Henry (Master Juba) (1825–1853) Latin and Afro-Caribbean Jazz. See Jazz Ledbetter, Huddie (Lead Belly) (1889–1949) Lewis, Henry (1932–1996) Lewis, John (1920–2001) ‘‘Lining Out’’ Liston, Melba (1926–1999) Literature on African American Music Little Richard (1932– ) Los Angeles, California, and the West Coast Male Impersonators. See Transgendered Performers Marching Bands Marsalis, Branford (1960– )
x | Alphabetical List of Entries
Marsalis, Wynton (1961– ) Martin, Roberta (1907–1969) Mary Mary—Erica Campbell (1972– ) and Tina Campbell (1974– ) Master P. (1970– ) Mathis, Johnny (1935– ) Mayfield, Curtis (1942–1999) Maynor, Dorothy (1910–1996) McFerrin, Bobby (1950– ) McRae, Carmen (1920–1994) Memphis, Tennessee Memphis Minnie (1897–1973) Memphis Sound Message Rap. See Rap Music Military Bands Mills Brothers, The Mingus, Charles (1922–1979) Minneapolis, Minnesota Minstrel Shows Mo’, Keb’ (1951– ) Modal Jazz. See Jazz Monk, Thelonious Sphere (1917–1982) Morton, Jelly Roll (1885 or 1890–1941) Motown Sound Movies Mumford, Jeffrey (1955– ) Musicals. See Theater and Musicals Music Publishing Companies. See Black-Owned Music Publishing Companies Ndegeocello, Meshell (1969– ) Neo Soul New England New Jack Swing New Orleans, Louisiana New Orleans Jazz, Early. See Jazz Nickerson, Camille (1888–1982) Nightclubs. See Popular Venues (Cafe Society, Nightclubs, and Dance Halls) Norman, Jessye (1945– ) Notorious B.I.G. (1972–1997) Odetta (1930–2008)
Oliver, King (1885–1938) Opera Orchestras, Symphonies, and Chamber Ensembles Organizations and Associations for African American Music and Musicians Outkast Parker, Charlie (1920–1955) P-Funk. See Funk Philadelphia, Pennsylvania Philadelphia Sound Pickett, Wilson (1941–2006) Piedmont Blues. See Blues Platters, The Pop Singers Popular Music Popular Venues (Cafe Society, Nightclubs, and Dance Halls) Price, Leontyne (1927– ) Pride, Charley (1939– ) Prince (1958– ) Protest Songs Public Enemy Queen Latifah (1970– ) Race Music and Records Radio Ragtime Rainey, Ma (1886–1939) R & B (Rhythm and Blues) Rap Music Rawls, Lou (1933–2006) Reagon, Bernice Johnson (1942– ) Reconstruction Period: 1863–1877 Record Labels. See Black-Owned Record Labels Recording Industry Redding, Otis (1941–1967) Reese, Della (1931– ) Renaissance, Chicago: 1935–1950 Renaissance, Harlem: 1917–1935 Rhythm and Blues. See R & B (Rhythm and Blues) Ring Shouts. See Slave Music of the South
Alphabetical List of Entries | xi Ritz Chamber Players. See Concert Music—Conductors and Performers Robeson, Paul (1898–1976) Robinson, Smokey (1940– ) Rock and Jazz Fusion. See Jazz Rock ’n’ Roll Rock ’n’ Roll—Composers and Performers. See Black Rock Music Rollins, Sonny (1930– ) Ronettes, The Rushing, Jimmy (1903–1972) Russell, George (1923–2009) Ryder, Georgia Atkins (1924–2005) Sacred Steel Guitar Salt-N-Pepa Schools. See Educators, Schools, Colleges, and Universities Scott, Hazel (1920–1981) Sea Islands of Georgia and South Carolina, The Shakur, Tupac (1971–1996) Shape Note Singing Simmons, Russell (1957– ) Simone, Nina (1933–2003) Singing and Praying Bands Singing Conventions Sissle, Noble (1889–1975) Slave Festivals Slave Music, Antislavery Songs Slave Music of the South Slave Utterances Sly and the Family Stone Smallwood, Richard (1948– ) Smith, Bessie (1892 or 1894–1937) Smith, Mamie (1883–1946) Smith, Willie ‘‘The Lion’’ (1897–1973) Snoop Dog (1972– ) Soul Music Soul, Neo. See Neo Soul South Carolina. See Charleston, South Carolina, and Surrounding Areas Southern, Eileen Jackson (1920–2002) Southern Rap Music. See Rap Music Spearman, Rawn (1924–2009)
Spirituals Staple Singers, The Staples, Mavis. See Staple Singers, The Stax Records Still, William Grant (1895–1978) Stitt, Sonny (1924–1982) Stono Rebellion, The Stride String Bands and Ensembles Sun Ra (1915–1993) Supremes, The Swing Music. See Jazz Tatum, Art (1910–1956) Taylor, Cecil (1929– ) Taylor, Koko (1938–2009) Techno Television Territory Music. See Jazz; Kansas City, Missouri, and the Territories Theater and Musicals Theater Owners’ Booking Association (T.O.B.A.) Third Stream, The. See Jazz Thomas, Rufus (1917–2001) Thornton, Big Mama (1926–1984) Tin Pan Alley. See Vaudeville and Tin Pan Alley Transgendered Performers Turner, Big Joe (1911–1985) Turner, Ike (1931–2007) and Tina (1939– ) Turntablism 2 Live Crew Underground Rap Music. See Rap Music Urban Blues. See Blues Vaudeville and Tin Pan Alley Vaughan, Sarah (1924–1990) Videos, Music Vocal Essence. See Concert Music— Composers and Repertoire Vocal Jazz. See Jazz Wallace, Sippie (1898–1986) Waller, Fats (1904–1943) Ward, Clara (1924–1973)
xii | Alphabetical List of Entries
Warfield, William (1920–2002) Washington, Dinah (1924–1963) Waters, Ethel (1896–1977) Waters, Muddy (1915–1983) Watts, Andre (1946– ) West, Kanye (1977– ) West Coast. See Los Angeles, California, and the West Coast West-Coast Blues. See Blues White, Josh (1914–1969) Williams, Mary Lou (1910–1981) Wilson, Cassandra (1955– )
Wilson, Jackie (1934–1984) Wilson, Nancy (1937– ) Winans Family, The Wolf, Howlin’ (1910–1976) Womack, Bobby (1944– ) Women Instrumentalists. See Jazz Wonder, Stevie (1950– ) Work Songs X-Rated Rap. See Rap Music Zydeco, Buckwheat (1947– ) Zydeco Music
Topical List of Entries
Topics Artists Blues Concert Music Genres and Styles Gospel and Church Music Jazz Places Popular Music Rap Music and Hip Hop Culture
Artists Adams, Alton Augustus (1889–1987) Adams, Yolanda (1961– ) Adderley, Cannonball (1928–1975) Allen, Richard (1760–1831) Allen, William Duncan (1906–1999) Alston, Lettie Beckon (1953– ) Anderson, Marian (1902–1993) Armstrong, Louis (1900–1971) Badu, Erykah (1971– ) Bailey, DeFord (1899–1982) Baiocchi, Regina Harris (1956– ) Baker, Lavern (1928–1997) Bambaataa, Afrika (1960– ) Banfield, William C. (1961– ) Basie, Count (1904–1984) Battle, Kathleen (1948– )
Bechet, Sidney (1897–1959) Belafonte, Harry (1927– ) Berry, Chuck (1926– ) Blake, Eubie (ca. 1883–1983) Blakey, Art (1919–1990) Blind Boys of Alabama Booker T. and the MGs Boyer, Horace Clarence (1935–2009) Brown, James (1933–2006) Brown, Oscar, Jr. (1926–2005) Brown, William Albert (1938–2004) Caesar, Shirley (1939– ) Calloway, Cab (1907–1994) Carter, Betty (1929–1998) Charles, Ray (1930–2004) Chenier, Clifton (1925–1987) Cleveland, James (1932–1991) Clinton, George (1940– ) Cole, Nat King (1919–1965) Coleman, Ornette (1930– ) Coltrane, John (1926–1967) Cooke, Sam (1931–1964) Cooper, William Benjamin (1920–1993) Cox, Ida (1896–1967) Cube, Ice (1969– ) Davis, Miles (1926–1991) Davis, Rev. Gary (1896–1972)
xiv | Topical List of Entries
Davis, Sammy, Jr. (1925–1990) Dawson, William Levi (1899–1990) Diddley, Bo (1928–2008) Diddy (1969– ) Dixie Hummingbirds Dixon, Willie James (1915–1992) Domino, Fats (1928– ) Dorsey, Thomas A. (1899–1993) Dre, Dr. (1965– ) Drifters, The Eckstine, Billy (1914–1993) Edmonds, Kenneth ‘‘Babyface’’ (1959– ) Ellington, Duke (1899–1974) Elliott, Missy (1971– ) Fitzgerald, Ella (1917–1996) Flack, Roberta (1937– ) Floyd, Samuel A., Jr. (1937– ) Franklin, Aretha (1942– ) Gaye, Marvin (1939–1984) Gillespie, Dizzy (1917–1993) Gordy, Berry (1929– ) Graves, Denyce (1964– ) Green, Al (1946– ) Hailstork, Adolphus (1941– ) Hairston, Jester (1901–2000) Hampton, Lionel (1909–2002) Hancock, Herbie (1940– ) Handy, W. C. (1873–1958) Harris, Corey (1969– ) Hathaway, Donny (1945–1979) Hawkins, Coleman (1904–1969) Hawkins, Edwin (1943– ), and the Edwin Hawkins Singers Hawkins, Erskine (1914–1993) Hayes, Isaac (1942–2008) Henderson, Fletcher (1897–1952) Hendrix, Jimi (1942–1970) Hinderas, Natalie (1927–1987) Hines, Earl (‘‘Fatha’’) (1905–1983) Holiday, Billie (1915–1959) Holland, Jonathan Bailey (1974– ) Hooker, John Lee (1917–2001) Horn, Shirley (1934–2005) Horne, Lena (1917–2010)
Houston, Whitney (1963– ) Humes, Helen (1913–1981) Hunter, Alberta (1895–1984) Ink Spots Jackson, Mahalia (1911–1972) Jackson, Michael (1958–2009) Jay-Z (1970– ) Jefferson, Blind Lemon (1897–1929) Johnson, George W. (ca. 1850–ca. 1910) Johnson, Robert (1911–1938) Joplin, Scott (1868–1917) Jordan, Louis (1908–1975) Kay, Ulysses (1917–1995) Kerr, Thomas (1915–1988) Keys, Alicia (1981– ) King, B. B. (1925– ) King, Betty Jackson (1928–1994) Knowles, Beyonce (1981– ) LaBelle, Patti (1944– ) Lane, William Henry (Master Juba) (1825–1853) Ledbetter, Huddie (Lead Belly) (1889–1949) Lewis, Henry (1932–1996) Lewis, John (1920–2001) Liston, Melba (1926–1999) Little Richard (1932– ) Marsalis, Branford (1960– ) Marsalis, Wynton (1961– ) Martin, Roberta (1907–1969) Mary Mary—Erica Campbell (1972– ) and Tina Campbell (1974– ) Master P. (1970– ) Mathis, Johnny (1935– ) Mayfield, Curtis (1942–1999) Maynor, Dorothy (1910–1996) McFerrin, Bobby (1950– ) McRae, Carmen (1920–1994) Memphis Minnie (1897–1973) Mills Brothers, The Mingus, Charles (1922–1979) Mo’, Keb’ (1951– ) Monk, Thelonious Sphere (1917–1982)
Topical List of Entries | xv Morton, Jelly Roll (1885 or 1890–1941) Mumford, Jeffrey (1955– ) Ndegeocello, Meshell (1969– ) Nickerson, Camille (1888–1982) Norman, Jessye (1945– ) Notorious B.I.G. (1972–1997) Odetta (1930–2008) Oliver, King (1885–1938) Outkast Parker, Charlie (1920–1955) Pickett, Wilson (1941–2006) Platters, The Price, Leontyne (1927– ) Pride, Charley (1939– ) Prince (1958– ) Public Enemy Queen Latifah (1970– ) Rainey, Ma (1886–1939) Rawls, Lou (1933–2006) Reagon, Bernice Johnson (1942– ) Redding, Otis (1941–1967) Reese, Della (1931– ) Ritz Chamber Players Robeson, Paul (1898–1976) Robinson, Smokey (1940– ) Rollins, Sonny (1930– ) Ronettes, The Rushing, Jimmy (1903–1972) Russell, George (1923–2009) Ryder, Georgia Atkins (1924–2005) Salt-N-Pepa Scott, Hazel (1920–1981) Shakur, Tupac (1971–1996) Simmons, Russell (1957– ) Simone, Nina (1933–2003) Sissle, Noble (1889–1975) Sly and the Family Stone Smallwood, Richard (1948– ) Smith, Bessie (1892 or 1894–1937) Smith, Mamie (1883–1946) Smith, Willie ‘‘The Lion’’ (1897–1973) Snoop Dog (1972– )
Southern, Eileen Jackson (1920–2002) Spearman, Rawn (1924–2009) Staple Singers, The Staples, Mavis. See Staple Singers, The Still, William Grant (1895–1978) Stitt, Sonny (1924–1982) Sun Ra (1915–1993) Supremes, The Tatum, Art (1910–1956) Taylor, Cecil (1929– ) Taylor, Koko (1938–2009) Thomas, Rufus (1917–2001) Thornton, Big Mama (1926–1984) Turner, Big Joe (1911–1985) Turner, Ike (1931–2007) and Tina (1939– ) 2 Live Crew Vaughan, Sarah (1924–1990) Wallace, Sippie (1898–1986) Waller, Fats (1904–1943) Ward, Clara (1924–1973) Warfield, William (1920–2002) Washington, Dinah (1924–1963) Waters, Ethel (1896–1977) Waters, Muddy (1915–1983) Watts, Andre (1946– ) West, Kanye (1977– ) White, Josh (1914–1969) Williams, Mary Lou (1910–1981) Wilson, Cassandra (1955– ) Wilson, Jackie (1934–1984) Wilson, Nancy (1937– ) Winans Family, The Wolf, Howlin’ (1910–1976) Womack, Bobby (1944– ) Wonder, Stevie (1950– ) Zydeco, Buckwheat (1947– )
Blues African Influences American Federation of Musicians, The
xvi | Topical List of Entries
Antiphony (Call and Response) Appropriation of African American Music Associations. See Organizations and Associations for African American Music and Musicians Baker, Lavern (1928–1997) Beale Street Black-Owned Music Publishing Companies Black-Owned Record Labels Blues Blues Ballad, The. See Blues Blues Revival. See Blues Booker T. and the MGs Brown, Oscar, Jr. (1926–2005) Charles, Ray (1930–2004) Charleston, South Carolina, and Surrounding Areas Chicago Blues. See Blues Chicago, Illinois Chicago Renaissance. See Renaissance, Chicago: 1935–1950 Civil Rights Movement Music Classic Blues. See Blues Cole, Nat King (1919–1965) Country Blues. See Blues Covers of African American Music. See Appropriation of African American Music Cox, Ida (1896–1967) Dance and Music Dance Halls. See Popular Venues (Cafe Society, Nightclubs, and Dance Halls) Davis, Rev. Gary (1896–1972) Delta Blues/Country Blues. See Blues Detroit, Michigan Diddley, Bo (1928–2008) Dixon, Willie James (1915–1992) Domino, Fats (1928– ) Dorsey, Thomas A. (1899–1993) Female Impersonators. See Transgendered Performers Green, Al (1946– )
Griot Handy, W. C. (1873–1958) Harlem Renaissance. See Renaissance, Harlem: 1917–1935 Holiday, Billie (1915–1959) Hooker, John Lee (1917–2001) Humes, Helen (1913–1981) Hunter, Alberta (1895–1984) Improvisation Johnson, Robert (1911–1938) Jordan, Louis (1908–1975) Jump Blues. See Blues Kansas City, Missouri, and the Territories King, B. B. (1925– ) Ledbetter, Huddie (Lead Belly) (1889–1949) Literature on African American Music Los Angeles, California, and the West Coast Male Impersonators. See Transgendered Performers Memphis, Tennessee Memphis Minnie (1897–1973) Memphis Sound Minneapolis, Minnesota Mo’, Keb’ (1951– ) Movies Music Publishing Companies. See Black-Owned Music Publishing Companies New Orleans, Louisiana Nightclubs. See Popular Venues (Cafe Society, Nightclubs, and Dance Halls) Odetta (1930–2008) Organizations and Associations for African American Music and Musicians Philadelphia, Pennsylvania Piedmont Blues. See Blues Popular Venues (Cafe Society, Nightclubs, and Dance Halls) Protest Songs Race Music and Records
Topical List of Entries | xvii Radio Rainey, Ma (1886–1939) R & B (Rhythm and Blues) Reconstruction Period: 1863–1877 Record Labels. See Black-Owned Record Labels Recording Industry Reese, Della (1931– ) Renaissance, Chicago: 1935–1950 Renaissance, Harlem: 1917–1935 Rhythm and Blues. See R & B (Rhythm and Blues) Rock ’n’ Roll Rock ’n’ Roll—Composers and Performers. See Black Rock Music Rushing, Jimmy (1903–1972) Sea Islands of Georgia and South Carolina, The Smith, Bessie (1892 or 1894–1937) Smith, Mamie (1883–1946) Soul Music Soul, Neo. See Neo Soul Spirituals Stax Records Taylor, Koko (1938–2009) Television Theater Owners’ Booking Association (T.O.B.A.) Thomas, Rufus (1917–2001) Thornton, Big Mama (1926–1984) Transgendered Performers Turner, Big Joe (1911–1985) Turner, Ike (1931–2007) and Tina (1939– ) Urban Blues. See Blues Wallace, Sippie (1898–1986) Washington, Dinah (1924–1963) Waters, Ethel (1896–1977) Waters, Muddy (1915–1983) West Coast. See Los Angeles, California, and the West Coast White, Josh (1914–1969) Wolf, Howlin’ (1910–1976) Womack, Bobby (1944– ) Work Songs
Concert Music Adams, Alton Augustus (1889–1987) African Influences Allen, William Duncan (1906–1999) Alston, Lettie Beckon (1953– ) Anderson, Marian (1902–1993) Antebellum Period (1764–1860) Antiphony (Call and Response) Associations. See Organizations and Associations for African American Music and Musicians Atlanta Symphony Orchestra. See Concert Music—Composers and Repertoire; Concert Music— Conductors and Performers Baiocchi, Regina Harris (1956– ) Banfield, William C. (1961– ) Battle, Kathleen (1948– ) Black Arts Movement Brown, William Albert (1938–2004) Charleston, South Carolina, and Surrounding Areas Chicago, Illinois Chicago Renaissance. See Renaissance, Chicago: 1935–1950 Civil Rights Movement Music Colleges and Universities. See Educators, Schools, Colleges, and Universities; Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) Concert Music—Composers and Repertoire Concert Music—Conductors and Performers Cooper, William Benjamin (1920–1993) Dawson, William Levi (1899–1990) Detroit, Michigan Detroit Symphony. See Concert Music—Conductors and Performers Educators, Schools, Colleges, and Universities Experimental Music Graves, Denyce (1964– ) Hailstork, Adolphus (1941– )
xviii | Topical List of Entries
Hairston, Jester (1901–2000) Harlem Renaissance. See Renaissance, Harlem: 1917–1935 Hinderas, Natalie (1927–1987) Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) Holland, Jonathan Bailey (1974– ) Humes, Helen (1913–1981) Johnson, George W. (ca. 1850–ca. 1910) Kansas City, Missouri, and the Territories Kay, Ulysses (1917–1995) Kerr, Thomas (1915–1988) King, Betty Jackson (1928–1994) Lewis, Henry (1932–1996) Los Angeles, California, and the West Coast Maynor, Dorothy (1910–1996) McFerrin, Bobby (1950– ) Memphis, Tennessee Minneapolis, Minnesota Mumford, Jeffrey (1955– ) Music Publishing Companies. See Black-Owned Music Publishing Companies New England New Orleans, Louisiana Nickerson, Camille (1888–1982) Norman, Jessye (1945– ) Opera Orchestras, Symphonies, and Chamber Ensembles Organizations and Associations for African American Music and Musicians Philadelphia, Pennsylvania Price, Leontyne (1927– ) Reconstruction Period: 1863–1877 Renaissance, Chicago: 1935–1950 Renaissance, Harlem: 1917–1935 Ritz Chamber Players. See Concert Music—Conductors and Performers Robeson, Paul (1898–1976)
Ryder, Georgia Atkins (1924–2005) Schools. See Educators, Schools, Colleges, and Universities Sissle, Noble (1889–1975) Southern, Eileen Jackson (1920–2002) Spearman, Rawn (1924–2009) Still, William Grant (1895–1978) Vocal Essence. See Concert Music— Composers and Repertoire Warfield, William (1920–2002) Watts, Andre (1946– ) West Coast. See Los Angeles, California, and the West Coast
Genres and Styles Acid Jazz. See Jazz African Influences Afrofuturism Antebellum Period (1764–1860) Antiphony (Call and Response) Appropriation of African American Music Beach Music Bebop. See Jazz Big Bands Black Arts Movement Black Church Music—History Black Church Music—Hymnists and Psalmists Black Rock Music Blues Blues Ballad, The. See Blues Blues Revival. See Blues Boogie-Woogie Boys’ Choir Movement, The. See Educators, Schools, Colleges, and Universities Brass Bands Camp Meeting Songs Chicago Blues. See Blues Church Music. See Black Church Music—History; Black Church Music—Hymnists and Psalmists
Topical List of Entries | xix Civil Rights Movement Music Classic Blues. See Blues Concert Music—Composers and Repertoire Concert Music—Conductors and Performers Cool Jazz. See Jazz Country Blues. See Blues Covers of African American Music. See Appropriation of African American Music Dance and Music Delta Blues/Country Blues. See Blues Disco Dixieland Jazz. See Jazz Doo-Wop Experimental Music Female Impersonators. See Transgendered Performers Field Hollers Fife and Drum Free Jazz (Avante-Garde). See Jazz Funk Game Songs Gangsta Rap. See Rap Music Go-Go Gospel Music Gospel Quartets. See Gospel Music Griot Hard Bop. See Jazz Hardcore Rap. See Rap Music Harlem Renaissance. See Renaissance, Harlem: 1917–1935 Hip Hop Culture Hip Hop Music. See Rap Music House Music Improvisation Jazz Jubilee Singers Jump Blues. See Blues ‘‘Lining Out’’ Marching Bands Memphis Sound Message Rap. See Rap Music Military Bands
Minstrel Shows Motown Sound Movies Neo Soul New Jack Swing New Orleans Jazz, Early. See Jazz Opera Orchestras, Symphonies and Chamber Ensembles P-Funk. See Funk Philadelphia Sound Piedmont Blues. See Blues Protest Songs Race Music and Records Radio Ragtime R & B (Rhythm and Blues) Rap Music Reconstruction Period: 1863–1877 Renaissance, Chicago: 1935–1950 Renaissance, Harlem: 1917–1935 Rhythm and Blues. See R & B (Rhythm and Blues) Ring Shouts. See Slave Music of the South Rock ’n’ Roll Sacred Steel Guitar Shape Note Singing Singing and Prayer Bands Slave Music of the South Slave Utterances Soul Music Soul, Neo. See Neo Soul Southern Rap Music. See Rap Music Spirituals Stride String Bands and Ensembles Techno Theater and Musicals Tin Pan Alley. See Vaudeville and Tin Pan Alley Turntablism Underground Rap Music. See Rap Music Urban Blues. See Blues
xx | Topical List of Entries
Vaudeville and Tin Pan Alley Vocal Jazz. See Jazz West Coast. See Los Angeles, California, and the West Coast West-Coast Blues. See Blues Work Songs X-Rated Rap. See Rap Music Zydeco Music
Gospel and Church Music Adams, Yolanda (1961– ) African Influences Allen, Richard (1760–1831) Anderson, Marian (1902–1993) Antebellum Period (1764–1860) Antiphony (Call and Response) Associations. See Organizations and Associations for African American Music and Musicians Battle, Kathleen (1948– ) Black Church Music—History Black Church Music—Hymnists and Psalmists Black-Owned Music Publishing Companies Black-Owned Record Labels Blind Boys of Alabama Boyer, Horace Clarence (1935–2009) Boys’ Choir Movement, The. See Educators, Schools, Colleges, and Universities Caesar, Shirley (1939– ) Camp Meeting Songs Charles, Ray (1930–2004) Charleston, South Carolina, and Surrounding Areas Chicago, Illinois Chicago Renaissance. See Renaissance, Chicago: 1935–1950 Church Music. See Black Church Music—History; Black Church Music—Hymnists and Psalmists
Civil Rights Movement Music Cleveland, James (1932–1991) Colleges and Universities. See Educators, Schools, Colleges, and Universities; Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) Detroit, Michigan Dorsey, Thomas A. (1899–1993) Educators, Schools, Colleges, and Universities Franklin, Aretha (1942– ) Gospel Music Gospel Quartets. See Gospel Music Graves, Denyce (1964– ) Green, Al (1946– ) Hairston, Jester (1901–2000) Hawkins, Edwin (1943– ), and the Edwin Hawkins Singers Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) Improvisation Jackson, Mahalia (1911–1972) Jubilee Singers Kansas City, Missouri, and the Territories ‘‘Lining Out’’ Los Angeles, California, and the West Coast Martin, Roberta (1907–1969) Mary Mary—Erica Campbell (1972– ) and Tina Campbell (1974– ) Memphis, Tennessee Minneapolis, Minnesota Music Publishing Companies. See Black-Owned Music Publishing Companies New Orleans, Louisiana Philadelphia, Pennsylvania Protest Songs Radio Reagon, Bernice Johnson (1942– ) Record Labels. See Black-Owned Record Labels Reese, Della (1931– )
Topical List of Entries | xxi Renaissance, Chicago: 1935–1950 Renaissance, Harlem: 1917–1935 Ring Shouts. See Slave Music of the South Robeson, Paul (1898–1976) Sacred Steel Guitar Schools. See Educators, Schools, Colleges, and Universities Sea Islands of Georgia and South Carolina, The Shape Note Singing Singing and Praying Bands Singing Conventions Slave Music of the South Smallwood, Richard (1948– ) Spirituals Staple Singers, The Staples, Mavis. See Staple Singers, The Videos, Music Ward, Clara (1924–1973) West Coast. See Los Angeles, California, and the West Coast Winans Family, The
Jazz Acid Jazz. See Jazz Adderley, Cannonball (1928–1975) African Influences American Federation of Musicians, The Antiphony (Call and Response) Armstrong, Louis (1900–1971) Associations. See Organizations and Associations for African American Music and Musicians Banfield, William C. (1961– ) Basie, Count (1904–1984) Bebop. See Jazz Bechet, Sidney (1897–1959) Big Bands Black Arts Movement Blake, Eubie (ca. 1883–1983) Blakey, Art (1919–1990) Blues Brass Bands
Calloway, Cab (1907–1994) Carter, Betty (1929–1998) Charles, Ray (1930–2004) Chicago, Illinois Chicago Renaissance. See Renaissance, Chicago: 1935–1950 Civil Rights Movement Music Cole, Nat King (1919–1965) Coleman, Ornette (1930– ) Coltrane, John (1926–1967) Cool Jazz. See Jazz Dance and Music Dance Halls. See Popular Venues (Cafe Society, Nightclubs, and Dance Halls) Davis, Miles (1926–1991) Detroit, Michigan Dixieland Jazz. See Jazz Eckstine, Billy (1914–1993) Ellington, Duke (1899–1974) European Reception of Jazz. See Jazz Fitzgerald, Ella (1917–1996) Free Jazz. See Jazz Gillespie, Dizzy (1917–1993) Hampton, Lionel (1909–2002) Hancock, Herbie (1940– ) Hard Bop. See Jazz Harlem Renaissance. See Renaissance, Harlem: 1917–1935 Hawkins, Coleman (1904–1969) Hawkins, Erskine (1914–1993) Henderson, Fletcher (1897–1952) Hines, Earl (‘‘Fatha’’) (1905–1983) Hip Hop Jazz. See Jazz Holiday, Billie (1915–1959) Horn, Shirley (1934–2005) Horne, Lena (1917–2010) Humes, Helen (1913–1981) Improvisation Jazz Jazz Age. See Jazz Jazz Education. See Jazz Jordan, Louis (1908–1975) Kansas City, Missouri, and the Territories
xxii | Topical List of Entries
Latin and Afro-Caribbean Jazz. See Jazz Lewis, John (1920–2001) Liston, Melba (1926–1999) Literature on African American Music Los Angeles, California, and the West Coast Marsalis, Branford (1960– ) Marsalis, Wynton (1961– ) McFerrin, Bobby (1950– ) McRae, Carmen (1920–1994) Memphis, Tennessee Mills Brothers, The Mingus, Charles (1922–1979) Minneapolis, Minnesota Modal Jazz. See Jazz Monk, Thelonious Sphere (1917–1982) Morton, Jelly Roll (1885 or 1890–1941) Movies New Orleans, Louisiana New Orleans Jazz, Early. See Jazz Oliver, King (1885–1938) Organizations and Associations for African American Music and Musicians Parker, Charlie (1920–1955) Philadelphia, Pennsylvania Popular Venues (Cafe Society, Nightclubs, and Dance Halls) Queen Latifah (1970– ) Race Music and Records Radio Ragtime Record Labels. See Black-Owned Record Labels Recording Industry Renaissance, Chicago: 1935–1950 Renaissance, Harlem: 1917–1935 Rock-Jazz Fusion. See Jazz Rollins, Sonny (1930– ) Rushing, Jimmy (1903–1972) Russell, George (1923–2009)
Schools. See Educators, Schools, Colleges, and Universities Scott, Hazel (1920–1981) Simone, Nina (1933–2003) Smith, Willie ‘‘The Lion’’ (1897–1973) Smooth Jazz. See Jazz South Carolina. See Charleston, South Carolina, and Surrounding Areas Stitt, Sonny (1924–1982) Sun Ra (1915–1993) Tatum, Art (1910–1956) Taylor, Cecil (1929– ) Television Territory Bands. See Jazz Third Stream, The. See Jazz Vaughan, Sarah (1924–1990) Vocal Jazz. See Jazz Waller, Fats (1904–1943) Washington, Dinah (1924–1963) West Coast. See Los Angeles, California, and the West Coast Williams, Mary Lou (1910–1981) Wilson, Cassandra (1955– ) Wilson, Nancy (1937– ) Women Instrumentalists. See Jazz
Places Charleston, South Carolina, and Surrounding Areas Chicago, Illinois Congo Square Detroit, Michigan Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) Kansas City, Missouri, and the Territories Los Angeles, California, and the West Coast Memphis, Tennessee Minneapolis, Minnesota New England New Orleans, Louisiana
Topical List of Entries | xxiii Philadelphia, Pennsylvania Sea Islands, of Georgia and South Carolina, The Vaudeville and Tin Pan Alley West Coast. See Los Angeles, California, and the West Coast
Popular Music Acid Jazz. See Jazz Adams, Yolanda (1961– ) African Influences Afrofuturism American Federation of Musicians, The Antiphony (Call and Response) Appropriation of African American Music Associations. See Organizations and Associations for African American Music and Musicians Badu, Erykah (1971– ) Bailey, DeFord (1899–1982) Baker, Lavern (1928–1997) Bambaataa, Afrika (1960– ) Beach Music Beale Street Bebop. See Jazz Belafonte, Harry (1927– ) Berry, Chuck (1926– ) Big Bands Black Arts Movement Black Church Music—History Black Rock Music Black-Owned Music Publishing Companies Black-Owned Record Labels Blind Boys of Alabama Blues Blues Revival. See Blues Boogie-Woogie Booker T. and the MGs Brass Bands Brown, James (1933–2006) Brown, Oscar, Jr. (1926–2005) Caesar, Shirley (1939– )
Charles, Ray (1930–2004) Chenier, Clifton (1925–1987) Chicago Blues. See Blues Chicago, Illinois Church Music. See Black Church Music—History; Black Church Music—Hymnists and Psalmists Classic Blues. See Blues Cleveland, James (1932–1991) Clinton, George (1940– ) Cole, Nat King (1919–1965) Cooke, Sam (1931–1964) Country Blues. See Blues Country Music Covers of African American Music. See Appropriation of African American Music Cox, Ida (1896–1967) Cube, Ice (1969– ) Dance and Music Dance Halls. See Popular Venues (Cafe Society, Nightclubs, and Dance Halls) Davis, Miles (1926–1991) Davis, Rev. Gary (1896–1972) Davis, Sammy, Jr. (1925–1990) Delta Blues/Country Blues. See Blues Detroit, Michigan Diddley, Bo (1928–2008) Diddy (1969– ) Disco Dixie Hummingbirds Dixon, Willie James (1915–1992) Domino, Fats (1928– ) Doo-Wop Dre, Dr. (1965– ) Drifters, The Edmonds, Kenneth ‘‘Babyface’’ (1959– ) Elliott, Missy (1971– ) Female Impersonators. See Transgendered Performers Flack, Roberta (1937– ) Franklin, Aretha (1942– ) Funk
xxiv | Topical List of Entries
Game Songs Gangsta Rap. See Rap Music Gaye, Marvin (1939–1984) Go-Go Gordy, Berry (1929– ) Gospel Music Gospel Quartets. See Gospel Music Green, Al (1946– ) Hard Bop. See Jazz Hardcore Rap. See Rap Music Hathaway, Donny (1945–1979) Hawkins, Edwin (1943– ), and the Edwin Hawkins Singers Hayes, Isaac (1942–2008) Hendrix, Jimi (1942–1970) Hip Hop Culture Holiday, Billie (1915–1959) Hooker, John Lee (1917–2001) House Music Houston, Whitney (1963– ) Howlin’ Wolf (1910–1976) Hunter, Alberta (1895–1984) Improvisation Ink Spots Jackson, Mahalia (1911–1972) Jackson, Michael (1958–2009) Jay-Z (1970– ) Jefferson, Blind Lemon (1897–1929) Johnson, George W. (ca. 1850–ca. 1910) Johnson, Robert (1911–1938) Joplin, Scott (1868–1917) Jordan, Louis (1908–1975) Jump Blues. See Blues Kansas City, Missouri, and the Territories Keys, Alicia (1981– ) King, B. B. (1925– ) Knowles, Beyonce (1981– ) LaBelle, Patti (1944– ) Ledbetter, Huddie (Lead Belly) (1889–1949) Little Richard (1932– ) Los Angeles, California, and the West Coast
Male Impersonators. See Transgendered Performers Martin, Roberta (1907–1969) Mary Mary—Erica Campbell (1972– ) and Tina Campbell (1974– ) Master P. (1970– ) Mathis, Johnny (1935– ) Mayfield, Curtis (1942–1999) McFerrin, Bobby (1950– ) Memphis, Tennessee Memphis Minnie (1897–1973) Memphis Sound Message Rap. See Rap Music Mills Brothers, The Minneapolis, Minnesota Mo’, Keb’ (1951– ) Motown Sound Movies Ndegeocello, Meshell (1969– ) Neo Soul New Jack Swing New Orleans, Louisiana Nightclubs. See Popular Venues (Cafe Society, Nightclubs, and Dance Halls) Notorious B.I.G. (1972–1997) Odetta (1930–2008) Outkast P-Funk. See Funk Philadelphia, Pennsylvania Philadelphia Sound Pickett, Wilson (1941–2006) Piedmont Blues. See Blues Platters, The Pop Singers Popular Venues (Cafe Society, Nightclubs, and Dance Halls) Pride, Charley (1939– ) Prince (1958– ) Public Enemy Queen Latifah (1970– ) Race Music and Records Radio Rainey, Ma (1886–1939) R & B (Rhythm and Blues)
Topical List of Entries | xxv Rap Music Rawls, Lou (1933–2006) Record Labels. See Black-Owned Record Labels Recording Industry Redding, Otis (1941–1967) Reese, Della (1931– ) Rhythm and Blues. See R & B (Rhythm and Blues) Robeson, Paul (1898–1976) Robinson, Smokey (1940– ) Rock ’n’ Roll Rock ’n’ Roll—Composers and Performers. See Black Rock Music Ronettes, The Sacred Steel Guitar Salt-N-Pepa Sea Islands of Georgia and South Carolina, The Shakur, Tupac (1971–1996) Simmons, Russell (1957– ) Simone, Nina (1933–2003) Sly and the Family Stone Smallwood, Richard (1948– ) Snoop Dog (1972– ) Soul Music Soul, Neo. See Neo Soul Southern Rap Music. See Rap Music Staple Singers, The Staples, Mavis. See Staple Singers, The Stax Records Supremes, The Taylor, Koko (1938–2009) Techno Television Theater and Musicals Thomas, Rufus (1917–2001) Thornton, Big Mama (1926–1984) Tin Pan Alley. See Vaudeville and Tin Pan Alley Transgendered Performers Turner, Big Joe (1911–1985) Turner, Ike (1931–2007) and Tina (1939– ) Turntablism 2 Live Crew
Underground Rap Music. See Rap Music Urban Blues. See Blues Vaudeville and Tin Pan Alley Vaughan, Sarah (1924–1990) Videos, Music Wallace, Sippie (1898–1986) Ward, Clara (1924–1973) Washington, Dinah (1924–1963) Waters, Ethel (1896–1977) Waters, Muddy (1915–1983) West, Kanye (1977– ) West Coast. See Los Angeles, California, and the West Coast West-Coast Blues. See Blues White, Josh (1914–1969) Wilson, Jackie (1934–1984) Winans Family, The Womack, Bobby (1944– ) Women Instrumentalists. See Jazz Wonder, Stevie (1950– ) X-Rated Rap. See Rap Music Zydeco, Buckwheat (1947– ) Zydeco Music
Rap Music and Hip Hop Culture African Influences Afrofuturism Antiphony (Call and Response) Badu, Erykah (1971– ) Bambaataa, Afrika (1960– ) Black-Owned Record Labels Chicago, Illinois Cube, Ice (1969– ) Dance and Music Detroit, Michigan Diddy (1969– ) Disco Dre, Dr. (1965– ) Elliott, Missy (1971– ) Funk Gangsta Rap. See Rap Music Griot
xxvi | Topical List of Entries
Hardcore Rap. See Rap Music Hip Hop and Jazz. See Jazz Hip Hop Culture Hip Hop Music. See Rap Music Jay-Z (1970– ) Kansas City, Missouri, and the Territories Los Angeles, California, and the West Coast Master P. (1970– ) Memphis, Tennessee Message Rap. See Rap Music Movies Neo Soul New Jack Swing New Orleans, Louisiana Notorious B.I.G. (1972–1997) Outkast Philadelphia, Pennsylvania Popular Music Public Enemy Queen Latifah (1970– )
Radio R & B (Rhythm and Blues) Rap Music Record Labels. See Black-Owned Record Labels Recording Industry Salt-N-Pepa Shakur, Tupac (1971–1996) Simmons, Russell (1957– ) Snoop Dog (1972– ) Southern Rap Music. See Rap Music Television Turntabalism 2 Live Crew Underground Rap Music. See Rap Music Videos, Music West, Kanye (1977– ) West Coast. See Los Angeles, California, and the West Coast X-Rated Rap. See Rap Music
Acknowledgments
A work of this magnitude can be accomplished only with the commitment, dedication, and collaboration of numerous talented and skilled editors, contributors, colleagues, research assistants, editorial assistants, friends, family, and a host of prayer warriors. Planning, researching, sketching, composing, and arranging this enormous opus over the past four years has been demanding, yet exhilarating and extremely gratifying. We, the editors, are proud that this diverse and interdisciplinary aggregation of contributors spans gender, race, age and the various other boundaries that would usually plague such a project as this. Our contributors are scholars, musicians, composers, theorists, literary specialists, historians, anthropologists, folklorists, sociologists, music industry practitioners, scholars of black history, and the like. It is our belief that it takes such an assemblage to spotlight and communicate the rich and vast matrix of African American music. To each contributor, we thank you for allowing your perspectives to further illuminate the heterophony of the multitude of voices that we collectively call African American music. Although it is always dangerous to recognize one from among the many, contributor Melanie Zeck was a tremendous asset to this project, wearing many additional hats beyond her initial commitment. To muster up the courage to transform our passion for music into a comprehensive compendium with the aim of extending the tradition of African American music scholarship, we leaned on an advisory board of leaders in the field to motivate, guide, and challenge our work. Your e-mails, phone calls, written notes, and in-person inquiries at various conferences, seminars, and gatherings provided just the spark we needed to keep the flame lit long enough for us to believe that we could finish what we started. We extend a warm-hearted and extremely gracious thank you to James ‘‘Jimmy’’ Abbington, William ‘‘Bill’’ Banfield, Johann Buis, Eileen Hayes, Cheryl Keyes, Portia Maultsby, Ingrid Monson, and Guthrie ‘‘Guy’’ Ramsey. Over the life span of this project, numerous undergraduate students availed themselves as research assistants. Whether supported through work study,
xxviii | Acknowledgments
cooperative education programs, experiential learning programs, or faculty and student research grants, or simply fueled by a desire to learn how to intellectually pursue the research of African American music, a number of students (and former students) deserve our gratitude: Daniel J. Irwin, Alex Larrieux, Joanne Memnon, David Coleman, and Martin Stubbs. Each of these Northeastern University students (and alums) contributed in great measure, and without their dedication and commitment to the vision of the project, we would not have reached this milestone of completion. One research assistant in particular deserves special mention for her tremendous contribution to the project: Kimberly ‘‘Kimmie’’ Thevenin from Spring Valley, New York. Kimmie’s disciplined study of the music at this early juncture in her academic career is an inspiration that confirms that the accomplishments of our generation serve as a ladder for future success for those who follow. We also express our gratitude to James Jones, Amie Jones, and Mark Wooding of Isquared Media, Inc., for their exceptional Web design and digital archiving of the project at its various stages. The Greenwood/ABC-CLIO publishing team was a joy to work with. During the early stages of the project, we benefited greatly from the careful guidance of Kristi Ward. Her thorough and steady nurturing provided a firm foundation for the project and for our relationship with Greenwood. As the project progressed, Anne Thompson emerged as an editorial angel and problem solver. Her proven expertise in projects of this magnitude combined with her firm patience moved us closer to completion with each correspondence. Anne guided us through the merger of Greenwood and ABC-CLIO in a manner in which we knew it was occurring, but we certainly did not feel it happening. The conclusion of the project introduced us to Jennike Caldera, Randy Baldini, Mark Kane, and Jason Kniser. We are grateful to each of you for your contributions to the success of this project. As educators, the endless challenge of articulating and explaining to our students the various bridges that connect the past to the present, tradition to contemporary, and the vernacular to concert and popular to our students sparked our collective interest in undertaking a project of this magnitude. To all of our past and present students at Northeastern University, Brandeis University, Miami University (Ohio), and University of North Carolina at Asheville, we are grateful for the ways and manners that you have challenged us to grow. To our mentors Josephine Wright, Samuel A. Floyd, Jr., Pamela Fox, Olly Wilson, Paulette Pierce, T. J. Anderson, Nathan Davis, the late Horace Clarence Boyer, Leonard Brown, Ted McDaniel, and Paul Jackson, Jr., we thank you. You have sparked in us the courage to continue the intellectual pursuits of our rich musical heritage and cultural legacy. Finally, to our family and friends who have endured our longstanding fascination, obsession, and preoccupation with not only this project but also this project’s subject matter, we graciously thank you. Each of us might argue that this very project began at our respective births. We individually were born into families of music lovers, were trained by teachers who taught us to love the music, and have committed our lives to expanding the approach and production of scholarship on the music we love.
Acknowledgments | xxix To my parents Emmett G. Price, Jr. and Carolyn J. Price and Robert F. Gayle and Gloria Gayle; my brother Everett B. Price; my sister Melanie N. Price; and my nephew Elon Carruthers. Thank you for your love and encouragement. To the love of my life, Nicole Gayle Price. Thank you for loving me unconditionally in spite of my faults. To my sons, Emmett IV and Nicolas Robert, with your mere presence, you inspire me to be the best. I love you both! —Emmett G. Price III To my parents Robert and Carolyn Kernodle, brothers Kevin Kernodle and Michael Kernodle, and their families. Thank you for your love and encouragement throughout the years. I love you much! To my sista circle, Michelle Morris, Denise Von Glahn, Dana Pritchett, Kelli Carter, Sharon Hicks, Leesa Peters, and Deliika Blackwell, thanks for being there through the laughter and tears. Thanks to Rev. Darryl Jackson, Rev. Cheryl Jackson, and the congregation of the First Baptist Church for your encouragement and continued support. And, last, to God. Thank you Father for the gifts you have anointed me with and the grace you extend daily. I will bless your name at all times and your praise will continually be in my mouth —Tammy L. Kernodle To my parents Horace J. Maxile, Sr. and Beatrice T. Maxile; and my brother and sister-in-law, Heath J. Maxile and Ashley Maxile. Thank you for your love and support. To my loving wife, Joletta R. Maxile, thank you for your encouragement, understanding, love, and patience. To my son and little motivator, Nathan, your energy, smile, and spirit brighten my life. I love you. —Horace J. Maxile, Jr.
This project began with a prayer and its completion uncovers yet another miracle.
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Introduction
African American music is a complicated, yet enticing, matrix of expressions by and about black people in the United States of America. Recognized for its aesthetic currency, rich tradition of performance practice and exemplary integration of social critique, political commentary, and spiritual invocation, African American music might be best understood as the multiple expressions of faith, hope, and struggle in the pursuit of survival, equity, and liberation. Through African American music, one may hear the dreams, goals, cares, and concerns of black folks. We feel the pain, promise, pride, and pleasure of the descendents of displaced Africans. We audibly and visually witness the successes and failures of a population of artistic leaders who until recently were not credited with their dynamic impact on peoples and cultures around the world. African American music is a collection of stories told by individuals through the phenomenon of sound and the tools of melody, harmony, rhythm, and a few additional spices. The Encyclopedia of African American Music is the first three-volume reference compendium that extends beyond the traditional chronological and biographical approach that is common to works in this genre and attempts to reveal the aforementioned stories through a thematic and regional framework.
Scope The Encyclopedia of African American Music is designed as a comprehensive reference source for students (high school through graduate school), educators (high school through college and university), scholars, researchers, journalists, industry practitioners, and interested laypersons. More than 400 entries, including subentries, cover a wide range of such topics as genres, styles, individuals, groups, important moments, movements, and regional trends. Entries also include brief studies on select record labels, institutions of higher learning, and
xxxii | Introduction
various cultural institutions that have had a tremendous impact on the evolution, development, promulgation, and preservation of African American music. Implicit in the encyclopedia is the underlying framework that African American music (and the broader culture) is one part of the greater African Diaspora that encompasses the musical practices that have developed among the Africanderived people in the Caribbean and West Indies, South and Central America, as well as various areas in Europe and Asia. In this manner, the use of the term African American clearly defines this project as pertaining only to the experience of black people (or African Americans) in the United States of America. In places where musical examples from the broader African Diaspora are described or mentioned, black music is the term of choice. ‘‘Black music’’ serves as an umbrella for the various expressions of black people worldwide as unified by the inherent African musical and cultural characteristics that guide and influence approaches to music and music-making. Although debates are ongoing as to the use of the terms African American and black when describing the people of the African American community (or ‘‘black community in the United States’’), these terms will be used somewhat interchangeably based on the intellectual and philosophical context as defined by the various contributors. It should be recognized, however, that the use of the term black is an intentional attempt to codify and connect oneself to the African continent and its rich cultural (and, in this instance, musical) legacy. We have designed the Encyclopedia of African American Music to fill the current void in a comprehensive work that bridges the various superficial boundaries of music that reveals the various experiences of the lives of African Americans in the United States. In this attempt, though, we are quite aware that our collective work stands on the shoulders of others who have come before us. Scholars such as Dominique-Rene De Lerma (Greenwood Encyclopedia of Black Music Series, 1981–1982) and Eileen Southern (Biographical Dictionary of AfroAmerican and African Musicians, 1982) and works such as Southern and Josephine Wright’s African American Traditions in Song, Sermon, Tale, and Dance, 1600s–1920: An Annotated Bibliography of Literature, Collections, and Artworks (1990) were catalysts for our attempts to extend the rich body of work approaching African American music from ‘‘the big’’ picture. Serving as models, these works revealed that there was much more room to grow the study of African American music, not only in expanding the study of more contemporary forms but also reexamining the connections between the contemporary expressions and what has now been deemed traditional. In fact in places in which it was appropriate, we intentionally used some of Eileen Southern’s biographical sketches with minor additions to include postpublication developments and accomplishments. In addition, even with more recent works such as Mellonee V. Burnim and Portia K. Maultsby’s monumental African American Music: An Introduction (2006), it is still apparent that more resources and reference materials are needed to continue to uncover and rediscover the dynamic influence and demonstrative impact that African American music has had not only in the continental United States but also around the world.
Introduction | xxxiii More than 100 scholars, researchers, practitioners, and writers have contributed to the more than 400 entries and subentries in the Encyclopedia of African American Music. This encyclopedia has also benefited from work by experts whose work previously was published in Greenwood’s and ABC-CLIO’s awardwinning encyclopedias and other reference works, including the previously mentioned Biographical Dictionary of Afro-American and African Musicians (by Eileen Southern) and the Greenwood Encyclopedia of African American Folklore, edited by Anand Prahlad (2006); some contributions were crafted from these books. Information about contributors is found in the ‘‘About the Editors and Contributors’’ section at the end of the set.
How to Use This Encyclopedia Accessing the Entries Although there are many ways to effectively use the Encyclopedia of African American Music, we recommend these two: By starting with the Alphabetical List of Entries in the front of each volume or by using the comprehensive index. Additionally, the Topical List of Entries at the front of the volumes aids in providing access to clusters of related entries.
Types of Entries This encyclopedia includes various types of entries. Some key entries, which lent themselves to various subtopics, are long entries, such as ‘‘Blues,’’ ‘‘Concert Music Composers,’’ ‘‘Jazz,’’ ‘‘New Orleans,’’ ‘‘Rap Music,’’ and many others. These entries contain many subentries to further examine different topics, genres, or time periods within the group entry. Biographical sketches have been added to the encyclopedia to emphasize the contributions of major innovators, influential performers, and legendary composers, arrangers, and musicians. These sketches are not an attempt to minimize the African American musical experience down to a few women and men, but rather to show who their contributions point back to, the various communities from which they emerged, and for whom they speak. Likewise, the entries on geographical centers of African American music become important in revealing how the musical expressions of areas such as New Orleans, Los Angeles, Chicago, Detroit, and others represent unique but connected approaches to revealing the challenges of daily living through song. Some centers, such as New York City, are absent only to prevent overlap within the greater encyclopedia. Readers will clearly see the rich contribution of New York City and other places as they discover the various people, venues, genres, and cultural movements that are rooted and birthed in this historic city. Most entries end with recommendations for further reading, and some include recommendations for listening with CD and other recording titles, and some include videos. This reference work also provides cross-references at the
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ends of entries when appropriate, aiding readers in further exploring the interconnectedness and intricate matrix of African American Music.
Added Features We are excited to include a Timeline of significant moments in African American music history, from 1720 to 2010, compiled by professor emeritus Hansonia L. Caldwell especially for this publication. The appendixes are also overflowing with additional resources and commentary that we hope will not only serve as intellectual conversation-starters, but also will lead to further exploration in this expansive field. Helpful annotated lists include ‘‘Significant Compositions by African American Concert, Jazz, and Gospel Composers’’; ‘‘Significant Music Videos of African American Music’’; and ‘‘Major Archives, Research Centers, and Web Sites for African American Music.’’ Of equal importance are the two bibliographies compiled by Melanie Zeck specifically for this compendium. Her comprehensive ‘‘A Selective Bibliography of Resources and Reference Works in African American Music’’ and ‘‘A Selected Bibliography of African American Music: Genre Specific: 1989–2010’’ are priceless resources that deserve both mention and viewing. Where it is our attempt to be comprehensive, it is clear that we have exposed the reality that we were not exhaustive, as African American music is a living organism and this work serves to further uncover that which was not previously seen and to simultaneously spark the need for further study. We do, however, take responsibility for gaps, errors, or places in which we may have fallen short of our own intentions. —The Editors
A Timeline of Significant Moments in African American Music
The study of African American music begins with acknowledging its roots on the continent of Africa. For multiple reasons, Africans move or are displaced around the world, and the music from the homeland moves with the people into the African Diaspora. The musical developments of Africans in the United States are an important expression of the Diaspora. Over a span of more than 400 years, African musical creativity is constant, resulting in several new genres: spirituals, ragtime, blues, gospel, jazz, and rap and hip hop. Each of these genres includes distinctively styled subgenres: • Spirituals—includes traditional folk melodies, camp meeting spirituals, jubilees, field hollers, work songs, game songs, arranged, concert, and art songs, and neospirituals • Ragtime—includes classic, commercial, and the accompanying coon songs and cakewalk • Blues—includes classic version and its expanded version, as well as longer-form ballads, including subsidiary styles, such as archaic, country, classic, vaudeville, boogie-woogie, jump, rhythm and blues, electric blues, urban, soul, funk, electro funk, disco, black rock, urban contemporary, neo soul, and acoustic • Gospel—includes solo and ensemble sacred hymns, anthems, and ballads created in various styles, including subsidiary styles, such as folk gospel, traditional, contemporary, and hip hop, and parallel art forms such as stepping • Jazz—includes subsidiary styles such as syncopated brass bands, New Orleans traditional jazz, Dixieland, stride piano, swing, symphonic, scat, bop, hard bop, classic bop, cubop, Afro-Cuban, Latin, modal, cool, third stream, funk,
xxxvi | A Timeline of Significant Moments in African American Music
mainstream, free jazz, fusion, ghost bands, acid jazz, neobop, retro jazz, and European jazz • Rap and Hip Hop—includes all preceding and subsidiary styles, such as ‘‘talking blues,’’ Harlem Renaissance jive, ‘‘ragga’’ rap, gangsta rap, message rap, ‘‘roots’’ rap, gospel rap, raunch rap, hard core or underground, rock rap, crossover, and international rap, such as Latino, Cuban, Puerto Rican, White-American, French, and Kwaito (Africanized hip hop) Additionally, other genres and performers have emerged out of a process of acculturation, including the following: • Minstrelsy and Vaudeville • European and Americanized European Classical Music—includes opera, oratorio, religious anthems, choral music, lieder, solo and ensemble chamber music, and orchestral music, such as symphony, concerto, and overture • Country—includes bluegrass, hillbilly, Nashville sound, country rock, outlaw country, western swing, and honky-tonk This musical evolution began with the development of an extensive folk music repertoire by the African peoples in the Caribbean, North America, and South America. In North America, the music became known as ‘‘the spiritual’’ (created between 1720 and 1865). Typically, no specific names are identified with the folk music. This fact does not change until the 19th century when African Diaspora music becomes the popular sound of the United States. By the end of the 19th century, musicians perform spirituals and minstrelsy throughout the nation, helping to create a music industry. Blues is born. Ragtime is born. Jazz is born. All of this occurs concurrently with the fortuitous development of increasingly sophisticated dissemination and preservation technology. The combination of creativity and technology means that throughout the 20th century, musicians and musical creations continuously reach new heights. Within these numbers, however, are individuals whose work is particularly innovative, transformational, and distinctively influential. 1720–1865
Slave traders bring the first enslaved Africans to Mississippi, where, because of enslavement, the population of Africans grows. A significant cultural response to the situation emerges in the form of the spiritual, songs that continue to be created until the end of the Civil War. These songs, which incorporate traditional African musical characteristics, are preserved and passed on via African oral tradition.
1817
African instrumental and vocal music flourishes. Folk musicians perform in an area of New Orleans known as Congo Square. The rhythmic and improvisational practices of the music provide the foundation for what later will be called jazz.
1831
The Nat Turner Rebellion occurs in Southhampton County, Virginia. ‘‘Steal Away,’’ a double-meaning spiritual developed by the enslaved
A Timeline of Significant Moments in African American Music | xxxvii African folk musicians of the area, serves as a signal song for the participants in the rebellion. 1851
Soprano Elizabeth Taylor Greenfield debuts for the Buffalo Musical Association. This is followed by her New York City debut in 1853 and a command performance for Queen Victoria at Buckingham Palace in 1854, making her the first internationally recognized African American concert vocalist. As a distinguished concert artist, she begins a tradition and is followed by a significant group of singers in the 19th century (Anna and Emmie Louise Hyers, Matilda Sissieretta Joyner-Jones, Flora Batson Bergen, Thomas Bowers, and Emma Azalia Hackley) and in the 20th century (Marian Anderson, Caterina Jarboro, Betty Allen, Kathleen Battle, Todd Duncan, Simon Estes, Roland Hayes, Dorothy Maynor, Robert McFerrin, Jessye Norman, Leontyne Price, Paul Robeson, Shirley Verrett, Camilla Williams, and Denyce Graves).
1857
Thomas Greene Bethune gives a debut recital and goes on to become the first celebrated African American concert pianist.
1861
Englishman Thomas Baker publishes the spiritual ‘‘Go Down Moses’’ in an arranged song entitled ‘‘Oh Let My People Go.’’
1865
Showman Charles ‘‘Barney’’ Hicks organizes the Georgia Minstrels, the first permanent black minstrel company. The group becomes the musical home for numerous 19th-century African American professional singers and composers.
1867
Unitarian abolitionists William Francis Allen, Charles Pickard Ware, and Lucy McKim Garrison compile and publish Slave Songs of The United States, the first collection of Negro spirituals, including this explanation in the introduction: ‘‘The musical capacity of the negro race has been recognized for so many years. . . . It is hard to explain why no systematic effort has hitherto been made to collect and preserve their melodies.’’
1871
The Fisk Jubilee Singers of Fisk University tour America, bringing national recognition to the spirituals they perform and becoming the model for other student choirs of historically black colleges, such as Hampton University. The ensemble undertakes a pioneering tour of Europe in 1873, bringing international recognition to the spiritual while raising much-needed funds for their school (used to help build Jubilee Hall, named for the group). A version of this ensemble remains active throughout the 19th and 20th centuries. The Singers are inducted into The Gospel Music Hall of Fame in 2000.
1889
Theodore Drury Colored Opera Company, a black opera company, organizes in Brooklyn, New York. It becomes the model for future African American opera companies, most notably the National Negro Opera Company in Pittsburgh, Chicago, New York, and Washington, D.C. (1941), and Opera South in Mississippi (1970). These companies provide performance opportunities for African American singers who face career limitations because of continuing racial discrimination.
1893
Antonin Dvorak composes Symphony No. 9 in E minor: From the New World, incorporating the sound of the Negro spiritual. It is a precedent-
xxxviii | A Timeline of Significant Moments in African American Music setting work, followed in the same year by The American String Quartet in F major, op. 96. With these works, Dvorak articulates a pathway for American classical music nationalism. 1893
The Chicago World’s Fair provides a performance venue for African American musicians, including Joseph Douglass, the first African American concert violinist and grandson of abolitionist Frederick Douglass. Numerous ragtime piano players perform at the World’s Fair, and after this national gathering, the sound of ragtime flourishes. Its accompanying dance, the cakewalk, becomes a national craze.
1897
New Orleans establishes the district of Storyville named for its proponent Alderman Sidney Story. The 38-block area becomes the home of traditional New Orleans–style jazz and Dixieland. Jazz trumpeter Buddy Bolden becomes a popular performer in the area.
1898
Two shows open on Broadway written by African American composers: A Trip to Coontown by Bob Cole and Billy Johnson, and Clorindy: The Origin of the Cake-Walk by Will Marion Cook. These shows introduce the tradition of black music and the sound of ragtime to New York theater.
1899
Scott Joplin composes the first national ragtime hit, ‘‘Maple Leaf Rag.’’ The sheet music becomes a nationwide best seller, and Joplin becomes known as the ‘‘King of Ragtime.’’ One of his pieces, ‘‘The Entertainer’’ (1902) ultimately becomes the theme of the 1974 movie The Sting.
1900
Charles Tindley composes one of the two African American freedom anthems published that year: ‘‘I’ll Overcome Some Day,’’ the precursor of the freedom song ‘‘We Shall Overcome.’’ J. Rosamond Johnson and James Weldon Johnson compose the other: ‘‘Lift Every Voice and Sing: National Hymn for the Colored People of America.’’
1910
African American music becomes internationally influential. French composer Claude Debussy writes two compositions that incorporate African American musical practice: ‘‘Golliwog’s Cake Walk’’ and ‘‘Minstrels.’’
1911
Ragtime composer Scott Joplin publishes his folk opera Treemonisha: Opera in Three Acts. The work premieres in 1972, and the composer posthumously earns a Pulitzer Prize for it in 1976.
1914
William C. Handy publishes his classic ‘‘St. Louis Blues.’’
1916
African American singer and composer Harry T. Burleigh arranges the spiritual ‘‘Deep River’’ in art-song style for solo voice. The birth of this art-song spiritual tradition transforms the folk song repertoire into a concert performance genre.
1919
Charter members Nora Holt, Henry L. Grant, Carl Diton, Alice Carter Simmons, Clarence Cameron White, Deacon Johnson, and Robert Nathaniel Dett found the National Association of Negro Musicians (NANM) and dedicate it ‘‘to the preservation, encouragement and advocacy of all genres of the music of African Americans in the world.’’
1920
The classic blues period (or ‘‘era of race records’’) begins with the release of Mamie Smith’s hit song ‘‘Crazy Blues,’’ composed by Perry Bradford. The song sells more than 800,000 copies.
A Timeline of Significant Moments in African American Music | xxxix 1921
The Eubie Blake and Noble Sissle musical Shuffle Along, one of the most important musical performances of the Harlem Renaissance, opens on Broadway. It stars many major African American performers of the day, runs for two years, and tours the country.
1921
The National Baptist Publishing Board publishes Gospel Pearls, a historic compilation that gives national visibility to the hymns, spirituals, and gospel songs of African American culture. It remains the primary compilation until 1977 when the same board produces The New National Baptist Hymnal.
1925
Bass-baritone Paul Robeson gives a debut concert of spirituals at Greenwich Village Theatre in New York City. Throughout his career, Robeson includes spirituals in his various performances, a purposeful programming choice to affirm his belief that art must speak out against racism.
1926
Trumpeter Louis Armstrong introduces scat style singing on the Okeh Records recording ‘‘The Heebie Jeebies.’’
1927
Jules Bledsoe performs in the premiere of the Jerome Kern and Oscar Hammerstein Broadway musical Showboat. This landmark production incorporates characters that are three-dimensional and music that is integrated into the libretto. Showboat has a plot that deals with topics such as unhappy marriages, miscegenation, and the hard life of black stevedores (as expressed through ‘‘Ol’ Man River’’). Through the century, this show becomes a venue for outstanding African American baritones, such as Paul Robeson and William Warfield.
1927
Duke Ellington and the Washingtonians expand and rename themselves Duke Ellington and His Orchestra. They begin a four-year residency at The Cotton Club. Their live CBS radio network broadcasts help develop a national audience for jazz.
1931
Cab Calloway’s band becomes the Cotton Club band. Calloway develops his pioneering style of jazz rhyming known as ‘‘jive scat.’’ The best example is found in his signature song, ‘‘Mininie the Moocher’’ with its refrain: ‘‘Hi-de-hi-de-hi-de-ho. Hi-de-hi-de-hi-de-ho. Ho-de-ho-de-ho-de-hee. Oodlee-oodlee-oldyee-oodlee-doo. Hi-de-ho-de-ho-de-hee.’’
1931
The Rochester Philharmonic performs composer William Grant Still’s Afro-American Symphony, the first symphony by an African American composer to be performed by a major orchestra.
1931
William Levi Dawson organizes the School of Music at Tuskegee Institute and becomes the founding conductor of the Tuskegee Choir, composing and arranging a significant body of spirituals and choral music that is subsequently performed by school and church choirs throughout the world. (In recognition of his prominence, Dr. Dawson was inducted into the Alabama Music Hall of Fame in 1989.)
1932
Thomas A. Dorsey writes the gospel hymn ‘‘Precious Lord, Take My Hand,’’ a song subsequently published in more than 50 languages and recorded by numerous singers. In this same year, Dorsey becomes choral conductor of Chicago’s Pilgrim Baptist Church, establishing a gospel chorus and music publishing company, Dorsey House. ‘‘Precious Lord,
xl | A Timeline of Significant Moments in African American Music Take My Hand’’ was entered into the Christian Music Hall of Fame in 2007. 1932
Florence Price wins the Wanamaker Prize for her Symphony in E minor, becoming the first African American woman to gain recognition as a composer.
1933
Thomas A. Dorsey and Sallie Martin charter the National Convention of Gospel Choirs and Choruses. Gospel music becomes the endorsed musical ministry style of the Baptist Church, often using the ‘‘Gospel Blues’’ songs of Thomas A. Dorsey (known as the ‘‘Father of Gospel Music’’). His songs become known as ‘‘Dorseys.’’
1934
A theater newly renamed the Apollo Theater opens in New York City, becoming the prime venue for African American entertainers in the decades of Jim Crow. The Apollo establishes an amateur night on Wednesdays, still in existence in the 21st century, that launches the careers of leading entertainers such as Ella Fitzgerald, Pearl Bailey, Ruth Brown, Sam Cooke, King Curtis, Marvin Gaye, Lena Horne, Sarah Vaughan, and the Jackson Five.
1935
George Gershwin’s Porgy & Bess: An American Folk Opera opens, featuring Eva Jessye as choral director, Todd Duncan in the role of Porgy, Ann Brown as Bess, and John Bubbles playing Sportin’ Life. Numerous revivals of this popular work play around the world throughout the 20th century.
1936
A film version of the Broadway musical The Green Pastures is released, with the Hall Johnson Choir performing. The Hall Johnson Choir appears in three additional films: Dimples, Banjo on My Knee, and Rainbow on the River. All of these films are done in Los Angeles.
1938
Record producer and talent scout John Hammond organizes a multipleact jazz concert at Carnegie Hall dedicated to Bessie Smith entitled From Spirituals to Swing, featuring performances of spirituals, gospel, blues, and jazz. The multiple-act concert becomes an important performance venue, and its framework leads to the 20th-century worldwide development of formal jazz concerts, typically held at municipal concert and philharmonic halls and jazz and blues festivals.
1939
The Daughters of the American Revolution (DAR) refuses to allow Marian Anderson to sing in Washington, D.C.’s Constitution Hall for the inauguration of President Franklin Roosevelt. In response to the actions of the DAR, Eleanor Roosevelt resigns from the organization. The concert moves to the Lincoln Memorial where Anderson performs before 75,000 people on Easter Sunday. Millions hear the concert on national radio.
1939
Billie Holiday records the challenging, chilling cry against racism, ‘‘Strange Fruit.’’
1939
Saxophonist Coleman Hawkins records a three-minute version of the classic ‘‘Body and Soul,’’ which jazz critics come to identify as a masterpiece of the creativity of jazz improvisation.
1942
Nat King Cole signs a contract with the newly established Capitol Records. His hit songs are later credited with building the company.
A Timeline of Significant Moments in African American Music | xli 1943
Lena Horne stars in the films Cabin in the Sky (directed by Vincente Minnelli) and Stormy Weather, both of which provide a stage for numerous African American performers. Additionally, Time, Life, and Newsweek all profile articles on Lena, who becomes known as ‘‘the most beautiful woman in the world.’’
1944
Kenneth Morris composes the gospel classic ‘‘Yes, God Is Real.’’
1945
The Berklee College of Music is founded in Boston, establishing an important institution for jazz education. Thereafter, jazz programs begin to flourish in colleges and universities across the country.
1946
The pioneering era of rhythm and blues begins. Erlington ‘‘Sonny’’ Til organizes the Vibranairs, a group that comes to be known as the first R & B singing group. The Vibranairs began harmonizing together on a corner on Baltimore’s Pennsylvania Avenue. Ultimately, the group changes its name to Sonny Til and the Orioles, and their performance style helps define the harmonic practices of R & B.
1949
The three-act opera, Troubled Island, written by William Grant Still, the Dean of African American composers, with libretto by Langston Hughes debuts. Still is the first black American to have an opera performed by a major opera company, the New York City Opera (with baritone Robert McFerrin in a starring role). The work was completed in 1939.
1949–1950
The Miles Davis Ensemble records the seminal Birth of the Cool, the classic of experimental hard bop jazz.
1950
Gospel artist Mahalia Jackson debuts at New York’s Carnegie Hall and is credited with elevating gospel music from its folk music base into a ‘‘refined art’’ with mass audience appeal. She also becomes the official soloist of the National Baptist Convention.
1952
The Modern Jazz Quartet and the Jazz Crusaders, two impressive jazz groups, form. They will go on to become premiere jazz groups of the 20th century.
1953
Groundbreaking popular recordings by B. B. King ‘‘Every Day I Have the Blues,’’ Muddy Waters ‘‘I’m Your Hoochie Coochie Man,’’ and Willie Mae ‘‘Big Mama’’ Thornton ‘‘Hound Dog’’ make this the year for urban blues. (‘‘Hound Dog’’ ultimately becomes Elvis Presley’s hit recording).
1954
The Newport Jazz Festival opens in Rhode Island.
1954
The phenomenon of ‘‘covering’’ begins when white rock ’n’ roll artists Bill Haley & His Comets cover Big Joe Turner’s ‘‘Shake, Rattle and Roll.’’ Covering becomes a popular practice wherein white artists perform songs from the R & B chart, often enhancing production elements. The white versions reach the mass radio market, particularly since the white-run radio stations refuse to play the originals. Only the songwriters (or the owners of the song rights, who often are not the same people as the original composers) receive royalties from the white releases. Throughout the subsequent decade, Pat Boone covers Fats Domino and Ivory Joe Hunter. Elvis Presley covers Big Mama Thornton and Arthur Big Boy Crudup. The McGuire Sisters cover the Moonglows. Georgia Gibbs covers Etta James and LaVern Baker. The Rolling Stones cover Willie Dixon.
xlii | A Timeline of Significant Moments in African American Music 1955
Two distinguished African American singers make their debuts with the Metropolitan Opera House: Marian Anderson in Verdi’s Un Ballo In Maschera, becoming the first African American to sing on the stage of the Met, and baritone Robert McFerrin in Verdi’s Aida. Soprano Leontyne Price makes her debut with the NBC-TV Opera Company in the coast-tocoast presentation of Tosca.
1956
Dizzy Gillespie’s band undertakes a U.S. State Department goodwill tour, traveling through the Middle East and South America, becoming the first jazz band to be sent abroad by the U.S. government.
1957
Pop ballad singer Johnny Mathis launches his career with three major hits: ‘‘It’s Not for Me to Say,’’ ‘‘Wonderful, Wonderful,’’ and ‘‘Chances Are.’’
1957
Sam Cooke crosses over to the secular and more lucrative genre of R & B from gospel music by leaving the Soul Stirrers to reach a greatly expanded audience. His hit song ‘‘You Send Me’’ sells more than 2 million copies. (He is inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame when it opens in Cleveland, Ohio, in 1986.) His ‘‘crossover’’ is precedent-setting and many African American musicians, including Aretha Franklin, Thelma Houston, Wilson Pickett, Lou Rawls, Bobby Womack, Dionne Warwick, Della Reese, Gladys Knight, Patti LaBelle, James Brown, and Dinah Washington also crossover to R & B.
1958
The era of ‘‘Chicago soul’’ begins with the Jerry Butler hit, ‘‘For Your Precious Love.’’
1958
Saxophonist Sonny Rollins composes and records the jazz suite The Freedom Suite (with Oscar Pettiford and Max Roach), an extended composition that celebrates the black experience. It exemplifies numerous other extended jazz compositions created as a musical analysis of African Americans in America.
1959
Berry Gordy, Jr. becomes the founder of Detroit’s Motown Records (originally known as Hitsville, USA). Motown becomes a major producer and distributor of R & B, creating the ‘‘Motown sound,’’ which includes acts by artists who accompany their music with elaborate choreography.
1959
Three extraordinary, groundbreaking jazz albums are released: Miles Davis’s Kind of Blue, incorporating the use of modal scales in jazz, Dave Brubeck Quartet’s Time Out, and Ornette Coleman’s The Shape of Jazz to Come.
1960
The free jazz style emerges in the Ornette Coleman album Free Jazz.
1960
Alvin Ailey choreographs Revelations for his dance ensemble, using the spiritual to celebrate African American cultural heritage. It becomes the classic signature piece of the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theatre.
1961
Mahalia Jackson sings at an inauguration party for President John F. Kennedy, a precedent-setting activity in the field of gospel music.
1962
Violinist Sanford Allen becomes the first black to hold a permanent position with the New York Philharmonic, an ensemble established in 1842.
1963
Nina Simone records the protest song ‘‘Mississippi Goddam!’’ after a church bombing in Birmingham. Throughout the 1960s, many African American performers build on this tradition of creating a composed protest song, for example, Sam Cooke’s ‘‘A Change Is Gonna Come’’; the
A Timeline of Significant Moments in African American Music | xliii Curtis Mayfield and the Impressions song ‘‘Keep on Pushing’’; Nina Simone’s ‘‘Four Women’’; and James Brown’s ‘‘Say It Loud, I’m Black and I’m Proud.’’ 1964
The Supremes record their first national hit, ‘‘Where Did Our Love Go,’’ and follow it with a series of hits that put the R & B sound of Motown on the musical map: ‘‘Baby, I Need Your Loving,’’ ‘‘Baby Love,’’ ‘‘Stop in the Name of Love,’’ and ‘‘Come See About Me.’’
1964
Jazz-band conductor and arranger Quincy Jones becomes vice president of Mercury Records, the first black to hold a top administrative position in a white-owned record company.
1965
Duke Ellington produces a group of sacred jazz concerts (multimovement cantata-like works for voice, orchestra, and dance), beginning with a concert at the Grace Cathedral Church of San Francisco and Fifth Avenue Presbyterian Church in New York.
1966
Leontyne Price opens the Metropolitan Opera season at the new Opera House at Lincoln Center, performing the role of Cleopatra in Anthony and Cleopatra, an opera written especially for her by Samuel Barber.
1966
Charley Pride breaks into the Billboard country music charts with his first country music hit song, ‘‘Just Between You and Me.’’ By 1971, he is named Country Music Entertainer of the Year and Male Vocalist of the Year.
1966
African American performers begin recording covers of the hit songs of British musicians, for example, Otis Redding’s cover version of the Rolling Stones hit, ‘‘Satisfaction.’’ The tradition continues in 1968 with Ray Charles’s cover of John Lennon and Paul McCartney’s ‘‘Eleanor Rigby.’’
1966
Joe Jackson forms the Jackson Five with his children, Michael, Jermaine, Marlon, Jackie, and Tito.
1967
Aretha Franklin begins her impressive career with a recording of the Otis Redding hit ‘‘Respect.’’ The recording becomes a theme song of the American Women’s Movement. Jimi Hendrix begins his meteoric career with the album Are You Experienced.
1968
The Edwin Hawkins singers record ‘‘Oh Happy Day,’’ the first commercially successful crossover gospel music piece. This song opens the modern era of contemporary gospel music. The genre evolves from being music for worship into music as art that is performed by both gospel and nongospel artists and, most important, appreciated by non-church-going individuals.
1968
James Cleveland organizes the Gospel Music Workshop of America to train and introduce people to the gospel tradition.
1968
Aretha Franklin, the ‘‘Queen of Soul,’’ sings the national anthem at the Democratic National Convention. In this same year, she is featured in a Time magazine cover story, ‘‘Lady Soul: Singing It Like It Is,’’ firmly establishing the national profile of soul music.
1969
Fusion jazz emerges in the Miles Davis Quintet’s albums In A Silent Way and Bitches Brew.
xliv | A Timeline of Significant Moments in African American Music 1969
Jimi Hendrix causes a sensation at the closing concert of the Woodstock Festival with his performance of ‘‘The Star Spangled Banner.’’
1969
Motown star Diana Ross leaves the Supremes to go solo, and the era of commercial megastars begins in African American music.
1970
Margaret Pleasant Douroux composes the gospel music classic, ‘‘Give Me a Clean Heart.’’ The Harvard Dictionary of Music adds gospel music as a category.
1971
African American musicians begin to compose award-winning movie scores, for example, Isaac Hayes’s Shaft (1971), Curtis Mayfield’s Superfly (1972), and Herbie Hancock’s Death Wish (1973).
1971
Eileen Southern enhances the scholarly study of African American music by publishing The Music of Black Americans. This documentation continues in 1974 when Columbia Records launches a Black Composer Series with Paul Freeman as artistic director. It becomes a recorded repository of symphonic and operatic works by black composers.
1973
Isaiah Jones, Jr., a musician active within the Presbyterian Church, composes the gospel music classic ‘‘God Has Smiled on Me.’’
1977
The music of African American composers becomes much more accessible when Willis Patterson edits the Anthology of Art Songs by Black American Composers, the first collection of this important repertoire. Concurrently, gospel hymns become more accessible to the general community, and the genre becomes a shared musical style of the ecumenical church as new hymnals are published. The New National Baptist Hymnal in 1977, followed by Songs of Zion of the Methodist Church in 1981; Lift Every Voice and Sing of the Episcopal Church in 1981 and 1993; Lead Me, Guide Me: The African American Catholic Hymnal in 1987; Ev’ry Time I Feel the Spirit in 1997; and African American Heritage Hymnal in 2001.
1979
Disco becomes the popular genre of the year with Donna Summer’s performance of ‘‘Thank God It’s Friday.’’
1979
Bob Marley and the Wailers perform politically powerful ska and reggae music at the Boston Amandla Festival of Unity (a gathering to protest the apartheid regime of South Africa and the racism of America) as part of the Survival album tour.
1979
The first two rap recordings are released to an international audience, King Tim III, by the Fatback Band and Rapper’s Delight, by the New Jersey-based Sugar Hill Gang, including the song that establishes the phrase ‘‘hip hop’’ as the name of the genre.
1980
Lady B becomes the first woman rapper to record, releasing To the Beat Y’all. Subsequently, women become an important force in rap music, including Roxanne Shante (recording Bad Sister in 1989, and The Bitch Is Back, 1992), MC Lyte (recording Lyte As a Rock, 1988, Bad As I Wanna B, 1996), Salt-N-Pepa (debuting in 1986 with Hot, Cool & Vicious), and Queen Latifah (releasing All Hail the Queen in 1989, Black Reign in 1993).
1980
Michael Jackson’s album Off the Wall, produced by Quincy Jones, becomes historically significant as the first solo album to produce four top 10 hits.
A Timeline of Significant Moments in African American Music | xlv 1981
Grandmaster Flash (Joseph Saddler) and the Furious Five release Wheels of Steel, the first rap record to use sampling and scratching techniques.
1983
Michael Jackson released Thriller. It becomes the first album to produce five top singles and wins eight Grammy Awards in 1984. Ultimately, Thriller is certified by the Guinness Book of Records as the best-selling album of all time. In this same year, Jackson changes the world of music videos with his breakthrough videos from the Thriller album: ‘‘Billie Jean,’’ ‘‘Beat It,’’ and ‘‘Thriller,’’ developing a visual emphasis for music. Subsequently videos become a viable business, attracting producers such as Pam Gibson and Ralph McDaniels and projecting the images of African American culture around the globe.
1983
President Ronald Reagan signs a law creating the Martin Luther King, Jr. holiday. This national recognition stimulates the development of numerous programs throughout the country, and a significant amount of new music is commissioned and inspired by programming needs for the birthday celebrations.
1984
Def Jam Recordings, a hip hop music label, is founded by Russell Simmons and Rick Rubin. In this year they release recordings by LL Cool J and the Beastie Boys. In the next decades, hip hop culture becomes a multi-billion-dollar business, with the emergence of several African American corporate leaders.
1984
The glamorous, smooth style of urban contemporary (also known as suburban soul or R & B/pop) becomes popular. The music of Whitney Houston is an example. Her debut album Whitney Houston is released and goes on to sell more than 18 million copies worldwide.
1985
The fundraising social awareness songs We Are The World (co-written by Michael Jackson and Lionel Richie, to provide support for African famine relief) and That’s What Friends Are For (recorded by Dionne Warwick, Gladys Knight, Stevie Wonder, and Elton John to support the American Foundation for AIDS Research) are released.
1987
The U.S. Congress passes a resolution declaring jazz ‘‘a rare and valuable national treasure.’’ H.CON.RES 57 Passed by the 100th Congress of the United States of America Introduced by the Honorable John Conyers Jr. Passed by the House of Representatives September 23, 1987 Passed by the Senate December 4, 1987 Whereas, jazz has achieved preeminence throughout the world as an indigenous American music and art form, bringing to this country and the world a uniquely American musical synthesis and culture through the African-American experience and 1. makes evident to the world an outstanding artistic model of individual expression and democratic cooperation within the creative process, thus fulfilling the highest ideals and aspirations of our republic,
xlvi | A Timeline of Significant Moments in African American Music 2. is a unifying force, bridging cultural, religious, ethnic and age differences in our diverse society, 3. is a true music of the people, finding its inspiration in the cultures and most personal experiences of the diverse peoples that constitute our Nation, 4. has evolved into a multifaceted art form which continues to birth and nurture new stylistic idioms and cultural fusions, 5. has had an historic, pervasive and continuing influence on other genres of music both here and abroad, and 6. has become a true international language adopted by musicians around the world as a music best able to express contemporary realities from a personal perspective; Whereas, this great American musical art form has not yet been properly recognized nor accorded the institutional status commensurate with its value and importance; Whereas, it is important for the youth of America to recognize and understand jazz as a significant part of their cultural and intellectual heritage; Whereas, in as much as there exists no effective national infrastructure to support and preserve jazz; Whereas, documentation and archival support required by such a great art form has yet to be systematically applied to the jazz field; and Whereas, it is now in the best interest of the national welfare and all of our citizens to preserve and celebrate this unique art form; Now, therefore be it Resolved by the House of Representatives (the Senate concurring), that it is the sense of the Congress that jazz is hereby designated as a rare and valuable national American treasure to which we should devote our attention, support and resources to make certain it is preserved, understood and promulgated. 1988
Public Enemy releases the rap classic It Takes a Nation of Millions to Hold Us Back.
1989
Rap music videos are introduced to television on the MTV (Music Television) show ‘‘Yo! MTV Raps.’’
1989
Gangsta rap and its celebration of violence and sexism emerges to a national audience with the hit release from N.W.A. (Niggaz with Attitude) of the album Straight Outta Compton.
1990
Sopranos Kathleen Battle and Jessye Norman perform a concert of spirituals at Carnegie Hall. The video of the concert is shown on the PBS Great Performances on an almost-annual basis throughout the 1990s, contributing to PBS’s fundraising while stimulating a renaissance interest in the genre. In this same year, gospel music recording revenues reach $500 million.
1990
Vanilla Ice (Robert Van Winkle) becomes a popular white rapper, generating anger in the African American rap community because of misleading assertions in his marketing campaign. A general debate about ‘‘white
A Timeline of Significant Moments in African American Music | xlvii Negroes’’ (Wiggers) takes place. His hit song, ‘‘Ice, Ice Baby,’’ was written by his African American producer, Mario Johnson (Chocolate). 1991
Rap continues to meld with different genres and art forms. Trumpeter Miles Davis’s Doo Bop album is released posthumously, with music that mixes jazz with rap. Additionally, Ice-T co-stars in the box-office hit New Jack City, taking rap to film and helping to create a new genre of urban films. Additional films in this tradition include Boyz N the Hood (1991, featuring Ice Cube), Menace II Society (1993), and Booty Call (1997).
1992
Warner Alliance releases the album Handel’s Messiah, A Soulful Celebration, featuring parts of the oratorio arranged in the various genres of African American music. It impressively blends the music of the African Diaspora and the European baroque era.
1992
Natalie Cole wins a Grammy Award for Unforgettable, the precedent-setting, electronically engineered musical tribute to her late father, Nat King Cole and notably featuring a remixed duet between herself and her father, who died in 1965.
1992
Awadagin Pratt becomes the first African American to win the Naumberg International Piano Competition.
1993
The audience for the gospel music genre continues to expand with the hip hop gospel sound in the debut album of Kirk Franklin, Kirk Franklin and The Family. Additionally, the Gospel Brunch becomes a popular performance venue throughout the country (most often held on Sundays within existing night clubs).
1996
Richard Smallwood composes the gospel music classic ‘‘Total Praise.’’
1997
Wynton Marsalis wins the Pulitzer Prize for Blood in the Fields, an extended composition for large jazz band commissioned by Jazz at Lincoln Center and premiered in 1994 in Lincoln Center’s Alice Tully Hall.
1999
Lauryn Hill composes and produces the popular album The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill. Over the following years the album sells 5.9 million copies and wins four Grammys. It blends humanism, soul, and hip hop. Time magazine features her on the cover and in its cover article, ‘‘Hip-Hop Nation—After 20 Years—How It’s Changed America.’’
2000
Charley Pride becomes first African American inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame.
2001
Historical documentarian Ken Burns completes a 10-episode PBS documentary, Jazz, generating publicity, debate, and renewed interest in the genre. Sales of recordings associated with the musicians featured in the program rise.
2001
Denyce Graves appears in several venues in programs that respond to the tragic events of September 11, including the internationally televised National Prayer Service in Washington’s National Cathedral.
2004
P. Diddy develops the ‘‘Citizen Change’’ campaign with the goal of involving young people in the upcoming U.S. presidential elections.
2006
Fire guts the Pilgrim Baptist Church of Chicago, destroying historical records and original sheet music of Thomas A. Dorsey. This disaster
xlviii | A Timeline of Significant Moments in African American Music elevates the national imperative for enhancing efforts to document and preserve the musical history of African Americans. 2007
Rap musicians Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five are inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame as the first hip hop group to be recognized. Run-DMC receives similar recognition in 2009.
2008
Columbia Records celebrates the 50th anniversary of Miles Davis’s Kind of Blue recording (released August, 17, 1959). The album remains one of the most admired recordings of all time by music lovers and musicians of a variety of styles and genres (around the world).
2008
Gospel singer and pastor Marvin Sapp’s song ‘‘Never Would Have Made It’’ makes radio history across numerous formats as the number one radio single. On gospel radio the song stayed number one for 32 weeks.
2009
‘‘King of Pop’’ Michael Joseph Jackson dies of cardiac arrest (June 25, 2009). Jackson was one of the most influential composers, musicians, and entertainers of the 20th century.
2010
President Obama issues historic proclamation for African American Music Month. The White House Office of the Press Secretary For Immediate Release May 28, 2010 Presidential Proclamation: African-American Music Appreciation Month Music can tell a story, assuage our sorrows, provide blessing and redemption, and express a soul’s sublime and powerful beauty. It inspires us daily, giving voice to the human spirit. For many, including the African-American community, music unites individuals through a shared heritage. During African-American Music Appreciation Month, we celebrate the extraordinary legacy of AfricanAmerican singers, composers, and musicians, as well as their indelible contributions to our Nation and our world. Throughout our history, African-American music has conveyed the hopes and hardships of a people who have struggled, persevered and overcome. Through centuries of injustice, music comforted slaves, fueled a cultural renaissance, and sustained a movement for equality. Today, from the shores of Africa and the islands of the Caribbean to the jazz clubs of New Orleans and the music halls of Detroit, African-American music reflects the rich sounds of many experiences, cultures, and locales. African-American musicians have created and expanded a variety of musical genres, synthesizing diverse artistic traditions into a distinctive soundscape. The soulful strains of gospel, the harmonic and improvisational innovations of jazz, the simple truth of the blues, the rhythms of rock and roll, and the urban themes of hip-hop all
A Timeline of Significant Moments in African American Music | xlix blend into a refrain of song and narrative that traces our Nation’s history. These quintessentially American styles of music have helped provide a common soundtrack for people of diverse cultures and backgrounds, and have joined Americans together not just on the dance floor, but also in our churches, in our public spaces, and in our homes. This month, we honor the talent and genius of AfricanAmerican artists who have defined, shaped, and enriched our country through music, and we recommit to sharing their splendid gifts with our children and grandchildren. NOW, THEREFORE, I, BARACK OBAMA, President of the United States of America, by virtue of the authority vested in me by the Constitution and the laws of the United States, do hereby proclaim June 2010 as African-American Music Appreciation Month. I call upon public officials, educators, and the people of the United States to observe this month with appropriate activities and programs that raise awareness and foster appreciation of African-American music. IN WITNESS WHEREOF, I have hereunto set my hand this twenty-eighth day of May, in the year of our Lord two thousand ten, and of the Independence of the United States of America the two hundred and thirty-fourth. BARACK OBAMA 2010
Haitian-born, hip hop icon and human rights activist Wyclef Jean announces his candidacy for president of Haiti (August 5, 2010).
Further Reading Caldwell, Hansonia L. African American Music: A Chronology 1619—1995. Los Angeles: Ikoro Communications, 1996. Caldwell, Hansonia L. Educator’s Resource Manual: For African American Music, A Chronology. Los Angeles: Ikoro Communications, 2008. ‘‘Hip-Hop Nation—After 20 Years—How It’s Changed America.’’ Time 153, no. 5 (February 8, 1999). Hansonia L. Caldwell
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A
Acid Jazz See
Jazz.
Adams, Alton Augustus (1889–1987) A military bandmaster, Alton Augustus Adams was born November 4, 1889, on St. Thomas, Virgin Islands. He began music study at the age of nine and continued to study privately until he was an adult. He also took correspondence courses from Hugh Clark at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia, the School of Musical Theory at Carnegie Hall in New York, the Royal Academy of Music in London, England, and the University Extension Conservatory of Music in Chicago, Illinois (bachelor’s degree in music). At an early age, he was apprenticed to a shoemaker, Albert Francis, who was also a bandmaster. Adams’s style development was influenced by Francis, from whom he learned to play instruments and also how to conduct a band. In 1910, he organized the St. Thomas Juvenile Band, which he developed into a first-class group. The United States purchased the Virgin Islands in 1917, placing the islands under supervision of the U.S. Navy; upon recommendation of Navy personnel, Adams and his band were taken into the Navy as a unit. Adams was appointed chief musician (the sea duty requirement being waived) and thereby became the first black bandmaster in Navy history. He served during the years 1917–1934 and 1942– 1947; his band toured in the United States in 1924 and in the West Indies in 1930. Adams composed a number of marches, of which the best known were ‘‘Virgin Island March,’’ ‘‘Spirit of the U.S. Navy,’’ and ‘‘Governor’s Own.’’ Adams also contributed articles to newspapers and periodicals and served as a department editor of such journals as Jacob’s Band Monthly (1913–1917), Metronome, and Army and Navy Musician. In 1918, Adams organized the publicschool music program for the Virgin Islands, and he served as supervisor during
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the years 1918–1931. He died on November 23, 1987. The Alton Augustus Adams Music Research Institute was opened in 2003 in St. Thomas, Virgin Islands. In 2006, the institute held a two-day colloquium to honor Adams’s life and accomplishments. Further Reading Adams, Alton A., and Mark Clague. The Memoirs of Alton Augustus Adams, Sr.: First Black Bandmaster of the United States Navy. Music of the African Diaspora, vol. 12. Berkeley: University of California Press, and Chicago: Center for Black Music Research, Columbia College Chicago, 2008. ‘‘Alton Augustus Adams Music Research Institute Opens.’’ CBMR Digest 16 (Fall 2003): 1. Thomas, Dale. ‘‘Alton Augustus Adams: One of the Best-Known Musicians of the U.S. Virgin Islands.’’ Journal of Band Research 41 (2005): 30–41. Eileen Southern
Adams, Yolanda (1961– ) Gospel singer Yolanda Adams is one of the most recognizable figures and voices in contemporary gospel music. Born to educators in Houston, Texas, Adams gleaned an early love for gospel music and singing. Upon completing her studies at Texas Southern University, Adams began her career as a teacher and sang with the Southeast Inspirational Chorus on weekends. It was with this group that she would be ‘‘discovered’’ by Thomas Whitfield who produced her first album Just As I Am (1987). That album stayed on the gospel charts for two years and was followed by Through the Storm (1991) and Save the World (1993), both with Tribute Records. Her rise to prominence as a singer continued through her work on these albums as they reveal her affinity for vocal improvisations that evoked jazz and R & B styles. Adams forged new conceptual ground with Songs from the Heart (1998), which featured an eclectic mix of traditional and R & B–laced songs and improvisations that featured Adams venturing into scat singing. Although she recorded traditional gospel classics such as ‘‘The Battle is the Lord’s’’ and ‘‘Even Me,’’ Adams received some criticism for song and stylistic choices that were deemed as too ‘‘worldly.’’ The criticism persisted and reached a peak upon the release of her highly successful, award winning, and certified platinum Mountain High . . . Valley Low (1999), which featured the crossover hit ‘‘Open My Heart.’’ Produced by R & B giants Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis, ‘‘Open My Heart’’ was a staple in radio playlists for months, firmly placed Adams among the industry elites such as Kirk Franklin, and further demonstrated her immense versatility as a vocalist. Adams’s work in the 21st century builds on the foundations of originality, mass appeal, and sublime vocals that characterize her earlier work. ‘‘Be Blessed’’ from her recent recording Day By Day won a Grammy Award for Best Gospel Performance in 2006. See also
Gospel Music.
Adderley, Cannonball | 3
Gospel singer Yolanda Adams. (Photofest)
Further Reading Darden, Robert. People Get Ready: A New History of Black Gospel Music. New York: Contiuum Books, 2004. Kernodle, Tammy L. ‘‘Work the Works: The Role of African-American Women in the Development of Contemporary Gospel.’’ Black Music Research Journal 26, no. 1 (2006): 89–109.
Further Listening Mountain High . . . Valley Low. Elektra 62439-2, 1999. Songs from the Heart. Verity 43123, 1998. Horace J. Maxile, Jr.
Adderley, Cannonball (1928–1975) Jazz saxophonist Julian Edwin Adderley was born September 15, 1928, in Tampa, Florida. He came from a musical family: his father played jazz cornet,
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and his brother Nathaniel (‘‘Nat’’) also became a professional jazz musician. He obtained his musical education in public schools of Tampa, Florida, and Tallahassee, Florida, where he came under the tutelage of high-school bandmaster Leander Kirksey; at Florida A&M College in Tallahassee (bachelor of the arts, 1948); at the U.S. Naval School of Music (1952); and at New York University (master of the arts). He was a teacher and band director at Dillard High School in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, before and after his service in the U.S. Armed Forces (1951–1953). In the army, he directed jazz groups, the 36th Army Dance Band, and the Army Band at Fort Knox, Kentucky. In the summer of 1955, he went to New York on a visit and was drawn into the world of professional jazz when he filled in for a tardy saxophonist in Oscar Pettiford’s band at the Club Bohemia. His impressive performance brought him overnight celebrity. Thereafter, he signed a recording contract and the next spring formed a quintet (1956–1957), which included his brother Nat, Sam Jones, Jimmy Cobb, and Junior Mance. After the group was disbanded, he played with the Miles Davis Sextet (1957–1959) and George Shearing (1959), and then reorganized his own group (1959–1975). He toured widely throughout the world with his Adderley Quintet and recorded extensively; during the 1960s he enlarged the group to a sextet (1961–1965). Those who played with him over the years included his brother Nat, Sam Jones, Louis Hayes, Bobby Timmons, Barry Harris, Victor Feldman, Joe Zawinul, Yusef Lateef, Walter Booker, George Duke, and Charles Lloyd, among others. His well-known performances included ‘‘This Here,’’ ‘‘Work Song,’’ ‘‘Sermonette,’’ ‘‘Mercy, Mercy, Mercy,’’ and ‘‘Jive Samba.’’ During the 1960s, he became deeply involved in peripheral musical activities. He worked closely with Jesse Jackson’s Operation Breadbasket program in Chicago, Illinois, and later Operation PUSH (People United to Save Humanity), directing musical activities and performing with his group, particularly at Black Expo 1972. He adopted the Reverend Jackson as his ‘‘personal pastor’’ and produced in his honor the recordings ‘‘Walk Tall’’ and ‘‘The Country Preacher.’’ He began to add lectures and workshops to his concerts on college campuses, emphasizing the history of black music. He served on panels and committees of professional and government organizations, including the National Endowment for the Arts and the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts. He actively promoted the career advancement of fellow musicians, among them, Nancy Wilson. In 1974, the Florida House of Representatives offered a resolution in honor of the Adderleys for their musical achievement that reflected glory to their home state. Adderley wrote some of the music played by his group, as did also his brother Nat and other members of the group. His major work was a folk musical written in collaboration with Nat, titled Big Man (based on the John Henry legend), which he did not live to see performed on the stage. The album Big Man was released posthumously, with Joe Williams in the title role. Adderley appeared in television shows and was host for a series in 1972; he also appeared in such films as Play Misty for Me (1971) and Soul to Soul (1971). Adderley’s style reflected the influence of Charlie Parker and John Coltrane; he played both soprano and alto saxophones. He was credited with having invented the concept of, if not the
African Influences | 5 terms, ‘‘soul’’ and ‘‘funk’’ as applied to jazz. In his later career, he showed an interest in electronic instruments and elements of rock ’n’ roll. He was married to Olga James, a singer and actress. He died August 8, 1975, in Gary, Indiana. Further Reading Sheridan, Chris. Dis Here: A Bio-Discography of Julian Cannonball Adderley. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 2000. Eileen Southern
African Influences Music is a mirror that reflects our total experience through physical, emotional, intellectual, sonic, individual, and collective musical expression. It reflects elements of an era, culture, and society wherever it functions. Through music and language, we can trace salient ideas, emotions, and events chronicling the history of human development. It helps to expose the way a given people walk, talk, joke, think, strategize, love, and approach survival. In general, African American musical Africanisms include many traditional African belief systems. Some are Afrocentric retentions of traditional African culture that are retained throughout the African Diaspora. Africanisms in African American music evolved as black musicians struggled against both the racism inflicted by European American society from its cultural fringe, and as they challenged prescriptive definitions of racial authenticity spread by African American listeners who rejected or criticized various styles of innovative musical approaches. Thus, African American music is a particularly rich mixture and archive of African tradition, movement of Africans from their native land, through the Middle Passage, and their ultimate adaptation to a new land. As is strikingly clear in the freer forms of jazz, musical content dictates form in African American music. The free flow of ideas is either poured into traditional musical forms or leads to the creation of new structures that are generated by innovative musical content. On their native continent, some African music was inclined toward reflection of the multidimensional tendencies in nature through syncopation, cross-rhythmic patterning, and polyrhythm. Musical instruments (particularly winds) were designed to use inherent tendencies of the natural overtone series. Overblowing the fundamental tones, and then manipulating those primary notes, formed the foundation for much of the melodic and harmonic tendencies of African music that later, in turn, became the melodic and harmonic basis for early African American sacred and secular music. Many African languages are tonal and African Americans transferred some of that tonal tendency into features of their vernacular English and music. Consequently, it is the rhythmic and tonal pattern of speech that determined the rhythmic and melodic framework for early African American vocal and instrumental music. Rich mixtures of vocal devices are used to infuse both vocal and instrumental African American music with additional expressive and emotional dimension. African vocal and instrumental expression includes (1) the indefinite
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pitch used in African American music to approximate speech—vocal effects that include screams, shouts, moans, and groans; (2) falsetto and falsetto break, where the male head voice is used, or where the alternating between head and chest voices occurs; (3) text is substantially extended through a variety of vocalization techniques, including lyric improvisation where free interpretation and expansion upon the prevailing words to a song takes place; and (5) free melodic and rhythmic embellishment of an original fixed melody. African American musical emotional expression, a wide range of stylistic embellishments, and the tendency toward continual variation are extemporaneously applied to all musical elements throughout performances. Clarity is maintained in a variety of ways, despite challenging degrees of technical difficulty attached to many stylistic forms, because modifications most often are applied without rendering the basic unifying structure of the music unrecognizable. Sometimes a process of transformation occurs where a single easily recognizable musical idea continually transforms into another. Some modern and contemporary jazz forms (especially ‘‘free jazz’’ of the 1960s) used a wider assortment of stylistic features, sometimes abstracting musical elements to such a point that original melodies, rhythms, harmony, and structure may be rendered unperceivable to a neophyte listener. Nonetheless, extemporization, personal style, and transmutation of musical resources become the forces that shape African American melody, rhythm, harmony, and stylistic expression. Africanisms abound in the Gospel music, born from spirituals sung by Africans in America during the slave era. Thomas Dorsey of Georgia coined the term ‘‘gospel’’ at the time of the National Baptist Convention in 1921. Dorsey wrote ‘‘Precious Lord’’ and other popular church songs and became known as the ‘‘Father of Gospel Music.’’ Spirituals were songs of hope before the Emancipation Proclamation, but blues developed afterward when it became clear that the Civil War did not bring the expected degrees of freedom, equality, and prosperity to Africans in America. African American music creates intriguing paradoxes where simple musical resources, elements, and formulae, operating on melodic, rhythmic, harmonic, and stylistic features are systematically applied, often rendering simple pitch sets totally chromatic and pan-tonal. (One way in which pan-tonality can be viewed is as an extension of tonality to all keys.) The blues stands as an all-pervasive African American musical system, and its lyrical, harmonic, and melodic conventions have become one of the most influential music powers in many styles of modern and contemporary music around the world. Blue notes are easily discernable embellishments, common to both instrumental and vocal music, that provide examples of how simple musical elements (such as scales, chords, and rhythms) can multiply their musical meaning and potential in highly flexible ways. The application of blue notes to a simple pentatonic pitch set, for instance, results in a wide range of pitch set combinations, and their harmonic implications. Even a basic four-note dominant chord immediately becomes an expansive and innovative pitch set when basic blue notes are systematically applied, forming one of a number of possible ‘‘blues scales.’’
African Influences | 7
Blues Scale.
Blues Africanisms, although based on traditional African sonorities, introduced a melodic and harmonic orientation based on a new Afrocentric attitude regarding tonal resolution. Later, bebop masters explored extended harmonic implications inherent in older blues forms. Humor often pervades black music, art, language, and culture. The use of double-entendre lyrics in early field hollers, spirituals, the blues, and other African American musical forms all reveal this tendency toward dual meaning and symbolism. In the Negro Spiritual ‘‘Swing Low Sweet Chariot,’’ for example, both conspicuous biblical references and a more cryptic symbolism are embedded within the lyrics. The latter information was often intended to inform African Americans in captivity that some representative from the Underground Railroad was nearby and ready to help someone escape that night. Such subtle use of symbolism required both an intimate knowledge base within the African American community, and fluency over a variety of verbal and nonverbal elements of musical communication, including the musical context, rhythmic cadences, timing, inflection, mode of delivery (storytelling), application of emotional drama, histrionics, gesturing, facial expressions, and body language. Traditional African music presentations are interdisciplinary (with aural, visual, and kinetic dimensions) and include interaction between performers and audience members. African American music retained much of this predisposition. Such Africanisms have influenced popular forms of other world music, diminishing their former degrees of separation between audiences and presenters at performances. Musical textures, such as homophony (with clearly defined boundaries between melody and accompaniment), polyphony (where simultaneous melodies are of equal importance), heterophony (involving variations of a single melody or theme performed freely at once), and antiphony (call and response) are ways of music-making commonly characteristic of African American music. In South Africa, people often refer to Ubuntu. Loosely translated, this refers to an African traditional idea, concept, and philosophy that emphasizes how all people are a part of each other and unified as one human family and community. Ubuntu is central to African culture and life. A high premium is placed on sharing, showing respect for elders, and caring for children. The traditional sense of unity and group consciousness in traditional African culture was systematically severed in the New World, where Africans found severely harsh social barriers that prevented them from remaining interconnected. While such things as communal drumming were forbidden in the United States, individual drummers tried to emulate the quality of that polyrhythmic interaction at the drum set. The demonstration of respect for elders, so central in African culture, was transferred to an
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unofficial mentoring system during earlier periods of jazz, through which techniques and knowledge were passed on from one generation to the next. Despite the overwhelming influence of the blues on African American music, it certainly is not the sole signifier of black musical authenticity. African American musicians always have drawn inspiration from everything within their complex and multidimensional physical, emotional, and spiritual grasp. African American culture includes a wide range of people from an array of backgrounds and social settings. This is reflected in the wide range of ways in which Africanisms evolve and transmigrate. For example, artists growing up in the southern regions of the United States emphasize different ingredients in their musical expression than those reared in the East or West Coast of America. Africanisms in African American music clearly abound throughout the core of its stylistic approaches and involve African American musical tendencies toward (1) absorption and processing of everything within its reach, (2) retaining elements of traditional African music while radically redefining those same traditions and those newly encountered, and (3) the application of innovation and personalized forms of musical expression. Africanisms infuse rap music, one of the cultural elements within the larger social hip hop movement. Music scholar Tricia Rose argues that what some consider ‘‘nonprogressive’’ elements of rap and hip hop have always been characteristics of jazz, the blues, and R & B, as well other nonblack cultural forms. Moreover, Rose feels that some of the more controversial elements are central to hip hop and other popular cultural articulations in a general sense. Many historians consider rap an extension of African American oral, poetic, folklore, and protest traditions, to which it is certainly indebted, and point to the bridge between those traditions and rap’s boasting, signifying, and preaching. See also
Blues; Griot; Jazz. Further Reading
Bebey, Francis. African Music: A People’s Art. Brooklyn, NY: Lawrence Hill, 1975. Floyd, Samuel, Jr. The Power of Black Music: Interpreting Its History from Africa to the United States. New York: Oxford University Press, 1995. Ramsey, Guthrie P., Jr. Race Music: Black Cultures from Hip-Hop to Bebop. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2003. Rose, Tricia. Black Noise: Rap Music and Black Culture in Contemporary America. Middletown, CT: Wesleyan University Press, 1994. Stewart, Earl L. African American Music: An Introduction. New York: Schirmer Books, 1998. Karlton E. Hester
Afrofuturism Afrofuturism is a field of artistic production and scholarly inquiry that transforms the narrative devices of traditional science fiction to imagine new futures for people of the African Diaspora. African American musicians have been among the
Afrofuturism | 9 most active members of this creative movement using futuristic sounds, interplanetary alter egos, and space-themed stage shows to express their aesthetic visions and intellectual projects. The ideas that often accompany this music reflect a critique that seeks to undermine Enlightenment conceptions of humanity and progress that are historically bound to white supremacy. Drawing on tropes of alienation and abduction, Afrofuturist musicians have used this idea to satirize media representations of a race-free future, commenting on the fact that the few black characters in mainstream sci-fi almost always portrayed stereotypical white characteristics or ‘‘acted white.’’ Contrary to this vision, Afrofuturist musicians imagine a future in which African American cultural traditions continue to evolve and thrive. This strategy moves toward a future without the alienation of racism and double consciousness, while remembering the past injustices of abduction and slavery that severed familial ties and threatened cultural continuity. The moniker ‘‘Afrofuturism’’ was coined by the cultural critic Mark Dery in a 1993 roundtable discussion about African American cultural and technological innovations with the scholars Tricia Rose and Greg Tate and the novelist Samuel Delany. Although the term Afrofuturism and the study thereof are relatively new phenomena, Afrofuturist music has existed since the 1950s progressive jazz of Sun Ra’s Myth Science Arkestra. This vein of artistic production continued through the 1970s disco-funk of George Clinton’s Parliament-Funkadelic and the Zapp Band into the 1990s with the R & B of Jodeci and the raps of the Ultramagnetic MCs. In the 21st century, the most notable examples of Afrofuturist activity continue to be found in the world of hip hop, where artists like Cee-Lo, Del tha Funkee Homosapien, and Kool Keith (of the Ultramagnetic MCs) continue the Afrofuturist legacy. While running the gamut of musical genres, these artists share a common interest in projecting the African American musical tradition into the future. New musical technologies therefore are of special importance to these musicians. Afrofuturist scholar, Alexander Weheliye, uses the concept of ‘‘hypersoul’’ to describe the manner in which many African American musicians have employed technologies, such as synthesizers, guitar pedals, and electronic vocal filters to amplify the soulful qualities of their music. As he illustrates, the paradox of electronic devices enhancing organic qualities undermines the presumed ‘‘digital divide’’ between technology and African Americans by creating a sound that is simultaneously futuristic and black. In many ways, the compositions of Sun Ra set the standard for Afrofuturist music—first by combining traditional musical elements and futuristic technologies, and second by drawing heavily on ancient Egyptian symbolism in which tropes of abduction and exodus are recontextualized in an interplanetary future. Herman Poole Blount (1914–1993), nicknamed ‘‘Sonny’’ from early bandstand experiences, legally changed his name to Le Sony’r Ra in 1952 and maintained that he was born on Saturn. From his earliest performances with the Arkestra, Ra’s music featured progressive blues and jazz harmonies coupled with quasiAfrican grooves in expansive arrangements with titles like ‘‘Saturn’’ and ‘‘Ancient Aiethopia.’’ By the 1960s, with albums such as When the Sun Comes Out (1963), Ra added space-centered chants, freely improvised lines, and odd timbres to his
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already eclectic compositional language. The instrumentation of his ensemble also expanded to include traditional West African hand drums, shakers, and bells in addition to electronic instruments such as the MiniMoog, Wurlitzer, and electric violin. His stage persona also reflected his musical and conceptual eclecticism, through his donning of brightly colored dashikis, Egyptian headdresses, and antennae space helmets. The political message of Ra’s Afrofuturist music is exemplified in the composition ‘‘Myth Versus Reality (The Myth-Science Approach)’’ from the 1970 live album It’s After the End of the World. The piece begins with Arkestra members June Tyson and Danny Davis asking the audience: ‘‘If you are not a reality, whose myth are you? If you are not a myth, whose reality are you?’’ This ‘‘MythScience Approach’’ can be understood as Ra’s way of criticizing stereotypes about African Americans while also militating against a future that is too tied up in scientific progress at the expense of spirituality. Ra’s political critique becomes apparent later in the composition as Davis explains: ‘‘I don’t expect to be a citizen of this planet, it takes too long. So, I hereby proclaim you citizens of my greater uni-verse.’’ Ra then begins an improvised MiniMoog solo that emulates the warm-up and eventual launch of a rocket. The piece begins by helping the audience to question its reality, then offering them an alternative and more equitable viewpoint, and finally launching the collection of new uni-versal citizens into space on Ra’s musical craft. Indeed, Ra’s 1974 film Space is the Place offers a dramatized version of this very narrative. If Sun Ra established the core tenets of musical Afrofuturism, then George Clinton (born July 22, 1941) and Parliament-Funkadelic continued that futuristic tradition. Like the Arkestra, Parliament saw a direct linkage between the ancient Egyptian ‘‘secrets of the pyramids’’ and their futuristic ‘‘mothership.’’ On their 1976 album The Clones of Dr. Funkenstein, Parliament lays out its own Myth-Science Approach as the concept album’s protagonist, Dr. Funkenstein (one of Clinton’s many alter egos), welcomes the listener into his lab with the lines: ‘‘Once a funk upon a time . . . the concept of specially designed Afronauts capable of funkatizing galaxies was first laid on man-child but was later repossessed and placed among the secrets of the pyramids.’’ The collapse of mythic past and scientific future is self-evident here, with the update of the classic fairytale beginning that prepares the listener for a story of ‘‘sleeping beauties’’ and ‘‘secrets of the pyramids’’ side by side with ‘‘afronauts’’ and ‘‘clones.’’ The musical elements of Parliament’s Afrofuturism are embodied on their signature tune ‘‘P. Funk (Wants to Get Funked Up),’’ wherein Clinton welcomes the listener to ‘‘the Mothership Connection, home of the extraterrestrial brothers’’ and its ‘‘five hundred thousand kilowatts of P-Funk power.’’ The track features Bootsy Collins’s star-shaped ‘‘space bass,’’ which emerges, percolating up from the broader musical texture. The Mu-Tron processor through which Bootsy’s bass tones move not only modulates the frequencies of the original sound waves, but also amplifies the intensity of his countermelodic lines. Like Jimi Hendrix’s wah pedal and Zapp’s vocoder, Collins’s musical style highlights the unexpected synergy of soul and science that we might fittingly describe as
Afrofuturism | 11 ‘‘hyperfunky.’’ Although saxophonist Maceo Parker and trombonist Fred Wesley provided the horn arrangements in much the same punchy and syncopated style as they had while performing with James Brown’s band, the pairing with Collins’s now virtuostic, ‘‘spaced-out’’ style and Bernie Worrell’s complement of synthesized keyboard sounds gave Parliament a unique sound. In this way, Parliament’s music and space-age stage personae aesthetically embodied the legacy of Afrofuturist thought for the disco era. Best known as Kool Keith, Keith Matthew Thornton (1965– ), is an increasingly influential 21st-century artist who continues the Afrofuturist tradition of Sun Ra and George Clinton. It is his formulation of ‘‘robot voodoo power’’ that best reflects the Afrofuturist lineage of Ra’s Myth-Science and Parliament’s P-Funk. On the 1997 Dr. Octagon concept album, Keith raps of his return to Earth from the year 3000. He describes his time-traveling medical space expedition over a retro synthesizer beat with turntable scratches by DJ Q-Bert on the tune ‘‘Earth People’’ which includes the lines: ‘‘Supersonic, bionic, robot voodoo power . . . You may not believe livin’ on the Earth planet. My skin is green and silver, bald head lookin’ mean. Astronauts get played tough like a ukelele . . . Earth people: I was born on Jupiter.’’ Keith, like Sun Ra, claims to be from another planet and also considers Earth as a galactic backwater unable to imagine the future through its outdated ideologies that are still concerned with skin color. The power of Keith’s Afrofuturist episteme is its insistence on the absurdity of the myths that the U.S. media constructs about the future. His mention of a ukelele in the same phrase as astronauts makes sense in the context of the album as it highlights the 1950s sci-fi craze that accompanied a simultaneous Hawaiian craze in the United States. Although his aesthetic of oversaturation and ironic juxtaposition comes off as nearly indecipherable, the logic of his pastiche is striking. On his 1999 concept album Black Elvis/Lost in Space, Keith again uses an alter ego from outer space to critique simplistic racial formulations. As the title implies, Keith is bringing racial formulations full circle in donning the alter ego of ‘‘Black Elvis.’’ Here his character is of course a black man acting like a white man acting like a black man. But, he is not just another impersonator without a cause, but an artist who demonstrates considerable knowledge about the histories of authenticity, appropriation, and race in American music. In short, like the many Afrofuturists before him, Keith uses the future as a site to critique the present and past. See also Appropriation of African American Music; Blues; Disco; Funk; Experimental Music; Hip Hop Culture; Jazz; Rap; Turntablism. Further Reading Dery, Mark. ‘‘Black to the Future: Interviews with Samuel R. Delany, Greg Tate, and Tricia Rose.’’ In ‘‘Flame Wars: The Discourse of Cyberculture.’’ South Atlantic Quarterly 94, no. 4 (1993): 735–738. Eshun, Kodwo. More Brilliant than the Sun: Adventures in Sonic Fiction. London: Quartet, 1998.
12 | Allen, Richard Nelson, Alondra. ‘‘Introduction: Future Texts.’’ Social Text 20, no. 2 (2002): 1–15. Szwed, John F. Space is the Place: The Life and Times of Sun Ra. Edinburgh: Payback Press, 1997. Weheliye, Alexander. ‘‘ ‘Feenin’: Posthuman Voices in Contemporary Black Popular Music.’’ Social Text 20, no. 2 (2002): 21–47.
Further Listening Kool Keith. Black Elvis/Lost in Space. Ruffhouse Records, 1999. Kool Keith. Dr. Octagon. Bulk/Mo Wax, 1996. Parliament. The Clones of Dr. Funkenstein. Casablanca, 1975. Parliament. Mothership Connection. Casablanca, 1976. Sun Ra. Angels and Demons at Play/The Nubians of Plutonia. Evidence, 1956. Sun Ra. It’s After the End of the World: Sun Ra and His Intergalactic Research Arkestra Live at the Donauschingen and Berlin Festivals. BASF, 1972. Sun Ra. When the Sun Comes Out. Evidence, 1963.
Further Viewing Sun Ra. Space Is the Place. Directed by John Coney. Plexifilm, 1974. Sun Ra. Sun Ra: A Joyful Noise. Directed by Robert Mugge. Rhapsody Films, 1980. J. Griffith Rollefson
Allen, Richard (1760–1831) A preacher and hymnist, Richard Allen was the compiler for the first hymnal designed for use of an African American congregations. His collection, entitled A Collection of Spiritual Songs and Hymns, Selected from Various Authors, was published in 1801. This unique collection contained no musical notation, consisting only of song titles and lyrics. The names of the authors were not included either, but it is believed that Allen may have composed some of the lyrics. A new edition of the hymnal was published in 1808. Born a slave in 1760, Allen bought his freedom in 1777. He joined the Methodist church that same year and by 1784 secured a license to preach. His status as a minister rose consistently from that point, as he began preaching regularly as a minister with the Old St. George’s Methodist Church. Allen and some of the black parishioners grew tired of some of the segregationist practices of the church and left the Old St. George in 1781. The group of believers that remained with Allen started the Bethel African Methodist Episcopal Church in 1794. Later, a few other organized bodies united to form the first African American Christian denomination in the United States, the African Methodist Episcopal Church. Allen was ordained as its first bishop in 1816. He published the first official hymnal for the church in 1818, the African Methodist Pocket Hymnbook. See also Black Church Music—History; Black Church Music—Hymnists and Psalmists.
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Richard Allen, bishop of the first African Methodist Episcopal Church. (New York Public Library)
Further Reading Southern, Eileen. ‘‘Hymnals of the Black Church.’’ From The Black Christian Worship Experience: A Consultation. In Readings in African American Church Music and Worship, edited by James Abbington, 137–151. Chicago: GIA Publications, 2001. Southern, Eileen. The Music of Black Americans: A History. 3rd ed. New York: W.W. Norton and Company, 1997. Spencer, Jon Michael. Black Hymnody: A Hymnological History of the African-American Church. Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 1992. Horace J. Maxile, Jr.
Allen, William Duncan (1906–1999) Concert pianist and accompanist, William Duncan Allen was born December 15, 1906, in Portland, Oregon. He came from a musical family: his mother was a pianist, his paternal aunt was a music graduate of Fisk University at Nashville, Tennessee, in 1907, and his sister Connie was an organist-pianist. He began piano study at the age of five. He obtained his musical education at the Oberlin
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Conservatory in Ohio (bachelor’s degree in music, 1928; master’s degree in music, 1936), where he studied with Frank Shaw, and at the Juilliard School of Music (certificate, 1930), where he studied with Gordon Stanley and James Friskin. He studied further with Egon Petri (1935 in England, summers of 1937, 1939, in Poland). His teaching career included tenures at Howard University in Washington, D.C. (1929–1935), and Fisk University (1936–1943). During the years 1943–1953, he toured widely throughout the world as pianist and accompanist with Todd Duncan. Thereafter he settled in San Francisco, California, where he conducted a music studio, served as minister of music at the South Berkeley Community Congregational Church (1953–1979), and as music director of the Junior Bach Festival Association of Berkeley, California (1956–1976). He also continued his activity as pianist-accompanist; those whom he accompanied over the years included Adele Addison, Betty Allen, Gary Burgess, Charlotte Holloman, Elwood Peterson, Catherine Van Buren, John Miles, John Patton, George Shirley, Paul Robeson, and William Warfield, among many others. For many years he wrote music columns for San Francisco and BerkeleyOakland newspapers and contributed articles to music journals such as Music Journal, The Piano Quarterly, and The Black Perspective in Music. His honors included civic and community and church organizations and an honorary doctorate from the Graduate Theological Institute in Berkeley. He died August 19, 1999, in Richmond, California. The African American Music Collection at the University of Michigan has a transcript of an interview with Allen (age 85 at the time of the interview) in which he discusses his life and career; the interview was conducted by James Standifer in Chicago, Illinois. Further Reading Allen, William Duncan. ‘‘An Overview of Black Concert Music and Musicians in Northern California from the 1940s to the 1980s.’’ Black Music Research Journal 9, no. 1 (1989): 81–92. Terry, William E., William Duncan Allen, and Arthur Cunningham. ‘‘The Consummate Collaborator.’’ The Black Perspective in Music 15, no. 2 (1987): 183–218. Eileen Southern
Alston, Lettie Beckon (1953– ) A composer, Lettie Alston is the first African American to receive the doctorate in composition from the University of Michigan (1983). She is a noted pianist, having studied piano throughout her years as an undergraduate and graduate student. Alston has held teaching appointments at Wayne State University and Eastern Michigan University, and is associate professor of music at Oakland University. As a pianist and composer, she has been a featured artist at the University of Cambridge and at the Second Symposium on Black Women Composers (1999). Her works have premiered in New York and Salzburg, Austria, and have been recorded on the Albany, Videmus, Leonarda, and Calvin College labels.
American Federation of Musicians, The | 15 Works such as the Eleventh Hour (1992) and Biblical Women (1992) have been performed by reputable national orchestras, including the Detroit Symphony Orchestra. Alston has composed for various instrumental combinations, ranging from traditional chamber groups to chorales to works that include synthesizers. Representative titles include Diverse Imagery for two electronic keyboards and sound modules (1995), Love in Any Language for electronic tape (1987), and Cantata for Soprano and Piano (2002). Her honors include being a finalist in the 1994 Unisys Composers Competition and a holder of numerous awards, grants, and commissions from such agencies as the Puffin Foundation, Oakland University, and the Music Study Club of Metropolitan Detroit. A champion of new works, she produces numerous concerts yearly featuring a wide variety of composers through Lettie Alston and Friends, a program she founded in 1995. See also
Concert Music—Composers and Repertoire. Further Reading
Banfield, William C. Musical Landscapes in Color: Conversations with Black American Composers. Lanham, MD: The Scarecrow Press, Inc., 2003. Horace J. Maxile, Jr.
American Federation of Musicians, The During the first half of the 20th century, racially segregated locals of the American Federation of Musicians (AFM) operated in most major U.S. cities. (Notable exceptions include New York and Detroit.) Racial separation was not mandated by the AFM, however, and the reasons for such dual organization are complex. In fact, in the early part of the century, African American musicians in some communities organized separately with a view toward gaining more influence within the organization and providing better jobs for members through more competitive pricing. The practice of racially segregated locals certainly was not confined to the musicians’ union; in fact, some craft unions of the AFM’s parent body, the American Federation of Labor (AFL), had whites-only clauses in their constitutions and their rituals for admission. Nevertheless, the AFM was notably slow to eliminate this practice of segregation during the 1950s and 1960s, when many other unions already had taken steps toward integration. (The Congress of Industrial Organizations [CIO], founded in 1935, never practiced racial segregation. Its formation was predicated on vertical organization within a particular industry, rather than craft structure; CIO unions embraced workers from the lowest paid to the most highly skilled.) The first so-called colored local in the AFM, No. 208, was established in Chicago in 1902. Chicago’s Local 10 had been established two years earlier, but African Americans were not welcomed within its ranks. Nevertheless, local president Thomas Kennedy invited the Eighth Illinois Colored Regiment Band, directed by Alexander Armant and George E. Dulf, to join. Inclusion of this
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group—one of leading popular bands in the Midwest—potentially would increase the local’s bargaining power and support a faction supporting Kennedy. Suspicious of Kennedy’s motives, however, Armant and Dulf declined the offer, opting instead for separate organization. Local 208 was chartered on July 4, 1902 (Spivey 1984, 9–10). It became the largest black local in the AFM, wielding considerable influence within the national organization. From 1913 through the early 1920s, the number of black locals increased dramatically. Boston’s Local 9, for example, had been founded as a racially integrated union in 1897, but African Americans requested and obtained a charter for a separate local in 1915 (Local 535). In 1919, the AFM had 22 black locals; by 1925, the number had nearly doubled (Spivey 1984, 43). Several motivations prompted requests for separate organization. In some cases, black musicians had trouble passing entrance auditions designed for classical (white) musicians. In other cases, African Americans were denied basic privileges, such as access to rehearsal space or social activities at the headquarters (Keller 1996, 26). Organizing separately also offered black members greater influence within the AFM. Each local was entitled to send to the convention 1 delegate per 100 members (not to exceed 3 total) and to cast 1 vote per 100 members (not to exceed 10). Large locals, such as New York, occasionally (but unsuccessfully) protested the 3-member, 10-vote cap, noting that small locals could wield more influence than their size justified. Black musicians had little hope of being elected delegates within large integrated locals; but by organizing separately, they were guaranteed representation and voting rights at the convention. More important than any of these motivations, however, was the issue of wages. Pervasive discrimination in the U.S. labor market compelled most black unions (in all fields of employment) to set lower wage scales than competing white affiliates. If rates were equal, whites were preferentially hired. Because locals set their own wage scales, black affiliates could offer more competitive prices. In cities with substantial black populations, this dual wage structure normally did not cause serious problems as performance venues typically were separate—that is, whites and blacks rarely competed for the same jobs. In cities with smaller black populations, however, serious conflicts arose when venues that might have hired either black or white musicians employed black bands at a union scale lower than that of the larger white local union. The black unions were chartered directly by the AFM, and the two locals in a given area were nominally equal. In practice, however, the (much larger) white unions exerted far more influence than their black counterparts. Once a ‘‘colored local’’ was established within any jurisdiction, black musicians residing in, or traveling to, the area were obliged to register with it, no matter how prominent they might be. Relations between competing locals became particularly confrontational in San Francisco during the 1930s. Black Local 648 had been chartered in December 1923, during a healthy period of expanding employment for musicians in theaters and radio. (White Local 6 had successfully delayed establishment of this competing local since the black musicians’ first request for a charter in 1916.) During the 1930s, the nation’s economic depression, coupled with the introduction of sound-films rendering theater orchestras obsolete, created a dismal job climate throughout the country. By January 1934, 40 percent of Local 6’s membership
American Federation of Musicians, The | 17 was unemployed. The one bright spot in this depressed economy was the lifting of prohibition in 1933, which offered hope of new employment in clubs. Local 6 established a ‘‘night club committee’’ under the aggressive leadership of Secretary Eddie Love, which enforced wage rates throughout the city. San Francisco’s small black population (0.6 percent in 1930), working at a reduced pay scale, competed successfully for the same jobs as Local 6 members. Furthermore, black bands from Local 648 proved highly popular with the public. In response to this competition, Love and his committee convinced AFM president Joseph Weber to declare all clubs and theaters in the San Francisco Bay Area ‘‘forbidden territory,’’ making them off-limits to anyone but members of Local 6. After fruitless appeals to the AFM president, several members of Local 648 took the bold step of seeking a court injunction against Local 6, claiming they were being deprived of legitimate work. The court seemed positively disposed to their arguments, but as the judge was nearing a ruling, the plaintiffs abruptly withdrew their suit under the threat that Local 648 might lose its charter. A few weeks thereafter Local 6 brought a complaint against Local 648 and the AFM president revoked 648’s charter anyway, transforming it into a subsidiary union. (A similar complaint from St. Louis’s Local 2 had created a black subsidiary in that city in 1932.) Subsidiary status was used rarely in the AFM and seriously disadvantaged black workers. Members of a subsidiary paid dues to the prevailing (white) local but enjoyed no voting rights or access to facilities. The black musicians in such subsidiaries were bound by the wage scales of the white organization and therefore suffered job losses resulting from racial discrimination in hiring practices. In 1944, the AFM abolished subsidiary locals (12 at that time). The majority became independent ‘‘colored’’ locals. Thus, in 1946, the black musicians of San Francisco returned to their pre-1935 status, with two locals operating in the same jurisdiction (Local 6 and the new Local 669). Although relations between them seemed cordial, the separate status rankled black musicians, who requested amalgamation. In a vote for merger in 1956, however, Local 6 defeated the measure, 554 (yes) to 786 (no). Only 25 percent of Local 6’s membership cast ballots. With the civil rights movement gaining momentum and racially mixed bands increasingly common, Local 6’s vote seemed particularly out of step with current social and political trends—and indeed the union was roundly condemned in the press. But in fact, Local 6 was not out of step with the AFM. At the time, 52 black affiliates were operating nationwide. The first merger of racially separated locals took place in Los Angeles in 1953, followed by Seattle (where amalgamation was authorized in 1956). In 1957, the now-integrated Los Angeles delegation introduced an antisegregation resolution at the national convention, requiring segregated locals to ‘‘take immediate steps to eliminate any membership restrictions based upon race, color, creed, religion or place of national origin.’’ The resolution was opposed by a petition signed by 60 delegates—56 from black locals that feared loss of their independent voice or had discomfort about joining white locals that did not want them. The measure was effectively killed by referral to the office of President Petrillo. In 1959, the California legislature passed a Fair Employment Practices Act that specified (among other things) that labor organizations could not refuse
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membership on the basis of race, creed, color, national origin, or ancestry. Franklin Williams, West Coast executive secretary of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), was appointed head of the attorney general’s civil rights office. Williams wasted no time confronting the segregated musicians’ unions in San Francisco and a merger was completed in 1960. Later the same year, mergers took place in Denver and Sioux City; the Cleveland branches amalgamated in 1962. But most dual locals did not merge until after the passage of the 1964 Civil Rights Act; and for some, the process extended well into the 1970s. The merger process was particularly rancorous in Chicago, but was finally completed in 1966. Despite the AFM’s increasing embarrassment over the existence of segregated locals in the 1950s and 1960s, the national organization showed reluctance to change course. Its commitment to local autonomy, combined with the objections of some of the more prestigious black locals, hindered efforts at consolidation. Ultimately, the rule of law (first in California, later nationally) was required to eliminate racial separation. Once amalgamation took place, however, the number of black delegates to AFM conventions declined significantly, as blacks lost elections in integrated unions. To combat this trend, in 1977, the AFM passed a ruling that granted merged locals the right to send an extra delegate to the convention ‘‘to be elected from the black membership of said local.’’ That practice continues in the 21st century. Further Reading Foner, Philip S. Organized Labor and the Black Worker, 1619–1973. New York: International Publishers, 1974. Keller, David. ‘‘Seattle’s Segregated Musicians’ Union, Local 493, 1918–1956.’’ MA thesis, Western Washington University, 1996. Leiter, Richard D. The Musicians and Petrillo. New York: Bookman Associates, 1953. Miller, Leta E. ‘‘Racial Segregation and the San Francisco Musicians’ Union, 1923–60.’’ Journal of the Society for American Music 1, no. 2 (2007): 161–206. Seltzer, George. Music Matters: The Performer and the American Federation of Musicians. Metuchen, NJ and London: Scarecrow Press, 1989. Spivey, Donald. Union and the Black Musician: The Narrative of William Everett Samuels and Chicago Local 208. Lanham, MD: University Press of America, 1984. Young, Marl. ‘‘The Amalgamation of Locals 47 and 767.’’ The Overture, December 1988, http://www.promusic47.org/benefits/amalgam.asp. Leta E. Miller
Anderson, Marian (1902–1993) Concert singer Marian Anderson was born February 17, 1902, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. She came from a family of musical amateurs: her grandmother played house organ, her mother sang in church choirs as a girl, and her aunt sang in senior church choirs. Her nephew, James DePriest, became a symphony orchestra conductor.
Anderson, Marian | 19 She began singing in the junior choir at her church, the Union Baptist, when she was six years old and joined the adult choir when she was13. She first sang on a public recital at the age of 10, being advertised as ‘‘the baby contralto.’’ She obtained her musical education in the public schools of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. She began singing for local events in the community at an early age, accompanying herself at the piano, and traveled as far as New York to represent her choir on musical programs. When she was in her third year of high school a family friend, actor John Thomas Butler, arranged for her to study with Mary Patterson, who taught her at no charge. She later studied with Agnes Reifsynder, Giuseppe Boghetti (for many years), and Frank La Forge, among others; in London, England, she studied briefly with Raimund von Zur Miihlen, and with Mark Raphael and Amanda Ira Aldrich. She coached with Michael Rauscheisen in Berlin, Germany. The black community aided her career development: churches and other groups raised money for her voice lessons, and the Philadelphia Choral Society (of which she was a member) provided opportunities for her to perform, as did also the Martin-Smith School of Music in New York and the National Association of Negro Musicians, who gave her its first scholarship. Individuals also encouraged her and aided her early career, particularly Roland Hayes and R. Nathaniel Dett. She began to sing professionally even before graduating from high school. With William (‘‘Billy’’) King as her accompanist-manager, she toured the black colleges and the black churches, sang in theaters and school auditoriums under sponsorship of black fraternal organizations, local Y (formerly the Young Men’s Christian Association) groups, and similar organizations, and appeared at such conventions as those of the National Baptist Convention and the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP). In 1922, she made a debut as a concert contralto at Town Hall in New York, but she was underprepared and critical reviews were unenthusiastic. She continued to study and to tour, and in 1925, she won first place in a singing competition held by the New York Philharmonic Symphony for its summer concerts at the Lewissohn Stadium. This time, her impressive performance in the summer concert won critical acclaim and led to increased engagements and professional management. During the next decade, she went abroad three times to study further and to give concerts. She sang in many places, but toured extensively in Scandinavia (1931, 1933–1934), where she acquired European management and an accompanist, Kosti Vehanen, who remained with her until the mid-1930s. On her second visit to Finland, she sang for Jan Sibelius, who told her, ‘‘My roof is too low for you.’’ In 1935, she made her debut in Paris, France, to critical acclaim. Impresario Sol Hurok attended her third Paris concert in June and offered her a management contract. Later that year, she sang a concert at Salzburg, Austria, to which Arturo Toscanini came and afterward said, ‘‘Yours is a voice such as one hears once in a hundred years.’’ In December 1935, she returned to the United States for a second concert at New York’s Town Hall, this time as a renowned artist. During the next three decades, she toured widely around the world and broke down many barriers of racial discrimination. Her growing fame during the 1930s did not protect her, however, from all discrimination. In 1939, she was denied
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permission to give a concert in Constitution Hall by the Daughters of the American Revolution because of color. Public protest over the issue became so great that the White House administration arranged for her to sing an open-air concert on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C., and on Easter Sunday morning she sang before an audience of 75,000. She made her television debut, singing a program of sacred music, on the Ed Sullivan Show in 1952. In 1953, she made her first tour of Japan; on January 7, 1955, she became the first black artist to sing with the Metropolitan Opera Company, in the role of Ulrica in Verdi’s Un Ballo in maschera; and in 1957, she toured in Asia as a good-will ambassador for the U.S. State Department and the American National Theater and Academy. During the 1964–1965 concert season, she gave 51 farewell concerts across the nation, ending a 30-year career as ‘‘the world’s greatest living contralto,’’ with the final concert on Easter Sunday, April 19, 1965, at Carnegie Hall in New York. She had sung before royalty and elected rulers and concert audiences in most of the Western Hemisphere countries and Asia, she had sung on radio and television in coast-to-coast broadcasts, and she had recorded extensively. In February 1977, the musical world assembled in Carnegie Hall to pay tribute to her on her 75th birthday. Rosalynn Carter, wife of former U.S. president James Carter, presented her with a Congressional Resolution of Praise, and Mayor Abraham Beame of New York awarded her the New York City Handel Medallion. Anderson’s honors included decorations and citations by the governments of France, Finland, Haiti, Japan, Liberia, the Philippines, and Sweden; 23 honorary doctorates from education institutions; and achievement awards from many organizations, foundations, and institutions, including NAACP’s Spingarn Medal (1939) and the Bok Foundation (1940). With the $10,000 she received from Bok, she established the Marian Anderson Fellowships in 1942, replenishing the fund from time to time. Numerous young musicians of all colors received scholarships, including McHenry Boatwright, Grace Bumbry, Gloria Davy, Mattiwilda Dobbs, Reri Grist, Louise Parker, Rawn Spearman, Camilla Williams, and many others who later achieved renown. She also received awards for service to youth and to the community. In 1958, she served as a member of the U.S. Delegation to the General Assembly of the United Nations. Anderson’s concerts typically consisted of lieder, French, and Italian art songs. But audiences would not release her until she had sung their favorites—Schubert’s ‘‘Ave Maria’’ and Harry T. Burleigh’s ‘‘Deep River.’’ She died in Portland, Oregon, in 1993. Further Reading Anderson, Marian. My Lord What a Morning: An Autobiography. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2002. Keiler, Allan. Marian Anderson: A Singer’s Journey. New York: Scribner, 2000. Kosti Vehanen. Marian Anderson: A Portrait. New York: Whittlesey House, McGrawHill, 1941. Newman, Shirlee P. Marian Anderson: Lady from Philadelphia. Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1965. Eileen Southern
Antebellum Period | 21
Antebellum Period (1784–1860) During the antebellum period (1784–1860), meaning before the American Civil War, free, indentured, and enslaved Africans participated in all types of music with their white counterparts. They participated as musicians, composers, and arrangers; as directors of instrumental and vocal groups; and as educators. They not only participated in all facets of music-making, but also participated in all genres of music such as: popular song, Western Art Music, Military Music, Psalms, and Anthems. African Americans created the new genres of music: Spirituals, shouts, and field hollers. Slave music had a distinctive syncopation, accenting or stressing typically considered weak beats, and blue notes, pitches that are slightly lowered in pitch. The clever use of double entendre, words that have one meaning for those outside of the community and a completely different meaning for those inside of the community continued the tradition of extempore poetry of the Africa griot and underlined their belief in trickster gods and ‘‘brain over brawn.’’ The traditional dances such as the ring shout and subsequent dances such as the cakewalk, allowed slaves to continue the dances of their ancestors. Music, an essential element of African life, carried the enslaved blacks through the Middle Passage. The singing of music kept slaves encouraged and hopeful on slave ships and allowed for passive physical activity. Physical activity strengthened bodies that could be sold for a higher price. Once in the Americas, slaves with musical talents were considered valuable in the same ways those with skills in carpentry, animal husbandry and metalworking were. Because of the increase in worth, they often were given more freedom than those who labored in the fields, their skills being leased out for community events, parties, and communal functions. The educational training of black musicians varied. Some were not only trained but also found benefactors who supported professional training and subsequent performances. Other musicians taught themselves and continued inherited African traditions. Black musicians performed in militia bands playing drums, fifes, and fiddles. They later lent their expertise to the woodwinds and brass instruments. Some, like Barzillai Lew (1743–1822), not only distinguished themselves as musicians and warriors, but also had children who went on to become musicians and music educators themselves. During times of peace, musicians like Francis ‘‘Frank’’ Johnson (1792–1844) became internationally known bandleaders, trumpeters, and composers. Johnson established an information school for black musicians and raised the level of band music from that of merely performing marches to the level of the symphony orchestra. Black musicians moved with ease between sacred and secular music and between the genres of folk, popular and Western Art Music. Johnson composed and arranged music not only for his wind ensembles and bands but also for string and vocal groups. He is just one of the many African American composers gaining fame during the antebellum period. Proteges of Johnson include William Appo (ca. 1808–ca. 1871), who went on to become among the first to perform instrumental music in the African Methodist Episcopal Church, directing a seven-piece string ensemble. His compositions for band and glee clubs include the anthem Sing unto God.
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Bostonian Henry F. Williams (1813–1903) also began his career with one of the Johnson bands. He composed popular songs, church anthems like O, Give Thanks, marches, and dances. In the South, pianist, Joseph W. Postlewaite (1827–1889) composed dances and marches for his bands and orchestras, and created piano arrangements. Elizabeth Taylor Greenfield (ca. 1824–1876), called the Black Swan, was a member of the Philadelphia School of musicians. Her Quaker guardian arranged for her musical education. Under the management of Colonel J. H. Wood and with the patronage of the Duchess of Southerland and others, Greenfield toured Europe in the 1850s. Upon her return to the United States, she organized a black opera troupe. The brother and sister team of Thomas (ca. 1826–1885), the Colored Mario, and Sarah Sedgwick Bowers, the Colored Nightingale, benefited greatly from Greenfield’s voice studio. Justin Miner Holland (1819–1897) excelled in the classical guitar, standardizing the pedagogy for the instrument. The former slave, Newport Gardner, born Occramer Marycoo (1746–1826) was one of the earliest African Americans to publish a musical score in the New World, Crooked Shanks in 1764. Black popular song was influenced by the music of street musicians and songs from the plantation. Popularized by white musicians from the United States and Europe, these Ethiopian songs were spread throughout the United States through minstrel shows, theater, and medicine shows. Unlike music composed in the Western art form, these original songs were also composed by self-trained musicians and by the community. The unique use of rhythm, syncopation, personification, hyperbole, and melisma would be copied, patterned, and recreated by professional composers of popular song like Dan Emmett (1859–1904) and Stephen Foster (1826–1864). Composer Richard Milburn (ca. 1817–date unconfirmed) was a street performer who composed one of the most enduring popular songs of his day. Though from Philadelphia, he was not a professionally trained composer. His song, ‘‘Listen to the Mockingbird,’’ was sold to publisher Septimus Winner (1827–1902) for 20 copies of the printed song. This same song was subsequently published by Winner, under the pseudonym Alice Hawthorne, and then was sold to the minstrel team of Lee and Walker. In the 21st century, it is performed as a standard of both military bands and jazz groups. During this early period of the United States, black musicians also were composing sacred music and editing hymnals for the use of their congregations. By the time Richard Allen died in 1831, he not only had founded the African Methodist Episcopal Church but also had composed hymns and edited the first hymnal by an African American for an African American congregation. On the plantation, black musicians performed services as musicians for community functions, dances, and cotillions. They composed community-oriented secular music, as well as work songs and field hollers, dance music, and sacred music in the form of spirituals. Work songs, common to all cultures and nationalities, are songs that accompany the tasks associated with labor. They typically have rhythms and tempos that coincide with the task and are syllabic. Often performed a cappella, in some instances, elderly musicians, too old to work to perform manual
Antiphony (Call and Response) | 23 labor, were pressed into service providing music for the workers. The music assuaged fatigue and kept the team of workers working at a steady pace. This was already a tradition of Africans, working to the sounds of singing and drumming, the instruments of their labor (hoes and stamping sticks). Unlike the music of European workers, the work songs and the spirituals provided something more than a distraction from the heat, hunger, and pain. Both of these genres also provided for the workers valuable information regarding upcoming sales, news from other plantations, and training in the art of escaping slavery. Women who found themselves isolated from the main group also used these songs to draw more workers toward them in an attempt, though not always successful, to prevent rape. A distinctive circle dance, the ring shout accompanied the singing of both sacred and secular songs. The ring shout allowed for all of the musical genres to be performed form field hollers, shouts, spirituals, work songs, hymns, and psalms. In this truly African form, for evidence of ring dancing is found throughout the African continent, was distinctive in its hand clapping and body slapping, called pattin’ juba. This dance was performed in the United States well into the 1880s. See also Black Church Music—History; Black Church Music—Hymnists and Psalmists; Griot; Reconstruction Period; Spirituals. Further Reading Crawford, Richard. An Introduction to America’s Music. New York: W. W. Norton and Company, 2002. Jasen, David A. 35 Song Hits by Great Black Songwriters; Bert Williams, Eubie Blake, Ernest Hogan and Others. North Chelmsford, MA: Courier Dover Publications, 1998. Nettles, Darryl Glenn. African American Concert Singers Before 1950. Jefferson, NC: McFarland, 2003. Piersen, William Dillon. Black Yankees: The Development of an Afro-American Subculture in Eighteenth-century New England. Amherst, MA: University of Massachusetts Press, 1988.
Further Listening Afro-American Spirituals, Work Songs and Ballads. ASIN: B00000DC6N Rounder Select, 1998. Belafonte, Harry, ed. The Long Road to Freedom: An Anthology of Black Music. ASIN: B00005NCRC Buddha Label, 2001. Yolanda Yvette Williams
Antiphony (Call and Response) This term is used to describe the practice of dividing a musical ensemble into subgroups that alternate spatially in their performance of the same piece. Most common is the alternation of two subgroups that is aimed at providing contrasts in
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timbre, register, dynamics, and texture to produce a desired effect on the audience. When a musical piece is performed antiphonally, the distinct sections by the subgroups are not always viewed as oppositional entities. Rather, they may be considered related and complementary, and as such, the second subgroup’s statement is often considered as a response to the antecedence of the first group. Hence, music in antiphonal structure also is described as responsorial. Related to antiphony is the term ‘‘call and response,’’ a practice in which the first subgroup may be replaced by a lead singer or cantor who does the ‘‘call’’ while the chorus or all the singers perform the ‘‘response.’’ While some Africanist scholars use antiphony and call and response interchangeably, folklorist Eileen Southern draws a distinction between these terms when describing the music of African America. Although this discussion is primarily on antiphony, examples of musical genres that are in call-and-response form will be discussed as well. In spite of the ubiquitous presence of antiphony in a myriad of the world’s musical styles, it is a defining characteristic of several African and African American music genres, ranging from sacred to secular, popular to artistic, vocal to instrumental, and accompanied solos to large ensembles with heterogeneous timbres. Slave work songs, folk spirituals and ring shouts, ‘‘lining out,’’ funeral hymns, arranged spirituals, gospel, blues, jazz, group protest songs, and the music of African-derived religions (Vodou, Candomble, and Santerı´a) all contain distinctive or subtle forms of antiphony or call and response. The following are a few examples. Lining out, a style of hymn singing, was practiced by early black Christians who attended white churches. After the lead singer (normally a deacon) sang a substantial length of a hymn, he was joined by the chorus (the black members of the congregation), who, although singing in unison, added minor individualistic nuances to the melody that eventually resulted in a heterophonic texture. Yet, Southern (1997, 453–457) notes an intensified continuation of this tradition after the formation and growth of the black folk churches, notably the holiness and sanctified denominations. She recounts how lining out became crucial in the singing of hymns written by Dr. Watts, especially when a ban on the use of musical instruments in the church did not allow for hymns to be introduced on a keyboard instrument, for example. Generally, the lead singer’s role of selecting and intoning hymns and other songs in a suitable register is crucial in oral traditions. Furthermore, lining out is a classic example of how the procedures of call and response can be used for teaching new songs during performance contexts. Southern’s (1997, 184) note of a variety of funeral hymns that slaves sang also underlies the lead singer’s role in setting or changing the mood according to the dictates of the ritual or the emotional context. An examination of the lead singer’s role in Vodou, Candomble, and Santerı´a, for example, includes additional leadership demands. A lead singer, besides his or her musical capabilities, is a custodian of diverse repertoires and must know the tradition well to select the songs that correspond to the contextual needs of a particular deity, as suggested by the devotee or by the master drummer during worship (Mulira 1990, 44–48; Schechter 1999, 29). The importance of antiphony in jazz has been noted by a number of scholars. As Southern writes, ‘‘Basie used riffs in the Kansas City style for full ensemble playing,
Antiphony (Call and Response) | 25 for antiphonal play between brasses and reeds, and for sectional support of soloists’’ (1997, 392; see also Maultsby 1990, 193). It follows that the antiphonal framework accommodates improvisation and allows for both individual and collective artistic expressions. Similar to the solo passages in swing, for example, singers of arranged spirituals individually take turns singing solo passages, whether unaccompanied or accompanied by humming, before returning to a refrain in tutti and full harmony. Most hymns and songs that appear in a verse-and-refrain format grew out of the call-and-response structure in which the lead singer keeps varying his or her verbal texts while the chorus clings to a fixed refrain. An archetypal example is the body of harmonized traditional spirituals. Also, Southern (1997, 355) reports in a collection called Singing Soldiers that black soldiers sang in this framework. Additionally, some of the slave songs collected and transcribed by Alan Lomax are in this structure (Titon 2002, 165). African American soloists, who sing and accompany themselves on instruments including the banjo, guitar, and violin, are known for treating their ‘‘instruments as partners’’ (Southern 1997, 453). Accordingly, they consider their accompanying instruments a second timbral subgroup within an antiphonal framework and therefore play instrumental passages that complement their sung declamatory phrases. Blues musicians are noted for this practice, which they inherited from the verbal art tradition of the jeli, who may alternate sung sections with florid instrumental passages on the kora or balo. In oral traditions, members of the second subgroup rely on their aural skills either for repeating a portion of lead singer’s phrase or for entry cues. Discussions of antiphony and call and response in African American musical traditions have been oversimplified. A critical study on their ramifications, creative determinants, and parallel dialogic interactions between performers and audiences during preaching, storytelling, and musical performance can be revealing. See also
‘‘Lining Out’’; Slave Music of the South; Work Songs. Further Reading
Maultsby, Portia K. ‘‘Africanisms in African-American Music.’’ In Africanisms in American Culture, edited by Joseph E. Holloway, 185–210. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1990. Mulira, Jessie Gaston. ‘‘The Case of Voodoo in New Orleans.’’ In Africanisms in American Culture, edited by Joseph E. Holloway, 34–68. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1990. Schechter, John M. ‘‘Themes in Latin American Music Culture.’’ In Music in Latin American Culture: Regional Traditions, edited by John Schechter et al., 1–33. Santa Cruz, CA: Schirmer, 1999. Southern, Eileen. The Music of Black America: A History. 3rd ed. New York: W.W. Norton and Company, 1997. Titon, Jeff. ‘‘North America/Black America.’’ In Worlds of Music: An Introduction to the Music of the World’s People. 4th ed., edited by Jeff Titon et al., 151–209. Belmont, CA: Schirmer, 2002. George Worlasi Kwasi Dor
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Appropriation of African American Music Nonblack composers of various nationalities and working in various musical genres and styles have adopted African American musical techniques (including its characteristic rhythms, melodic devices, and harmonic practices) at least since the late 18th century. At times, these composers parodied African American musical styles (for example, within the blackface minstrel tradition), while at other times composers used these styles to enrich their own musical language—especially with respect to its rhythmic character. Indeed, certain composers—ranging from Antonı´n Dvorak to George Gershwin—viewed African American music as the foundation for an American nationalistic idiom. African American music reached the pinnacle of its influence on international concert music in the first three decades of the 20th century when such prominent composers as Claude Debussy, Igor Stravinsky, and Alban Berg employed its musical resources within their compositions. The roots of American minstrelsy go back to 1768 when Charles Dibdin began incorporating musical material inspired by African American spirituals and plantation songs into his performances. By the 1820s, a tradition of blackface minstrelsy (performances in which white performers applied burnt cork to their faces and performed parodies of African American behaviors and music) was emerging. Early performances of this type were limited to short skits or a few songs performed as an interlude between acts of a larger entertainment not performed in blackface. On February 6, 1843, at the Bowery Amphitheatre in New York City, the Virginia Minstrels performed the first show presented entirely in blackface. This group included the fiddler-composer Dan Emmett who wrote what became perhaps the most widely recognized minstrel song in 1859: ‘‘Dixie’s Land,’’ or, as it was called later, ‘‘Dixie.’’ The influence of African American music, however, was not limited to such parodistic forms. In 1885, Jeanette Thurber founded the National Conservatory of Music at which she hoped to foster a truly American style of musical composition; the school offered open admission to the impoverished and to African Americans. In June 1891, Thurber invited Antonı´n Dvorak to assume the post of artistic director and professor of composition. Dvorak accepted the offer. While working at the conservatory, Dvorak met an African American singer named Henry Thacker Burleigh who introduced the Czech composer to spirituals and plantation songs. Dvorak was fascinated by the rhythms, the pentatonic character of the melodies, and the flatted blues notes. On May 21, 1893, the New York Herald published an article entitled ‘‘Real Value of Negro Melodies.’’ Although probably not authored by Dvorak himself, the article purports to represent his view that ‘‘in the Negro melodies of America I discover all that is needed for a great and noble school of music’’ (Beckerman 1993, 749). The article stimulated a surprising and varied response from such figures as Amy Beach, Anton Bruckner, and Anton Rubenstein. Dvorak went on to include melodies inspired by African American music in his String Quartet No. 12 in F, his String Quintet in E flat, and, most famously, his Symphony No. 9: From the New World. Indeed, the music of the slow movement of the symphony was later used as an ersatz spiritual entitled ‘‘Goin’
Appropriation of African American Music | 27 Home.’’ Not surprisingly, some writers (subscribing to an extreme form of Social Darwinism) claimed that the ‘‘Negro’’ melodies were incapable of development and therefore unsuitable for ‘‘higher’’ forms of composition. The turn of the century provided Parisians with opportunities to hear and learn about music outside of Europe—including African American music. Gabriel Astruc visited the Columbia Exposition in Chicago in 1893 and was struck by the ragtime music he heard there. He later had acquaintances send sheet music of ragtime compositions to him in Paris, including the white ragtime composer Kerry Mill’s famous ‘‘At a Georgia Camp-Meeting.’’ Astruc is probably the source of Eric Satie’s first exposure to ragtime and its influence is evident in Satie’s ‘‘Prelude de la Mort de Monsieur Mouche,’’ written just before John Philip Sousa’s first performance at the Paris Exposition of 1900. The latter event marked the first occasion for most Parisians to actually hear African American–inspired music. Sousa’s program included (in addition to his own marches) instrumental rags, two-steps, and arrangements of ‘‘old Negro melodies.’’ Another important infusion of African American music into Europe came through the performances of the African American dance team Williams and Walker who developed the cakewalk. Finally, various recordings of ragtime arrived on European shores via Victor Records. The combination of these forces led to the ragtime and cakewalk crazes of the early decades of the 20th century and made ragtime the first African American form of music to experience such widespread international distribution and fame. Composers in Paris eagerly adopted ragtime and cakewalk into their compositions. Debussy closed his suite Children’s Corner (1906–1908) with ‘‘Golliwogg’s Cakewalk’’ and his second book of Pr e ludes (1912–1913) includes ‘‘General Lavine—eccentric,’’ subtitled ‘‘In the style and rhythms of a Cakewalk.’’ The first book of Pr e ludes (1909–1910) ends with ‘‘Minstrels,’’ a piece that alludes to African American spirituals. Satie’s Parade (1916–1917) features several pieces influenced by ragtime; indeed, the ‘‘Petite fille americaine’’ includes an allusion to the melody of Irving Berlin’s ‘‘That Mysterious Rag.’’ Stravinsky, then residing in Paris, wrote several pieces that utilize the rhythms and timbres of orchestrated ragtime. The three most prominent are Histoire du soldat (1918), Ragtime for Eleven Instruments (1918), and Piano Rag Music (1919). Stravinsky later claimed that he only knew ragtime music from reading scores sent to him in 1918 by Ernest Ansermet when the Ballets Russes returned from its American tour. However, given the prevalence of ragtime performances in Paris of that time, scholars now believe it to be highly unlikely that he had no aural knowledge of the music. Indeed, ragtime was so popular and its influence so pervasive in Paris that Jean Cocteau declared in 1920 that its usefulness in rejuvenating French music had come to an end. Cocteau’s proscription did little to dissipate the presence of African American music in Paris nightclubs and within new compositions. Darius Milhaud already had composed several works influenced by his engagement with the music of Brazil and he came into contact with the new jazz sounds first in London when he heard Billy Arnold’s band and then again during a visit to New York City. It was after the latter trip that Milhaud composed his most famous jazz-inflected work: La creation du monde (1923).
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African American music did not appear in German-speaking lands until shortly after the close of World War I, but its arrival ignited a craze for ragtime, foxtrots, and early jazz. German recording companies, including Deutsche Gramophon, issued American releases and, by the end of 1923, African American musical idioms were a mainstay of German radio. German composers soon began to utilize African American rhythms and harmonic resources in their own compositions. Paul Hindemith included a foxtrot in his Kammermusik No. 1 (1921), and Suite ‘‘1922’’ included movements entitled ‘‘Shimmy’’ and ‘‘Boston’’ (after two popular African American dances of those names) as well as ‘‘Ragtime.’’ Jazz also influenced German operatic production: most prominently Ernst Krenek’s exceedingly popular ‘‘Zeitoper,’’ Jonny Spielt Auf (1927), which featured an African American jazz fiddler as the eponymous hero. In November 1927, the Hoch Conservatory in Frankfurt am Main announced it would provide formal instruction in jazz—the first institution in the world to offer such a program. This seeming permissiveness launched a spate of controversy, however, and with the rise of National Socialism, jazz became increasingly identified with racial inferiority and Jews. In 1935, the National Socialists banned jazz from the radio, and in 1938, the Reichsmusiktage staged an exhibition in Dusseldorf called ‘‘Entartete Musik’’ (‘‘Degenerate Music’’); the cover illustration for the exhibition’s pamphlet featured a caricature of a black saxophonist wearing a Star of David and striking a pose borrowed from a poster for Jonny Spielt Auf. African American music exerted a great deal of influence on several white composers in America who sought (obliquely following Dvorak’s example) to create a nationalistic musical language. The first major American composition to demonstrate African American musical influence within a concert work was John Alden Carpenter’s ballet, Krazy Kat (1921). Although Carpenter’s ballet was viewed largely as a novelty, compositions written later in the decade by Aaron Copland and George Gershwin sparked a considerable debate over the suitability of the jazz idiom within ‘‘serious’’ music. Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue, which premiered during Paul Whiteman’s famous Aeolian Hall concert of 1924, was seen as the highlight of that evening and a successful compromise between jazz and orchestral music. However, his Concerto in F (1925) and Copland’s Music for the Theater (1925) and Piano Concerto (1927) came under critical fire for the use of material supposedly unsuited for developmental forms. Gershwin’s most famous and controversial use of African American music was his ‘‘folk’’ opera, Porgy and Bess (1935). Despite allegations of racism, Porgy proved to be Gershwin’s most enduring work and the opera has served as material for important jazz albums by Ella Fitzgerald and Louis Armstrong as well as by Miles Davis. See also
Black Rock Music; Rock ’n’ Roll. Further Reading
Beckerman, Michael. ‘‘The Real Value of Yellow Journalism: James Creelman and Antonı´n Dvorak.’’ Musical Quarterly 77, no. 4 (1993): 749–768.
Armstrong, Louis | 29 Cocteau, Jean. Le coq et l’arlequin: notes autour de la musique. In A Call to Order, translated by Rollo H. Myers. New York: Haskell House Publishers, 1974. Originally published in Paris, 1918. Dupree, Mary Herron. ‘‘ ‘Jazz,’ the Critics, and American Art Music in the 1920s.’’ American Music 4, no. 3 (1986): 287–301. Heyman, Barbara. ‘‘Stravinsky and Ragtime.’’ Musical Quarterly 68, no. 4 (1982): 543–562. Orledge, Robert. ‘‘Satie and America.’’ American Music 18, no. 1 (2000): 78–102. Chadwick Jenkins
Armstrong, Louis (1900–1971) A jazz trumpeter, Daniel Louis Armstrong was born on July 4, 1900, in New Orleans, Louisiana. As a child, Louis Armstrong formed a quartet that sang on street corners and in cafes for pennies. He obtained his musical education in the public schools of New Orleans, Louisiana, and at the Colored Waifs’ Home for Boys (1913–1914), where he studied with Peter Davis and played in the Home’s brass band. He first played alto horn, then changed to cornet; after a short while, he was chosen by Davis to be bandleader. His early style development was influenced by men he heard perform in the community, William (‘‘Bunk’’) Johnson, Charles (‘‘Buddy’’) Bolden, Freddie Keppard, and Joseph (King) Oliver. Oliver took Armstrong over as his protege, gave the boy an old cornet, gave him informal lessons on the instrument, and found playing opportunities for ‘‘Little Louis.’’ Louis called him ‘‘Papa Joe.’’ Armstrong played professionally for a short period when he was 15 in a local saloon-nightclub, but did not perform regularly until he was 17. Armstrong formed a six-piece band with Joe Lindsey in 1917; after the band was dissolved, he played with various small groups until the summer of 1918, when he joined Edward (‘‘Kid’’) Ory’s band as a replacement for King Oliver, who had gone to Chicago, Illinois. During his tenure in Ory’s band, he also played engagements with other groups and with the Tuxedo Brass Band under the leadership of Oscar (‘‘Papa’’) Celestin. During the years 1919–1922, he played primarily with Fate Marable’s bands on Streckfus Steam Boats, then went to Chicago in the summer of 1922 to join King Oliver (1922–1924). Thereafter he played with various groups—Ollie Powers (1924), Fletcher Henderson (1924– 1925 in New York and on tour), Lillian (‘‘Lil’’) Hardin Armstrong’s Dreamland Syncopators (1925–1926), Erskine Tate (1926), Carroll Dickerson (1926–1927, 1928), and Clarence Jones (1927, 1928). During these years, he also led his own groups in 1927 and 1929 and made his recording debut with Oliver in 1923. Thereafter he recorded extensively with others and with his own groups, particularly the Hot Five and the Hot Seven, which performed only in the recording studio (1925–1928). The members of these groups included Johnny Dodds, Warren (‘‘Baby’’) Dodds, and Johnny St. Cyr (all three of whom had played beside him in Marable’s riverboat bands), his wife Lil Armstrong, his old bandleader Kid Ory, and Earl Hines, Lonnie Johnson, Fred Robinson, and Arthur (‘‘Zutty’’) Singleton,
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among others. The recordings attracted wide attention and brought him celebrity status. During the 1930s, Armstrong toured extensively, generally with the support of bands he fronted rather than with his own groups; these included bands of Luis Russell, Les Hite, William (‘‘Chick’’) Webb, Zilner Randolph, and the Mills Blue Rhythm Band. In 1932, he made his first trip to Europe, touring in England, and acquired his nickname, ‘‘Satchmo,’’ from an editor of The Melody Maker. Thereafter he toured regularly in Europe, generally using European bands for accompaniment. By the 1940s, he had become a world-renowned figure. In 1947, he organized the first of his All-Stars groups, composed of Weldon (‘‘Jack’’) Teagarden, Richard (‘‘Dick’’) Cary, Sidney (‘‘Sid’’) Catlett, Leon (‘‘Barney’’) Bigard, and Arvell Shaw. Others who played in Armstrong’s All-Stars groups over the years included Earl Hines, William (‘‘Cozy’’) Cole, Joe Bushkin, Edmond Hall, and Milton Hinton, among others. During the next two decades and more, Armstrong performed all around the world, from Iceland to Australia, from England to Indonesia; he played at the major jazz festivals and recorded extensively. In 1960, he toured in Africa under sponsorship of the U.S. Information Service (also known as the U.S. Information Agency), playing to an audience of 10,000 at Leopoldville, the Congo. He made recordings in collaboration with such figures as Oscar Peterson, Ella Fitzgerald, and Duke Ellington, among others. He performed on radio (with his own national network show); on television; in Broadway musicals, Hot Chocolates (1929) and Swingin’ the Dream (1939); and in no fewer than 60 films (including documentaries), among them, Pennies from Heaven (1936), Cabin in the Sky (1943), New Orleans (1947), The Glenn Miller Story (1953), High Society (1956), Satchmo the Great (1956), Jazz, the Intimate Art (1968), and Hello, Dolly (1969). Armstrong was as much entertainer as jazz-man; he was a superb showman; and his gravelly, growling vocal style influenced hundreds of popular singers of his time. His best-known performances included ‘‘Ain’t Misbehaving,’’ which he sang as well as played in Hot Chocolates (music by Fats Waller); ‘‘Hello, Dolly,’’ ‘‘When It’s Sleepy-Time down South,’’ ‘‘Dipper Mouth Blues,’’ ‘‘West End Blues,’’ ‘‘On the Sunny Side of the Street,’’ and ‘‘When the Saints Go Marching In,’’ among many others. He received numerous awards from the music industry. Armstrong was the genius of jazz, the supreme improviser. He defined jazz cornet-trumpet (he changed to trumpet in 1928), and all trumpeters of his time were directly influenced by his style until the emergence of John Birks (Dizzy) Gillespie in the 1940s. Thereafter, he exerted indirect influence on the development of jazz trumpet and, as well, on jazz improvisation in total. No other jazzman was so widely imitated in regard to both instrumental style and vocal style. He died on July 6, 1971, in New York City. His nicknames Satchmo (a combination of ‘‘satchel’’ and ‘‘mouth’’), Dipper Mouth, and Gatermouth referred to his large mouth and enormous grin. Although 40 years have passed since Armstrong’s death, his life and musical achievements continue to be honored and celebrated in a variety of ways. He was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1990. The Louis Armstrong House Museum, which opened its doors to the public in 2003, is supported by the
Atlanta Symphony Orchestra | 31 Louis Armstrong Educational Foundation. Items collected by Armstrong and collections of materials related to him are now accessible at Queens College in New York. Armstrong’s name also remains well known in the public domain. The U.S. Tennis Association named one of its stadiums in New York after Armstrong. In 1995, the U.S. Postal Service issued a Louis Armstrong Commemorative Stamp. See also Ellington, Duke; Fitzgerald, Ella; Gillespie, Dizzy; Henderson, Fletcher; Hines, Earl (Fatha); Oliver, King; Waller, Fats. Further Reading Armstrong, Louis. Louis Armstrong, in His Own Words: Selected Writings, edited by Thomas Brothers. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999. Armstrong, Louis. Satchmo. New York: Da Capo Press, 1986 (1954). Armstrong, Louis. Swing That Music. New York: Da Capo Press, 1993 (1936). Bergreen, Laurence. Louis Armstrong: An Extravagant Life. New York: Broadway Books, 1998. Berrett, Joshua, ed. The Louis Armstrong Companion: Eight Decades of Commentary. New York: Schirmer Books, 1999. Brothers, Thomas. Louis Armstrong’s New Orleans. New York: W. W. Norton and Company, 2006. Cogswell, Michael. Louis Armstrong: The Offstage Story of Satchmo. 1st American ed. Portland, OR: Collectors Press, 2003. Dickerson, James. Just for a Thrill: Lil Hardin Armstrong, First Lady of Jazz. New York: Cooper Square Press, 2002. Giddins, Gary. Satchmo: The Genius of Louis Armstrong. New York: Da Capo Press, 1998. Goffin, Robert. Horn of Plenty: The Story of Louis Armstrong. Whitefish, MT: Kessinger Publishing, LLC, 2008 (1947). Jones, Max, and John Chilton. Louis: The Louis Armstrong Story, 1900–1971. West Sussex, UK: Littlehampton Book Services, LTD, 1976 (1971). Louis Armstrong House Museum. http://www.louisarmstronghouse.org Meckna, Michael. Satchmo: The Louis Armstrong Encyclopedia. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 2004. Teachout, Terry. Pops: A Life of Louis Armstrong. Boston: Houghton Mifflin/ Harcourt, 2009. Eileen Southern
Associations See
Organizations and Associations for African American Music and Musicians.
Atlanta Symphony Orchestra See
Concert Music—Conductors and Performers.
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Badu, Erykah (1971– ) Neo soul artist Erykah Badu has a vocal style and delivery that has been likened to that of the late jazz singer, Billie Holiday. Born Erica Abi Wright in 1971 in Dallas, Texas, Erykah Badu’s quality distinguishes her from contemporary singers and, perhaps, influenced the development of the introspective, yet innovative, articulations of neo soul singers that were to follow. ‘‘On & On,’’ from her debut recording Baduizm (1997), provides a full display of her unique layering of smooth, earthy vocals over tight, understated grooves and a catchy refrain. Other chart-topping song titles include ‘‘Tyrone,’’ ‘‘Bag Lady,’’ and ‘‘Love of My Life.’’ These songs and others fuse diverse musical influences into distinctive textures on which Badu layers highly personal and emotionally charged lyrics. Among those diverse artists who have collaborated with Badu in the studio or on stage include neo soul singer D’Angelo, Macy Gray, and hip hop artist Common. See also
Neo Soul. Further Reading
McIver, Joel. Erykah Badu: First Lady of Neo Soul. London: Sanctuary Publishing, 2002.
Further Listening Badu, Erykah. Baduizm, prod. Erykah Badu, JaBorn Jamal, Bob Powers, et al. Universal Records UD-53027, 1997. Badu, Erykah. Mama’s Gun, prod. Stephen Marley, James Poyser, et al. Motown 012153259-2, 2000. Badu, Erykah. New Amerykah Part One, prod. Erykah Badu, Mike ‘‘Chav’’ Chavarria, et al. Universal Motown B0010800-02, 2007. Horace J. Maxile, Jr.
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Erykah Badu performs at New York’s Radio City Music Hall. (AP/Wide World Photos)
Bailey, DeFord (1899–1982) Country musician DeFord Bailey is considered one of the most influential harmonica players of the 20th century. Born the son of freed slaves, Bailey moved to Nashville in 1919. His talents were soon recognized by his employers and by the 1920s had become known throughout the city for his strong harmonica playing. His connection to the Grand Ole Opry and country music in general came by way of his guest appearance with the Possum Hunters, a local band who garnered regular appearances with two Nashville radio stations. George D. Hay, announcer for the WSM station, was so impressed with Bailey’s performance that he asked Bailey to perform regularly. The ‘‘Barn Dance’’ program for which Bailey performed eventually was named the Grand Ole Opry and he became one of its first stars. By the end of the 1920s, he was a popular mainstay with the Opry, as the early years of the show featured black and white performers. Other African American acts such as the Jubilee Singers graced the Opry stage as visitors, but Bailey enjoyed a relationship with the program that lasted more than a decade. His tenure ended in 1941 amid contract disputes and copyrights issues surrounding his performing of nonoriginal work. Speculation and rumor surrounds his dismissal from the Opry, but his impact on country music during the first years of the Opry’s existence is undeniable. Jaded by his experiences with the Opry, Bailey opened a shoeshine shop and developed a large multiracial clientele largely because of his local celebrity status. He rarely performed professionally after his involvement with
Baiocchi, Regina Harris | 35 the Grand Ole Opry, but occasionally he did play tunes for customers and family members. See also
Country Music. Further Reading
Morton, David C., and Charles K. Wolfe. DeFord Bailey: A Black Star in Early Country Music. Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 1991.
Further Listening From Where I Stand: The Black Experience in Country Music. Warner Bros. 9 46248-2, 1998. Horace J. Maxile, Jr.
Baiocchi, Regina Harris (1956– ) Composer and poet Regina Harris Baiocchi is an eclectic composer who borrows from sources as disparate as spirituals and rap to modern compositional techniques. Her works are fresh and intriguing because she combines such disparate materials in inventive ways. Thus, mainstream Western models are sometimes wed with unusual instrumentation or unpredictable shifts in mood, feel, and texture such as her concerto for African hand drums and orchestra, African Hands (1997). Conversely, vernacular subjects may be treated with contemporary Western technique or in the fashion of a recitative for an opera. One such piece is ‘‘But for the Grace of God’’ from her opera, Gbeldahoven: No One’s Child (1994–1996). Baiocchi composed the libretto for that opera as well, and it offers a political reading of the racial and social ills of American society. Set in the 1930s, she uses figures such as Langston Hughes, Alain Locke, and Zora Neale Hurston as characters, but drifts away from true biographical representations of these characters. The twists in plot, characterization, and musical nuance are hallmarks of this work. A Chicago native, Baiocchi’s work can be heard in the city and surrounding areas. She is an active promoter of her work and the works of others, and she is highly recognized as an organizer of concerts. See also
Concert Music—Composers and Repertoire. Further Reading
Banfield, William C. Musical Landscapes in Color: Conversations with Black American Composers. Lanham, MD: The Scarecrow Press, 2003. Walker-Hill, Helen. From Spirituals to Symphonies: African-American Women Composers and Their Music. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 2002.
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Further Listening ‘‘Etude No. 2 of Two Piano Etudes: Equipoise by Intersection.’’ From Kaleidoscope: Music by African American Women, performed by Helen Walker-Hill. Leonarda Productions CD LE 339, 1995. Horace J. Maxile, Jr.
Baker, Lavern (1928–1997) Rhythm and blues singer Lavern Baker was born November 11, 1928, in Chicago, Illinois. She sang in a church choir as a child and began performing professionally as a rhythm and blues singer during her high-school years. Her early professional experience was at the celebrated Club DeLisa on Chicago’s South Side. At 17 she was well established on the nightclub circuit in Chicago and other Midwestern cities, calling herself ‘‘Little Miss Sharecropper.’’ She made her recording debut in the late 1940s but failed to win wide recognition until 1955, when she recorded ‘‘That’s All I Need’’ and ‘‘Tweedle-dee.’’ Thereafter she toured widely, performing in theaters, concert halls, nightclubs, and on television shows in the United States and in Europe. She also recorded extensively. In her early career, she sang in the traditional shouting blues style of Gertrude (‘‘Ma’’) Rainey, but later she employed more sophisticated arrangements, such as a female background chorus and strings. Some critics felt that her later style anticipated the Motown Sound of the 1960s. Her best-known performances, in addition to those just cited, included ‘‘I Can’t Love You Enough,’’ ‘‘I Waited Too Long,’’ ‘‘I Cried a Tear,’’ ‘‘Jim Dandy,’’ and ‘‘See See Ryder.’’ She died on March 10, 1997, in New York City. She received a Pioneer Award from the Rhythm & Blues Foundation in 1989 and was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1991. Further Reading Deffaa, Chip. Blue Rhythms: Six Lives in Rhythm and Blues Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1996. Eileen Southern
Bambaataa, Afrika (1960– ) Known as the ‘‘Master of Records’’ for his remarkable ability to recall and select certain choice breaks and sections on records, whether obsolete or prominent, Afrika Bambaataa reigns internationally as one of the superior DJs of numerous genres and the undisputed ‘‘Godfather of Hip Hop Culture.’’ Born Kevin Donovan in the Bronx on April 10, 1960, he would rise as one of the most unrecognized and underappreciated world leaders of the late 20th and early 21st centuries. A young gang warlord affiliated with the Black Spades, Bambaataa
Bambaataa, Afrika | 37
Afrika Bambaataa speaks at a news conference to launch ‘‘Hip-Hop Won’t Stop: The Beat, The Rhymes, The Life,’’ the first ever hip hop initiative at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History in New York in 2006. (AP/Wide World Photos)
aided an entire generation, helping his peers turn away from gang violence and warfare to music, dance, and art. The former Adlai E. Stevenson High School student with an amazing prowess as a DJ began throwing block parties in 1973. Influenced by Kool DJ Dee and DJ Kool Herc, Bambaataa used the new sounds of hip hop to inspire peace and unity. With the inception of his Bronx River Organization in 1973, a name he later shortened to simply ‘‘Organization’’ and which by 1974 had become the Universal Zulu Nation (influenced by the legacy of the South African Zulus and their king, Shaka Zulu), he led inner-city youth away from a life of violence through a particular philosophy and approach. In 1982, Bambaataa and his Soul Sonic Force gave birth to electro-funk with the single ‘‘Planet Rock,’’ one of the most sampled records in the history of hip hop. Bambaataa’s stage presence is most influenced by Sly and the Family Stone and ‘‘Uncle’’ George Clinton, although he often credits many artists for their legacy and influence. Besides the
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generally accepted four elements of hip hop, Bambaataa has suggested a fifth element, captured in the slogan ‘‘Knowledge, Culture and Overstanding.’’ Through the Universal Zulu Nation, hip hop has spread to numerous nations around the world. Bambaataa also encouraged the adoption of November as Hip Hop History Month, as it was in this month in 1973 when he launched his organization, which united DJs, graffiti artists, b-boys and b-girls, and emcees. See also
Hip Hop Culture; Rap. Further Reading
Moorer, Talise D. ‘‘Godfather of Hip Hop Brings Light of Zulu Nation to Harlem.’’ New York Amsterdam News 98, no. 45 (November 2007): 23–38. Universal Zulu Nation. www.zulunation.com/. Emmett G. Price III
Banfield, William C. (1961– ) Composer, musician, and scholar, Bill Banfield, born William C. Banfield, is one of the leaders of a younger generation of composers who are continuing the strong artistic and creative tradition of African American composers. His output includes symphonies, chamber pieces, art songs, opera, and works for chorus and concert bands. Banfield’s works have been performed by orchestras including the National, Atlanta, Detroit, and Indianapolis symphonies. Among his honored and commissioned works are Symphony No. 5: Five Shades of a Woman in Black and Symphony No. 3: Job’s Song. While versed in the handling of Western concert forms and performance media, Banfield is a highly respected jazz guitarist and composer. His works in both the concert and jazz genres have been performed by such notables as Leon Bates, Jon Fadis, Bobby McFerrin, and Regina Carter. As teacher and scholar, Banfield has been innovative and influential. He has served on the faculties of the University of St. Thomas and Indiana University where he developed the Undine Smith Moore Collection of Scores and Manuscripts of Black Composers, a special collection at the Archives of African American Music and Culture. Currently a professor at the Berklee School of Music (Boston), Banfield blends practical experience, social awareness, and historical considerations into engaging prose as demonstrated in his collection Black Notes: Essays of a Musician Writing in a Post-Album Age. He thinks of himself as an artist that uses ‘‘imagination, care, and excitement about people and life, to craft and construct works which connect and corroborate with, underline or make commentary on, things we all experience’’ (Banfield 2004, 160). See also
Concert Music—Composers and Repertoire. Further Reading
Banfield, William C. Black Notes: Essays of a Musician Writing in a Post-Album Age. Lanham, MD: The Scarecrow Press, Inc., 2004.
Banjo | 39 Banfield, William C. Musical Landscapes in Color: Conversations with Black American Composers. Lanham, MD: The Scarecrow Press, Inc., 2003. Banfield, William C. www.billbanfield.com. Horace J. Maxile, Jr.
Banjo The banjo is a plucked lute with a hide- or plastic-covered sound chamber, five strings, and a bridge. This symbol of Appalachia is heard around the world, but Africans brought the banjar with them to America, and the banjo that developed from it eventually created the sounds used in American minstrel, ragtime, blues, jazz, old-time, country, bluegrass, and other musical styles. The banjo retained the short drone African thumb string of the banjar but replaced the gourd body with a cheese-box (or sometimes inset-rim) wooden sound chamber. In previous times, African praise singers and memory keepers played the Mali molo and ngoni, the Jolas akonting, the Wolof halam, and other West African lutes for singing and dancing in local rituals. Enslaved Africans brought or made gourd banjars in the colony of Maryland by 1740 and in Virginia by 1744. In 1789 on the Wilderness Road near Knoxville in Appalachia, frontiersmen and women ‘‘danced around’’ to the music of black banjies, and the instrument was played on the banks of the Ohio in Wheeling, West Virginia, in 1806. For almost a century, only blacks seem to have played the banjar (built with a pole or sometimes a flat neck); it echoed their homeland traditions, inspired their improvised lyric songs, and paced their frolic dances. Field hands and river roustabouts from different African regions exchanged field hollers; shanties; rowing, corn shucking, and banjar songs; spirituals; and dance music. Later they worked on the railroads and in the mines. In a call-and-response structure with repeating riffs, banjar music is more rhythmically complex and less melodically intricate than Scots and Irish music. With special tunings, the Upland South banjar repertoire of lyric songs is conversational and often includes animal songs that celebrate a trickster (often a fox instead of Brer Rabbit) that are symbolic of survival during slavery and later. Most of the black mentors of mountain and minstrel apprentices remain unidentified, but Picayune Butler influenced whites in New Orleans and remained famous for 25 years on the rivers to Cincinnati and even in New York City. Butler sang on the street and in competitions, and his banjo songs and journeys prefigure the traveling country bluesman. No later than the 1830s, whites (especially the Irish and Scots) took up the gourd banjar and its African American thumping playing style. By 1842, the Virginian Joel Sweeney, of Irish heritage, either popularized or invented the five-string, open-back, wooden-rim banjo that resulted from the black and white musical exchange. The African short thumb string already existed; his fifth string was added in today’s fourth-string position to expand the banjo’s possibilities for Celtic melodies. The standardized fiddle, easy to carry and echoing the outlawed bagpipes, had arrived with the Scotch-Irish, Germans, and others during the 18th century. Soon
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the banjo moved from local frolics and dances to court days and the circus and on to the minstrel stage. Early minstrels respected African American musicianship and soon put the Scotch-Irish fiddle and African banjo together; their musical exchange, like the cocreation of the banjo from the banjar, symbolizes American egalitarianism at work. The minstrels traveled widely, and their routines continued to explore black and white musical and social relations in the new country, but soon the routines became increasingly commercial and cruelly satiric. After steamboat travel took off in 1850, enslaved African Americans (leased by their Southern masters) often worked side by side with Irish and German laborers. In the evenings, cabin boys played music, buck danced, and did the cakewalk. Blacks and whites played jigs and reels (for example, ‘‘Natchez under the Hill’’), ‘‘jump up’’ songs, and old lonesome ‘‘breakdowns.’’ During the Civil War regional exchange expanded. In waterfront dancehalls in Cincinnati, no later than 1876, black roustabouts and white longshoremen paired the banjo and fiddle. Twelve such songs played by African Americans are documented. Black and white exchange resulted in minstrelsy, at least three types of banjo songs, and the merging of the fiddle and banjo. The downstroking (‘‘thumping’’ or ‘‘clawhammer’’) style of old-time banjo peaked in the early 20th century among blacks (for example, Virginians Josh Thomas, Rufus Kasey, and Leonard Bowles) and white mountain songsters. African American makers of old-time banjos included the fathers of Kasey and fellow Virginian John Jackson. However, early in the 20th century, many blacks put down their banjos to set their songs with increasingly assertive commentary to the now readily available guitar to create the blues. Two-finger, up-picking styles, acquired from African Americans before 1865, influenced minstrel styles in parlors and orchestral concert halls as the banjo was introduced to genteel society. After World War II, finger picking banjo and gospel singing laid the groundwork for the hard-driving bluegrass style and its industrial context. In the 1950s and 1960s, old-time banjo influenced the folk revival. The first Black Banjo Gathering took place in spring 2005 in an attempt to reclaim the banjo for African Americans and perpetuate its diverse traditions. From the arrival of the banjar in the United States to the present, the banjo has made an intense contribution to the country’s indigenous music and its interaction with song and dance. See also
Blues; Minstrel Shows; New Orleans, Louisiana; Ragtime. Further Reading
Charry, Eric. Mande Music: Traditional and Modern Music of the Maninka and Mandinka of Western Africa. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2000. Conway, Cecelia. African Banjo Echoes in Appalachia. Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 1995. Conway, Cecelia, and Scott Odell. ‘‘CD Liner Notes.’’ In Black Banjo Songsters of North Carolina and Virginia. Washington, DC: Smithsonian Folkways, 1998. Coolen, Michael Theodore. ‘‘Senegambia Archetypes for the American Folk Banjo.’’ Western Folklore 43 (1984): 146–161.
Basie, Count | 41 Epstein, Dena J. Sinful Tunes and Spirituals: Black Folk Music in the Civil War. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1977. Gura, Philip F., and James F. Bollman. America’s Instrument: The Banjo in the Nineteenth Century. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1999. Kubik, Gerhard. ‘‘South Africa: The Southern African Periphery: Banjo Traditions in Zambia and Malawi.’’ The World of Music 31, no. 1 (1989): 3–39. Lavine, Lawrence W. Black Culture and Consciousness: Afro-American Folk Thought from Slavery to Freedom. New York: Oxford University Press, 1977. Nathan, Hans. Dan Emmett and the Rise of Early Negro Minstrelsy. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1977. Oliver, Paul, ed. Savannah Syncopators: African Retentions in the Blues. New York: Stein and Day, 1970. Sacks, Howard L., and Judith Rose. Way up North in Dixie: A Black Family’s Claim to the Confederate Anthem. Washington, DC: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1993. Webb, Robert Lloyd. Ring the Banjar: The Banjo in America from Folklore to Factory. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Museum, 1984. Cecelia Conway
Basie, Count (1904–1984) William James ‘‘Count’’ Basie was one of the most important jazz bandleaders from the 1930s until his death, and along with Duke Ellington, he is recognized as one of the two greatest jazz musicians. Basie was born on August 21, 1904, at Red Bank, New Jersey. His father was a coachman for a wealthy family, and then later a groundsman. His mother taught him how to play the piano, and he soon became a drummer. In his teens he played in Harlem with Fats Waller, and by the 1920s, he was touring many parts of the United States. It was while playing at Kansas City, Missouri, that Basie was dubbed ‘‘Count’’ by a radio broadcaster who was comparing him to Duke Ellington. In 1934 Basie established his own band, but later returned to the Bennie Moten Band, based in Kansas City, in which he had played earlier in his career. Moten died in 1935, and Basie formed a new band, drawing much talent from the Moten Band. Late in 1936 Basie’s band moved from Kansas City to Chicago, and in October of that year a recording was made of the band, but had to be published under the name Jones-Smith Incorporated because Basie had already signed a business deal with Decca, although he did not record his first session with them until January 1937. After only a short time in Chicago, Basie’s band moved to New York City where they continued to play until the 1950s. During the second half of the Great Depression, many people were inspired by the upbeat jazz music of Basie, who became a celebrity in the United States and internationally. As well as his musical talent, he was also able to build up a band which included some of the greatest jazz musicians of the period. Even Billie Holiday was a vocalist for Basie in 1937–1938. The music that the band played was forceful, and the band collectively composed their music and then memorized it for performances so that they did not have to use sheet music.
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Count Basie’s band sold countless records during the late 1930s through the 1950s. By that time the band was quite different, included excellent sight readers, continued to draw great talent, and performed with many famous people, including Ella Fitzgerald and Frank Sinatra. In 1974 Basie and his band appeared in the Hollywood film Blazing Saddles. Basie suffered from diabetes and arthritis, but continued to insist on leading his band right up to a month before his death, on April 26, 1984. See also
Jazz; Kansas City, Missouri, and the Territories. Further Reading
Dance, Stanley. The World of Count Basie. New York: C. Scribner’s Sons, 1980. Murray, Albert. Good Morning Blues: The Autobiography of Count Basie. New York: Random House, 1985. Schuller, Gunther. The Swing Era. New York: Oxford University Press, 1989. Justin Corfield
Battle, Kathleen (1948– ) A soprano, Kathleen Battle is one of the most celebrated opera and classical music singers of the late 20th century. Her talent for singing was realized by teachers while she was young and she was encouraged to pursue many musical activities as a child. She was awarded a scholarship to continue her studies at the Cincinnati Conservatory of Music, and there she earned her bachelor’s and master’s degrees. Following her passion for teaching, Battle began teaching in public schools around 1971. At the urging of a friend, she auditioned for a lead part in a Brahms requiem in 1972 and won the part. Her performance of that role in Spoleto, Italy, in 1972 marked the beginning of her career as a singer. Two major debuts followed in that decade: as Susanna in Le Nozze di Figaro at New York City Opera (1976) and as Shepherd in Tannh€ a user at Metropolitan Opera (1977). Her rise to prominence continued throughout the 1980s. She was featured in many international venues, including St. Peter’s Basilica in the Vatican and the Royal Opera House in London. Battle also became a mainstay at the Metropolitan Opera during the 1980s, singing more than 125 performances. Battle sold many records during this period in her career and earned three Grammy Awards. Her status as one of the world’s leading soprano singers continued into the 1990s. Although her tenure with the Metropolitan Opera ended in the mid-1990s, she continued to concertize and perform with other companies and artists. She is regarded as one of the great interpreters of spirituals and often includes pieces from that genre in recitals. Battle has shared the stage and studio with musicians from such diverse backgrounds as Alicia Keys, Al Jarreau, Grover Washington, Jr., and Bobby McFerrin. These collaborations are representative of the respect that many musicians have for her accomplishments on the concert stage and in opera houses. See also
Opera.
Beach Music | 43
Opera star Kathleen Battle performs during the grand opening gala celebration for the Muhammad Ali Center in 2005. (AP/Wide World Photos)
Further Reading Smith, Eric Ledell. Blacks in Opera: An Encyclopedia of People and Companies, 1873– 1993. Jefferson, NC: McFarland and Company, Inc., 1995. Story, Rosalyn M. And So I Sing: African American Divas of Opera and Concert. New York: Warner Books, Inc, 1990. Horace J. Maxile, Jr.
Beach Music This subgenre of rhythm and blues is also known as ‘‘shag’’ music for the dance style often associated with it. Beach music has its origins in African American gospel, blues, and doo-wop, but the style found its greatest popularity among white residents and tourists of the Carolina and Virginia beaches in the 1950s and 1960s. Although much of the music popular with this audience initially included recordings by nationally known artists such as the Temptations and James Brown, a host of other African American performers, such as the Drifters and
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Maurice Williams and the Zodiacs, remained favorites of beach music enthusiasts long after their wider popularity faded. Later groups, such as Billy Scott and the Prophets and the Chairmen of the Board, drew on their own local gospel traditions and the increasingly popular rhythm and blues styles of national African American music stars to create songs specifically targeted toward the local Southeast coastal audience. The development of beach music in many ways parallels the rise of rock ’n’ roll, with white youths embracing African American music and dance traditions and, eventually, appropriating them. Beginning in the 1940s and early 1950s, jukebox operators in the ‘‘whites only’’ clubs in Atlantic Beach, Myrtle Beach, and other coastal resort towns in the Southeast began adding to their machines rhythm and blues records that were popular in local African American dance clubs. The popularity of these records among the white youths and the lack of radio airplay in the South for African American artists encouraged the development of a white audience for local African American rhythm-and-blues acts. These bands were enthusiastically welcomed as performers in clubs that they could not visit as patrons. White fraternity parties also often provided these African American musicians with paying gigs, as the white youths sought to replicate their summer experiences during the school year. These same young whites who were drawn to rhythm and blues were, likewise, attracted to African American dance styles. Imitating local African American youths, the white beachgoers developed the ‘‘shag,’’ a slower version of the jitterbug and other ‘‘jump’’ dance styles. The shag became synonymous with beach music, as the dancers embraced the 4/4 rhythm, slow swing of rhythm and blues. Beach music declined in popularity in the 1980s and 1990s, but a small group of white, affluent, largely middle-age fans supported local radio programs and dance clubs and helped keep performers such as The Tams and Bill Pinckney in business. Also in the 1970s and 1980s, predominantly white nostalgia acts such as The Embers and the Catalinas were formed and continued to enjoy local popularity covering earlier rhythm and blues songs. In 1984 a legislative act named the shag South Carolina’s official dance, and in 2001 beach music was named the official popular music of the state. See also
Charleston, South Carolina, and Surrounding Areas. Further Reading
Bryan, Bo, and Will Maddux. Shag: The Dance Legend. Beaufort, SC: Foundation Books, 1995. Stephen Criswell
Beale Street The birthplace of the blues, this famous street in Memphis, Tennessee, has in the last 20 years become one of the state’s most popular tourist attractions. Named after a military hero in 1841, this once prosperous area of Memphis served as the
Beale Street | 45 headquarters of Ulysses S. Grant during the Civil War. After the war, it was settled by freed African American slaves. At the beginning of the 20th century, Beale Street was best known for its gambling, drinking, and other vices. By the 1920s, it was also the home of a thriving nightlife of restaurants, clubs, and theaters. This setting gave rise to the blues, a rich blending of church music and African traditions. Enormously influential, the blues later shaped rock ’n’ roll and soul. The first blues song was written by William Christopher (W. C.) Handy in 1909 as a campaign song for E. H. Crump, the mayor of Memphis, and thus originally was known as ‘‘Mr. Crump’’ or ‘‘Boss Crump Blues.’’ Handy rewrote the lyrics in 1912 and the piece was renamed ‘‘The Memphis Blues.’’ With Handy’s 1913 ‘‘St. Louis Blues’’ and 1916 ‘‘Beale Street Blues,’’ the new musical style became wildly popular, especially in the South. The blues spread as jazz musicians in New Orleans and Memphis played the music, and the blues were fundamental to the development of jazz during this time. African Americans who moved to the cities of the North brought the blues with them and helped carry the music into mainstream American culture. The musical style was embraced by a long line of performers, including Bobby ‘‘Blue’’ Bland, Alberta Hunter, Albert King, Gertrude ‘‘Ma’’ Rainey,’’ and Muddy Waters. In the 1940s the blues were further popularized by Riley ‘‘Blues Boy’’ King, known throughout the world as B. B. King. The music echoed the attitudes and experiences of the first generation of African Americans born out of slavery and explored the obstacles and opportunities confronting them. While Beale Street was the site of race riots between Irish immigrants and African Americans in the years immediately following the Civil War, the blues were largely responsible for bringing together black and white musicians and audiences, even during the days of Jim Crow. This promoted business opportunities and fostered a lively conversation of ideas and aesthetics. The area prospered until the Great Depression of the 1930s, which affected Beale Street along with the rest of the country. Beale Street suffered in the decades that followed, and attempts at urban renewal led to the loss of several significant buildings in the 1960s. In 1966, Beale Street was added to the National Register of Historic Places, a move that helped preserve the area’s cultural heritage. By the 1980s the area experienced an economic revitalization and witnessed significant investment. Older venues were renovated, while new clubs, shops, and restaurants flourished. During the decline of Beale Street in the 1960s, the area surrounding it remained a vibrant home for music, largely because of the Stax and Hi record companies. Stax Records was founded in 1958 by Jim Stewart and Estelle Axton, while Hi-Records was created by Willie Mitchell. In the 1960s and 1970s, these companies promoted soul music and distributed the works of Al Green, Isaac Hayes, Wilson Pickett, Otis Redding, and other prominent artists. Though relatively small these studios also promoted racial integration, not only through their music but also through their business practices. At the same time that Hi and Stax contributed to the growth and culture of the Memphis ‘‘Soulsville’’ neighborhood, some of the areas surrounding Beale Street
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‘‘Beale Street Blues.’’ Words and music by W. C. Handy. (New York Public Library)
were cleared in an attempt to renew downtown Memphis. Beale Street suffered as a result, and its heritage was at risk. To help preserve and revitalize Beale Street, George B. Miller, Jr. formed the Beale Street Management Corporation in 1973. Muhammad Ali soon took an interest in the area, and in 1979, the Muhammad Ali Cinema was opened with the assistance of the famous sports legend. Following the success of this initial effort, in 1982 the Beale Street Development Corporation leased a significant portion of the street from the city of Memphis in exchange for roughly $10 million of federal grant money. The Historic District was then managed by John Elkington, of Elkington and Keltner Properties, who was instrumental in developing the area. Under Elkington, the first club opened its doors in 1983. A series of businesses followed, and by 1997, the street was no longer threatened and became the most popular tourist attraction in the city. The entire downtown area of Memphis is now experiencing a period of revitalization and renewal. While the blues still thrive on Beale Street, tourists can hear a wide variety of music, such as reggae, rock, soul, and fusion jazz. The site of many concerts is Handy Park, named after W. C. Handy (1873– 1958) and featuring a bronze statue of the famous musician and blues pioneer.
Bechet, Sidney | 47 Beale Street is home of the Beale Street Music Festival, which began in 1986, and is close to the Center for Southern Folklore. See also
Blues; King, B. B.; Memphis Sound; Memphis, Tennessee. Further Reading
Abbott, Lynn, and Doug Seroff. Out of Sight: The Rise of African American Popular Music 1889–1895. Jackson: University of Mississippi Press, 2002. Barlow, William. Looking Up at Down: The Emergence of Blues Culture. Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1989. Lomax, Alan. The Land Where the Blues Began. New York: Pantheon, 1993. Rubin, Rachel, and Jeffrey Melnick, eds. American Popular Music. Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 2001.
Bebop See
Jazz.
Bechet, Sidney (1897–1959) A jazz saxophonist, Sidney Bechet was born May 14, 1897, in New Orleans, Louisiana; he died on May 14, 1959, in Paris, France. Two of his brothers, Leonard and Joseph, played musical instruments. He began clarinet study at the age of six with George Baguet. Later he studied with Lorenzo Tio and briefly with Louis (‘‘Big Eye’’) Nelson DeLisle. He began playing with various local orchestras and brass bands when he was about 12; thereafter he played in his brother Leonard’s band, the Silver Bells Band, and the Young Olympia Band (co-leader with Buddy Petit [born Joseph Crawford]). Later he played with John Robichaux, the Eagle Brass Band under Willie (‘‘Bunk’’) Johnson’s leadership (ca. 1911), and other groups. In 1914, he left New Orleans in a trio with Clarence Williams and Louis Wade to tour with a traveling show and remained on the road until 1917, although he did return to New Orleans occasionally to play. He settled in Chicago, Illinois, in 1917; thereafter he played with various groups or persons, including Lawrence Duhe (at the DeLuxe Cafe), Freddie Keppard, King Oliver, Tony Jackson (at the Pekin Theater), and Will Marion Cook’s Southern Syncopated Orchestra (1918–1920), with which he performed in London, England, in 1919. When Cook returned to the United States, Bechet remained in Europe with a splinter group from the orchestra, performing in London, England, and in Paris, France. He returned to the United States in 1921 and thereafter played in New York with Ford Dabney, Edward (‘‘Duke’’) Ellington (1924), and James P. Johnson. During the early 1920s, he also toured with shows, including Donald Heywood’s How Come (1921–1923), The Black and White Revue (1923), Seven Eleven (1925), and Mamie Smith’s show. He led his own groups, recorded extensively, and operated a nightclub, Club Basha, for a short period. In the fall of 1926 he sailed to Europe with the show La Revue Negre,
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which included Claude Hopkins as the musical director and Josephine Baker in a leading role. The musical opened in Paris, France, at the Theatre des Champs Elysees, then toured in Europe. When the show closed, Bechet joined an orchestra that toured in Russia. For more than two decades thereafter he played with groups on both sides of the Atlantic, among them, Noble Sissle (during the years 1928–1938), William (‘‘Willie-the-Lion’’) Smith, Tommy Ladnier, and Zutty Singleton, and led his own groups in Paris; Berlin, Germany; Amsterdam, the Netherlands; and other European cities. He also led groups in the United States in New York, Chicago, and Boston during the 1940s, playing in ballrooms, including the Savoy in the Harlem community, in nightclubs, and at jazz festivals. In 1951, he settled permanently in Paris. He was musically active until shortly before his death; using Paris as a base, he toured widely and returned to the United States in 1951 and 1953. He also performed on the vaudeville stage in Paris and appeared in films, including L’ Inspecteur connait la musique (1955) and Ah! Quelle equipe (1956). Bechet was an important clarinetist in the second generation of the New Orleans school, along with Johnny Dodds and Jimmie Noone. His style was distinctive for its heavy vibrato and expressiveness, but it was as a soprano saxophonist that he made his largest contribution to jazz history. He was the pioneer who defined the role of that instrument in the jazz ensemble from the time of his permanent conversion to it in 1919. See also
Blues; King, B. B.; Memphis Sound; Memphis, Tennessee. Further Reading
Bechet, Sidney. Treat It Gentle: An Autobiography. 2nd ed. New York: Da Capo Press, 2002. Chilton, John. Sidney Bechet: The Wizard of Jazz. New York: Da Capo Press, 1996. Eileen Southern
Belafonte, Harry (1927– ) Folk singer and actor, Harold George (‘‘Harry’’) Belafonte was born March 1, 1927, in New York, New York. Although best known as an actor and producer, he was a singer in his early career. He obtained his education in the public schools of Jamaica, West Indies (where he lived during the years 1935–1940), and New York, where he attended high school. After serving in the U.S. Navy (1944–the late 1940s), he enrolled in Erwin Piscator’s Dramatic Workshop at the New School for Social Research in New York. He attracted favorable attention for a singing role, which led to engagements in New York nightclubs. He soon established himself as a top singer of popular songs, touring widely and recording regularly. In 1950 he left the field of popular music abruptly and turned to folk music. He developed a repertory of folk songs, pursuing research in the Library of Congress Archives of American Folk Song and drawing upon his experiences as a child in the West Indies; in 1951 he made his debut as a folksinger at the
Berry, Chuck | 49 Village Vanguard club in New York. Within a short time he won wide recognition as a folksinger of great stature. During the 1950s he toured widely on the nightclub circuit, appeared on numerous television shows, and sang in films, including the role of Joe in Carmen Jones (1954). He produced recordings in the mid1950s that initiated the calypso fad in the United States, such as ‘‘Jamaica farewell,’’ ‘‘Day-O (Banana boat song),’’ ‘‘Matilda,’’ and ‘‘Come Back, Liza.’’ He also sang Negro spirituals and other folksongs on his recordings and on his live concerts. During the 1960s and 1970s, he devoted more time to straight dramatic roles and to producing films and television shows, many of which treated the subject of black music history and black musicians. He established his own production company, Har Bel, as early as 1959. Later he was president of Belafonte Enterprises. He made an important contribution to the history of black music as folk singer and producer; he also aided the career development of young black performers, among them, Miriam Makeba and Hugh Masekela. He received awards from the theater industry and honorary doctorates from Park College (1968) and the New School for Social Research. In 1987, he was appointed a UNICEF (United Nation’s Children’s Fund) Goodwill Ambassador and has performed extensively to raise funds for UNICEF. He received the National Medal of the Arts in the United States in 1994. Further Reading Mandel, Howard. ‘‘Harry Belafonte.’’ Global Rhythm: World Music, Culture & Lifestyle 14 (2005): 13. Eileen Southern
Berry, Chuck (1926– ) Vocalist, guitarist, composer, and lyricist, Chuck Berry is a rock ’n’ roll pioneer. Known as the ‘‘Father of Rock ’n’ Roll’’ and self-styled as the ‘‘Prime Minister of Rock ’n’ Roll,’’ Berry is central to the development of the genre in the 1950s. Charles Edward Anderson Berry was born in St. Louis, Missouri, to a middleclass family. Berry began singing at a young age and learned to play guitar as a teenager. His first taste of success was when he performed in his high school’s student music show, and his performance of Jay McShann’s ‘‘Confessin’ the Blues’’ received rousing applause. In the early 1950s, he began playing professionally. In 1953, he began playing in the Sir John Trio (later renamed the Chuck Berry Combo) with pianist Johnnie Johnson (1924–2005), whom he would continue to play with for the next two decades. The trio became the house band at the popular St. Louis nightclub The Cosmopolitan Club. Country music was popular with white audiences in St. Louis, and Berry developed a style that fused country and western guitar with blues and R & B sounds to produce a black ‘‘hillbilly’’ hybrid that became his signature sound and which was popular with both black and white audiences at the club. This fusion laid the groundwork for
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Berry’s rock ’n’ roll style. In 1955, Berry traveled to Chicago and met one of his idols, bluesman Muddy Waters (1913–1983). Berry wanted to know whom to talk to get a record deal, and Waters suggested he speak to Leonard Chess (1917–1969) of Chicago’s Chess records. Chess was interested in Berry’s work, but not as a traditional blues musician. He was taken with Berry’s ‘‘Ida Red’’— which had the country–R & B fusion that would become Berry’s trademark sound. Chess signed Berry, and ‘‘Ida Red’’ was reworked into Berry’s first single, ‘‘Maybellene,’’ released in 1955. The song was an R & B chart-topper and went to number five on the Billboard pop charts, highlighting one of the key factors in Berry’s success and importance—his breaking down of the racial barriers in ‘‘crossing over’’ and appealing to white audiences without losing his black audience. ‘‘Maybellene’’ was one of the first records by a black artist to outsell the white cover versions. His crisp vocal style, inspired in part by another of his idols, Nat ‘‘King’’ Cole (1919–1965), also appealed to his younger white audience, making the lyrics accessible. Berry was the first guitarist-singer to chart a hit song, and his emphasis on the guitar as a lead instrument, not just an accompaniment, is one of his most lasting impacts on the genre. Berry incorporated guitar solos and the interplay of the vocals and the guitar. The use of the guitar as central to the rock ’n’ roll sound has continued even as the genre has developed beyond the typical 1950s sound. In addition to his importance in developing the sound of rock ’n’ roll, he was an architect of the youth-oriented rock ’n’ roll lifestyle and stance. His lyrics addressed the concerns and interests of teens—fast cars, romance, school issues,
Chuck Berry, U.S. rock ’n’ roll musician. (UPI/Bettmann/Corbis)
Berry, Chuck | 51 issues with parents—and focused on youth culture. In part, this accounts for his popularity with white teens even though he was close to two decades their senior. His lyrics crafted clever stories of teen life with memorable and catchy lines, rather than simply relying on formulaic boy-meets-girl stories of chaste teen love, garnering him the nickname the poet laureate of rock. ‘‘Johnny B. Goode’’ (1957) created a rock ’n’ roll archetype—the unconventional and talented young guitar god dedicated more to his music than to schooling. Berry was also a true showman and entertainer, incorporating gestures, facial expressions, and dance moves, including his trademark duck walk, into his performances. His shows were dynamic and responsive to audiences. Berry had more than two dozen Billboard Hot 100 hits and remains most known for his singles rather than for his albums as rock ’n’ roll was largely a singles-driven medium during his heyday in the 1950s and 1960s. In addition to ‘‘Maybellene’’ and ‘‘Johnny B. Goode,’’ Berry’s hits include ‘‘Roll over Beethoven’’ (1956), ‘‘School Days’’ (1957), ‘‘Sweet Little Sixteen’’ (1958), ‘‘Nadine’’ (1964), and ‘‘No Particular Place to Go’’ (1964). His only number one single on the pop charts was 1972’s ‘‘My Ding-a-Ling,’’ a novelty song which Berry had originally performed as ‘‘My Tambourine.’’ While this song did not represent the highest quality of Berry’s work, it was one of his most lucrative songs because he owned the full rights to it. Berry recorded for Chess until 1966 when he moved to Mercury records. His years at Mercury were not particularly successful, and he returned to Chess in 1970. He recorded his last studio album to date, Rockit, on Atco Records. He has since released some live albums and compilations. Berry remains an active performer, touring throughout the 1980s and 1990s and occasionally in the 2000s. Since 1996, he has played monthly at Blueberry Hill, a club in St. Louis. Berry has also been featured in multiple television programs and films, including The T.A.M.I. Show, Go, Johnny, Go!, and American Hot Wax. As the ‘‘Father of Rock ’n’ Roll,’’ Berry’s influence is far-reaching and pervasive. He strongly influenced many of the British Invasion bands, including the Rolling Stones, Eric Clapton, and the Beatles. Keith Richards was profoundly influenced by Berry and served as musical director for Hail! Hail! Rock ’n’ Roll, a documentary and concert tribute to Berry for his 60th birthday. Berry also influenced many American musicians like Elvis Presley (1935–1977) and the Beach Boys. Berry’s songs have been frequently covered by a diverse group of bands. Bands who have covered Berry songs include AC/DC, the Beatles, the Beach Boys, David Bowie (1947– ), Chubby Checker (1941– ), Eric Clapton (1945– ), the Doors, the Grateful Dead, Jimi Hendrix (1942–1970), Waylon Jennings (1937–2002), MC5, Elvis, and the Rolling Stones. His influence is not affected by boundaries of race, generation, or genre. His influence was so wide and so deep that when Berry started traveling without a band or backup musicians (Johnnie Johnson quit the band in 1973), the pickup musicians he played with in each town were simply expected to know his repertoire—and they did. His influence was so entrenched that many consider learning his songs simply part of becoming a rock musician. However, this insistence on traveling without a band and playing with pickup musicians he often had not met, and almost
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never practiced with, contributed to a reputation for erratic live shows and for being difficult to work with. Berry’s reputation for being difficult to work with also is in part due to the legal battles he has been involved with—battles involving both his music career and other aspects of his life. These legal issues affected him both personally and as a businessman. Notable battles involving his music include a three-decade battle to reclaim the full rights to ‘‘Maybellene,’’ a battle with the Beach Boys over ‘‘Surfin’ U.S.A,’’ and a lawsuit brought by Johnnie Johnson over royalties and composing credits. The battle for the rights to ‘‘Maybellene’’ stemmed from a deal Chess made without Berry’s knowledge. Deejay Alan Freed (1921–1965) and the landlord of the Chess office, Russ Fratto, both received song-writing credit and royalties. The deal made with Freed was a form of payola and helped garner airplay for the single. In fact, Freed played the song for two hours one night on his show on radio station WINS in New York. After the legal battle, Berry won the full song-writing credit, but his view of the business and how to do business without being taken advantage of soured. In the 1960s, Berry successfully showed how ‘‘Surfin’ U.S.A.,’’ originally credited to Brian Wilson, had taken the melody and rhythm from Berry’s ‘‘Sweet Little Sixteen’’ and added new lyrics. Berry was eventually given song-writing credit. In 2000, Johnnie Johnson sued Berry seeking a share of the royalties and co-composing credit for dozens of songs, including the hits ‘‘Sweet Little Sixteen’’ and ‘‘No Particular Place to Go.’’ The songs had been credited to Berry alone. The lawsuit was dismissed by the judge on the grounds that too much time had passed between when the songs were written and when the suit was brought. These experiences, combined with an early experience with a crooked manager, contributed to Berry’s insistence on managing his affairs closely, being paid before appearances, and adhering strictly to contract stipulations like performance length. Berry has faced other types of legal troubles since early in his life. When he was 17, Berry was convicted, with two friends, of armed robbery. He was sentenced to 10 years and served his time at a youth reformatory until he was released on his 21st birthday. His most serious criminal charge was in the 1960s. In 1961, Berry was convicted of violating the Mann Act and was sentenced to three years in federal prison and a fine. The charges stemmed from an incident involving 14year-old Janice Norine Escalanti, a minor whom Berry had employed as a hatcheck girl in his St. Louis Club Bandstand. Berry had met Escalanti who was from Yuma, Arizona, in Juarez, Mexico, and invited her to work for him in the club. He soon fired Escalanti, and when she complained to police, Berry was charged under the Mann Act’s prohibition on taking girls across state lines for prostitution or other ‘‘immoral purposes.’’ Berry was actually tried twice; the first conviction was thrown out on appeal due to the presiding judge’s racial comments during the trial, but the second trial upheld the conviction. Berry served 20 months and was released in October 1963. Many now view these as trumped-up charges based in large part on racism. During his imprisonment, Berry continued to write songs, such as ‘‘Nadine’’ and ‘‘No Particular Place to Go,’’ which were both hits in 1964. In 1979, Berry was convicted of tax evasion and served a five-month
Big Bands | 53 sentence. The tax evasion investigation stemmed in part from Berry’s practice of demanding to be paid in cash for his appearances. Berry’s most recent legal trouble was a class action lawsuit in 1990 brought by women who claimed that Berry had been filming them without their knowledge in the bathrooms at his restaurant The Southern Air and at his amusement park Berryland (which he opened in 1961). He settled out of court with the suit’s 59 plaintiffs. Despite these issues, the damage to his reputation caused by the erratic quality of his live shows, and his reputation for being somewhat moody and difficult and demanding to work with, Berry has achieved many honors and awards. In 1979, just days before being sentenced in the tax evasion case, Berry played at the White House at the invitation of President Jimmy Carter in a celebration of the Black Music Association. He received the 1984 Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award, and in 1987 he was given a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. In 1986, Berry was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in its first group of inductees. He played for President’s Clinton inauguration in 1993 and was a Kennedy Center honoree in 2000. Berry’s innovative style, clever and playful lyrics, and ability to shatter the race divide to reach white and black audiences profoundly affected the history of American music and American culture by ushering in the age of rock ’n’ roll. His musical and lyrical influence reaches down the generations of rock musicians, and his focus on teen life helped create an enduring American youth culture. While it is difficult to sum up the career of the father or prime minister of rock ’n’ roll, John Lennon probably came the closest when he said: ‘‘If you tried to give rock ’n’ roll another name, you might call it ‘Chuck Berry’’’ (Kennedy Center 2010). See also
Appropriation of African American Music; Rock ’n’ Roll. Further Reading
Berry, Chuck. Chuck Berry: The Autobiography. New York, Random House, 1989. The Kennedy Center. ‘‘Kennedy Center: Biographical information for Chuck Berry.’’ The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts. At www.kennedy-center.org/ calendar/index.cfm?fuseaction¼showIndividual&entity_id¼3699&source_type¼A (accessed March 12, 2010). Pegg, Bruce. Brown Eyed Handsome Man: The Life and Hard Times of Chuck Berry. New York: Routledge, 2005. Jessica Parker
Big Bands During the ‘‘swing era’’ (roughly 1935–1945) hundreds of big bands, playing in styles both sweet and hot, were active across the United States. They had, on average, about 14 or 15 players who were organized in four sections: a rhythm section (piano, guitar, string bass, and drums), reeds (saxophones, doubling clarinets), trombones, and trumpets. Such bands were that decade’s most characteristic
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musical ensemble. In distinction to the smaller ‘‘jazz combos,’’ who played almost entirely in an improvised manner, the music of the big bands required a greater degree of coordination, and would meld improvisatory passages with others that were strictly written-out, or otherwise ‘‘prearranged.’’ Nearly every leader of a swing-period big band also performed as a player within his ensemble or as its featured soloist. Benny Goodman (on clarinet) and Chick Webb (on drums) are prime examples. Other leaders not only played, but also composed. Duke Ellington, Glenn Miller, Benny Carter, and Artie Shaw illustrate this. On occasion, a leader was a singer—for example, Cab Calloway; on rarer occasions, only a conductor. This was the case with Bill McKinney and with Paul Whiteman in the 1920s, and with Kay Kyser and Jimmy Lunceford in the swing era. During that era, big bands frequently toured, although some in only a limited way geographically. These were called ‘‘territory bands.’’ Many also had regular radio programs—and sometimes these programs had a nationwide audience. Duke Ellington, for example, became widely known during the years 1928–1931 through broadcasts of his orchestra from Harlem’s ‘‘Cotton Club’’—broadcasts that introduced the nation to the remarkable cast of soloists in the band, and also Ellington’s unparalleled genius as a composer. The popularity of these broadcasts prepared the way for his many successful (and wide-ranging) tours in the years immediately following, including tours of Europe in 1933 and 1938. Something similar happened in the career of Benny Goodman. Primed by radio broadcasts, fans went wild when they were finally able to hear Goodman’s band live during its 1935 transcontinental tour. Historians have sometimes found it useful to date the beginning of the swing era to the August 21, 1935, performance of Goodman’s band at the Palomar Ballroom in Los Angeles, so explosive was the crowd reaction. Among Goodman’s major arrangers in the late 1930s were Jimmy Mundy and Fletcher Henderson as well as Edgar Sampson, who earlier did work for his own band and also for Chick Webb. To a large degree, the black and white bands during the swing era were forced to play separate venues. This was due to the chilling presence of Jim Crow laws in the South and ‘‘unlegislated’’ racial barriers elsewhere. This was true even for Ellington, who, more than any other bandleader, created music that appealed fairly evenly across America’s racial divide. So intense was that divide that only the merest handful of swing-era bands dared any degree of integration. Perhaps the earliest attempt was made by Charlie Barnet. The most celebrated effort was made by Benny Goodman, who hired Teddy Wilson in 1935 as pianist for his trio (with Gene Krupa on drums). Perhaps the most courageous act of integration was Artie Shaw’s hiring of the singer Billie Holiday in 1938, and then going on tour with her and the band in the South. The experience was painful for Holiday, however, resulting in her leaving Shaw’s band. Yet despite social barriers, overt or implied, many young white Americans traveled eagerly to inner-city venues to dance to the bands of Count Basie, Jimmy Lunceford, Duke Ellington, and Chick Webb. Thus the big bands were not only significant in the history of music, but also had a role to play in creating
Big Bands | 55 new attitudes in American social life—helping to propel the movement toward racial equality. Among the finest white bands were those led by Benny Goodman, Artie Shaw, Tommy Dorsey, Charlie Barnet, and Glenn Miller. From a sociological viewpoint, it is notable that they tended to have less ‘‘crossover’’ appeal than the best African American bands—for relatively few African Americans were drawn to their music. Ironically, many of these white bands had African American arrangers working for them ‘‘behind the scenes.’’ Fletcher Henderson wrote for Benny Goodman; Sy Oliver for Tommy Dorsey; Don Redman (on and off) for both Tommy Dorsey and Harry James; and the young Dizzy Gillespie for Woody Herman. Benny Carter, who had written for the British bandleader Spike Hughes as early as 1933, relocated to England in 1935, where (until 1938) he was staff arranger for the BBC’s dance orchestra, directed by Henry Hall. Returning to the United States, he led a series of big bands through the 1940s. Whether white or African American, all the major big bands of the swing era had arrangers and composers on staff to create their ‘‘signature sound’’ and to bring diversity to their repertoire—that is, their ‘‘book.’’ Less famous bands, with tighter budgets, often were forced to rely on inexpensive (and often unimaginative) ‘‘stock arrangements.’’ A third option (often favored by African American bands in the Midwest, who were poor yet musically adventurous) was to use ‘‘head arrangements.’’ Never written down, such arrangements arose spontaneously during rehearsals and performances of a piece. Based on audience response, or the approbation of fellow players, various riffs invented in the heat of improvisation would then become ‘‘fixed’’ features in all later performances. This procedure was particularly appropriate for blues-based compositions. Several of the works played by the swing-era Count Basie band were created in this manner, though supposedly the most famous of these—‘‘One O’clock Jump’’—was, in fact, written by Eddie Durham in 1928 (this, according to another of Basie’s arrangers, Buck Clayton). The Basie band was one of the swingingest of the era. Like the Ellington orchestra, which functioned continuously until the maestro’s death in 1974, Basie’s band (with only brief periods of inactivity) also remained popular far beyond the swing era. (Basie died in 1984.) The Basie band was formed in Kansas City in 1935 at the death of Benny Moten. Most of its members, including Basie himself, had been members of Moten’s band, and several others (including saxophonist Lester Young) had earlier been part of Walter Page’s ‘‘Blues Devils’’—another Kansas City band. The characteristic ‘‘Kansas City’’ style of swing music had, in embryo, already begun under Page and Moten. That style was blues oriented yet up-tempo; it was often orchestrated in waves of ever-changing riff patterns. And it tended to be antiphonal: that is, it tended to proceed by having its various instrumental sections in ‘‘call and response’’ relation to each other. Central in establishing that style were two excellent arrangers Moten hired in the early 1930s: Eddie Barefield and Eddie Durham. One way the ‘‘Moten’’ sound and the ‘‘Basie’’ sound differed, was in the strong presence, under Basie, of ‘‘boogie-woogie’’ rhythmic patterns. Other important swing-era Kansas City–based bands were Andy Kirk and His Twelve Clouds of Joy (with Mary Lou Williams as its most important arranger)
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and, somewhat later, Jay McShann’s big band. Charlie Parker, who in the early 1940s would spearhead the ‘‘bebop’’ revolution that would overturn swing, played with McShann as a young man. If Kansas City created one kind of big band—oriented toward the raw energy of popular dance—New York tended to create another: highly sophisticated, and full of surprising and almost ‘‘orchestral’’ color. There were many reasons for this. From the early decades of the 20th century on, New York’s bandleaders (and their musicians and arrangers) often were called upon to do work in the theater and also to provide music for ‘‘more polite’’ dances in ‘‘high society.’’ Jazz was welcomed, but not to the exclusion of other musical possibilities. Thus, for example, Paul Whiteman had a band. A violinist, Whiteman appreciated the power of jazz and tried to incorporate it. He hired the innovative trumpeter Bix Beiderbecke, and later the Dorsey brothers, Eddie Lang, and Jack Teagarden. He also commissioned Gershwin in 1924 to compose Rhapsody in Blue. Whiteman’s was a kind of ‘‘symphonic’’ jazz, and the orchestra was correspondingly large. Bill Challis’s 1927 arrangement of Walter Donaldson’s song ‘‘Changes’’ made use of 19 players (four of them violins) and six singers. African American bandleaders in New York also had a foot in both musical worlds. In the early decades of the 20th century, Will Marion Cook was the composer of Broadway’s first all–African American show (In Dahomey, in 1903) and James Reese Europe was leader of Harlem’s famed Clef Club Orchestra. Both musicians took their ensembles overseas in 1918, and in the process, they raised great interest in Europe in the hot new music coming from America. Cook’s band, ‘‘New York Syncopated Orchestra,’’ included the great jazz clarinetist Sidney Bechet—then just a teenager, but already an awesome musical genius. The Swiss conductor, Ernest Ansermet, hearing Bechet, was so impressed by his improvisations that he compared his creativity and musicality to no less an iconic figure than Bach. The most important New York ‘‘big band’’ of the 1920s (although it had only 11 players most of the time) was directed by Fletcher Henderson. It is hard to overestimate the impact of this band and its music: every important arranger and composer, from Jimmy Mundy to Edgar Sampson to the young Duke Ellington, strove to learn from it. As the great early critic of jazz Eli Siegel said, poetically, in his ‘‘Hymn to Jazz and the Like’’: ‘‘Fletcher Henderson, when you brought scholarship to the new joyous earth-turning in America, you did something for Jazz and destiny’s certificate.’’ The Henderson band hit its stride during the period (1924–1925) when Louis Armstrong played with it and Don Redman was its principal arranger. Armstrong brought his unconquerable sense of swing, which Redman attempted to translate to the ensemble as a whole: at first awkwardly, and then with increasing aplomb. But it was not only a sophistication of rhythm that distinguished the Henderson band. Redman’s sense of harmony and musical texture were highly adventurous. He could begin a piece in one key, and end a distant tritone away—Copenhagen—and still make the whole completely convincing. Together with Fletcher Henderson (who also composed for the band), Don Redman planted the seeds
Big Bands | 57 for nearly all of the primary ‘‘arranging techniques’’ used later by swing-era composers. Among these ‘‘stylistic norms’’ were the following. Few compositions for swing-era big band were ‘‘through-composed.’’ (A notable exception is Ellington’s 1940 masterpiece Concerto for Cootie.) Instead room was made for solo improvisation—sometimes extended, but more often in short four or eight bar units. The rhythm section would play continuously, while the other instrumental sections were placed in contrapuntal relation to each other. Sometimes that relation was of ‘‘call and response.’’ At other times, one section would be assigned the melody; another, the harmony; the third a series of short, irregular figures meant to punctuate the texture and propel the entire arrangement rhythmically forward. Rarely, however, were these roles fixed; a skilled arranger would swiftly reverse the roles played by the various sections, and also make liberal use of ‘‘harmonized soli’’—passages in which a single section would play in rhythmic unison. The lead player would have the melody, and the others, beneath, would provide a rich (and ever-changing) harmony. Redman left Henderson in 1927 and became musical director for ‘‘McKinney’s Cotton Pickers,’’ where he fostered the talent of the young trumpeter and arranger John Nesbitt. Benny Carter became Henderson’s principal arranger in 1930 and was a central force in the perfecting of those patterns of ‘‘big band swing’’ just described. Another important arranger who worked with Fletcher Henderson was his younger brother, Horace. If Henderson’s band set the pattern, Duke Ellington’s exceeded it. Although his band also was capable of powerful and graceful swing rhythms, this was not its sole strength. In keeping with his theatrical experience at the Cotton Club, Ellington explored a far larger emotional range than any other big band composer. He could write a piece illustrating a high-speed train ride (Daybreak Express) yet also communicate the subtlest of blues (Sepia Panorama). He could be driving and harsh (Ko-Ko) yet sustainably thoughtful (‘‘A Sermon’’ from his Symphony in Black), or wryly humorous (Pretty and the Wolf). And he could ‘‘swing hard,’’ as witnessed (among other places) by his 1940 masterpiece Cottontail, with Ben Webster soloing on tenor sax. Throughout his career, Ellington placed a high value on unusual and striking musical colors. At one point, he even made use of the Australian didgeridoo—in his 1971 album The Afro-Eurasian Eclipse. And as early as the late 1920s his drummer, Sonny Greer, regularly would make use of gongs, timpani, tubular bells, and Chinese woodblocks, as well as the traditional jazz drum set. And his trumpeter from the same period, Bubber Miley, was the greatest master of ‘‘jungle-style’’ brass growls and mutings. Without question, Ellington made use of the richest and most diverse harmonic vocabulary of any big band composer; and it is fair to say that no American composer, of any style whatsoever, created a larger body of masterpieces. Among Ellington’s masterpieces are The Mooche, Harlem Airshaft, Jack the Bear, Sophisticated Lady, and Ko-Ko—all in standard ‘‘three-minute form,’’ and the important extended compositions Harlem and the Far East Suite. Together with
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his younger colleague and musical collaborator Billy Strayhorn, Ellington also did a jazz reinterpretation of Tchaikovsky’s Nutcracker Suite. Strayhorn contributed many standards to the band’s book, including its ‘‘theme’’ music: Take the ‘A’ Train. As the 1940s drew to a close, changing musical styles led to a severe reduction in the number of big bands operating in the United States. Even so popular a leader as Count Basie suspended his big band from 1950–1952. Nevertheless, some important leaders at this time deserve mention, including Woody Herman, Billy Eckstine, Claude Thornhill, Stan Kenton, Boyd Raeburn, and Dizzy Gillespie. Gillespie, in particular, attempted to create a new ‘‘bop-oriented’’ big band sound. He also was one of the first to innovate with the merger of jazz and Latin music, and welcomed instruments like the conga drum into his ensemble. Among the many important big bands in more recent jazz history are those led by Tadd Dameron, Gil Evans, Charles Mingus, Maynard Ferguson, Thad Jones, Sun Ra, Toshiko Akyioshi, and David Berger. Many universities also have maintained excellent big bands as part of their education programs, and in recent years, arts centers also have done so. The most important of these big band programs is the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra under the direction of Wynton Marsalis. See also Antiphony (Call and Response); Basie, Count; Bechet, Sidney; Eckstine, Billy; Ellington, Duke; Gillespie, Dizzy; Henderson, Fletcher; Jazz; Mingus, Charles; Sun Ra. Further Reading Berliner, Paul F. Thinking in Jazz: The Infinite Art of Improvisation. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1994. Gioia, Ted. The History of Jazz. New York: Oxford University Press, 1997. Hasse, John Edward. Beyond Category: The Life and Genius of Duke Ellington. New York: Da Capo Press, 1995. Hasse, John Edward. Jazz: The First Century. New York: William Morrow Press, 2000. Schuller, Gunther. The Swing Era: The Development of Jazz, 1930–1945. New York: Oxford University Press, 2005. Shipton, Alyn. New History of Jazz. New York: Continuum Press, 2008. Siegel, Eli. ‘‘Hymn to Jazz and the Like.’’ In Hail, American Development. New York: Definition Press, 1968. Edward Green
Black Arts Movement The black arts movement was initiated as a response to the assassination of ElHajj Malik El-Shabazz, formerly known as Malcolm Little and best known as Malcolm X, on February 21, 1965. Leading artists and black cultural nationalists such as LeRoi Jones and Larry Neal led the clarion call for artists to join the black liberation movement in whatever manner or form they felt able to participate. Institutions such as the Black Arts Repertory Theater/School (BART/S) in
Black Arts Movement | 59 Harlem, New York, stood as testament to artists of various modes of expression joining together in the political, economic, social, cultural, and artistic movement. The movement would diminish in fervor by the mid-1970s as numerous leaders would change their ideology and approach to fighting for liberation. The movement was greatly affected by the closing of numerous publishing houses and venues for the performance and exhibition of the works created during the period.
The Force of Jazz One of the most visible signs of the role of jazz within the black arts movement was the March 28, 1965, live concert at the Village Gate to mark the opening of BART/S. Recorded and released by Impulse under the title New Wave in Jazz, the concert featured the John Coltrane Quartet, Sun Ra and the Arkestra, Albert Ayler, Granchun Moncur, Archie Shepp, and a host of other leading names in black expressive music of the period. During May 1965, Muhal Richard Abrams, Phil Cohran, Steve McCall, and Jodie Christian founded the Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians (AACM) as a nonprofit organization to serve as an umbrella organization for a number of Chicago-based musicians and performance groups. In addition to performing around the Chicago area, they hosted community-based events, taught music lessons to youth, and by 1969, had established the AACM School. Other socially conscious, politically aware and culturally grounded groups emerged or became prominently active (as their origins predated 1965) during the period, including the New York Contemporary Five, the New York Art Quartet, the Jazz Composers Guild, the Jazz Composers Orchestra (later known as the Jazz Composers Orchestra Association), the Underground Musicians Association (later known as The Union of God’s Musicians and Artists Ascension), the Black Arts Group in St. Louis, Detroit’s Creative Musicians Association, the Artists Workshop, and the Organization of Black American Culture.
Concert Music With the Supreme Court decision against the practice of separate but equal, 1954–1955 proved a watershed year in civil rights history and music history. On January 7, 1955, when the curtain rose at New York City’s Metropolitan Opera House (the Met), contralto Marian Anderson (1902–1993) appeared as Ulricha the sorceress in Verdi’s opera A Masked Ball. This marked the first time in Met history that a black singer was cast (dancers appeared earlier). Anderson’s conductor, Maestro Dimitri Mitropoulos, miscued the orchestra, stopped and restarted. The audience gasped. Although years before the black arts movement, Anderson and baritone Robert McFerrin (1921–2006), who was the first black cast in a lead role at the Met, paved the way for other African Americans, such as spinto-soprano Martina Arroyo (1937– ), who sang in Verdi’s Don Carlo (1959); Mary Violet Leontyne Price (1927– ), who debuted as Lenora in Verdi’s Il Travatore (1961); and Jessye Norman, Hilda Harris, Leona Mitchell, Florence Quivar, George Shirley, Seth McCoy, and Simon Estes.
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Although these artists sang European music, a number of black composers who contributed to the black arts movement are worthy of recognition. David Baker, in The Black Composer Speaks (1978) surveys these composers. Chief among them is Thomas Jefferson Anderson (1928– ), who studied with Darius Milhaud, orchestrated Scott Joplin’s opera Treemonisha. Atlanta Symphony Orchestra premiered Joplin’s opera to critical acclaim (1972). Anderson wrote three operas: Soldier Boy, Soldier; Walker; and Slip Knot. Anderson is a prolific composer who writes solo, chamber, and orchestral music. Ulysses Kay (1917–1995) was a composer who switched his major from liberal arts to music, as urged by William Grant Still. Kay’s circle of friends included William Warfield, Mark Fax, Jimmy Rushing, and Count Basie. Kay wrote 140 works for soloists, chamber ensemble, orchestra, concertos, ballets, chorus, film, television, and opera, including Jubilee (1974–1976) and Frederic Douglass (1979– 1985). When he was criticized for writing ‘‘white music,’’ Kay’s uncle, jazz musician King Oliver, defended his right to follow his musical voice. Julia Amanda Perry (1924–1979) taught at Florida A&M University (1967– 1968) and Atlanta University (1968–1969). Her neoclassical music reflects extensive study with Nadia Boulanger (France) and Luigi Dallapiccola (Italy). Perry’s symphonic, operatic, and choral works reveal Greco-Roman, 20thcentury elements as well as African American idioms. Compare, for example, Stabat Mater (1951)—written for Marian Anderson and recorded by Columbia University; Symphony No. 10 (Soul Symphony); an opera Cask of Amontillado; and Four Spirituals for orchestra. Cellist Kermit Moore (1929– ) studied at Cleveland Institute (bachelor’s degree), New York University (master’s degree), Paris Conservatory (artist’s diploma), and Juilliard, as well as in Paris with Nadia Boulanger. He enjoys an international reputation as cellist, composer, and arranger with classical, pop, and Broadway production credits. Moore co-founded the Symphony of the New World in 1964. Dorothy Rudd Moore (1940– ) studied with Mark Fax at Howard University, Nadia Boulanger in Paris, and Chow Wen-Chung in New York. Moore is a poet, vocal coach, and composer who taught at New York University, Harlem School of the Arts, and Bronx Community College. From the Dark Tower (1970) is her Black Power song cycle that uses poetry of Countee Cullen, Langston Hughes, Herbert Johnson, and Arna Bontemps, affirming black creativity, anger, and frustration. Opera Ebony in New York commissioned and premiered her 1981 opera, Frederick Douglass. Moore also was commissioned by Buffalo Philharmonic and the National Symphony. Dorothy and Kermit Moore co-founded the Society of Black Composers (SBC) in 1968 to ensure public knowledge of black composers. Defending their right to compose ‘‘Eurocentric’’ music, the 30-member SBC said, ‘‘Because we are black, we are making black music!’’ Hale Smith (1926–2009) is a composer, SBC member, and Cleveland Institute alumnus—where he received a master’s degree under the tutelage of Marcel Dick. Smith is a gifted jazz pianist who worked with Melba Liston, Betty Carter (recorded his ‘‘I Love Music’’), Dizzy Gillespie, Randy Weston, and Oliver
Black Arts Movement | 61 Nelson. Smith’s 1974 Somersault is a 12-tone staple with symphonic bands. Contours (1961) and Ritual and Incantation (1974) are among his orchestral compositions performed regularly. Smith edited music for E. B. Marks, C. F. Peters, Frank Music, and Sam Fox; served as expert witness in plagiarism lawsuits; taught at University of Connecticut and Xavier University (New Orleans); and was artistic director of Columbia College Chicago’s Black Music Repertory Ensemble. Smith’s spirituals appear on a Deutsche Grammophon recording by Jessye Norman, Kathleen Battle, and the New York Philharmonic directed by Maestro James Levine. George Theophilus Walker (1922– ) and his sister Frances Walker Slocum (1924– ) trained as concert pianists. George received a bachelor’s degree from Oberlin (1941 valedictorian), studied at Curtiss Institute, and studied in France with Nadia Boulanger. On his first European concert tour, Walker became ill. Unable to pursue his piano career, he obtained a doctorate from Eastman School of Music. He held professorships at Dillard, New School, Smith, and Rutgers; all the while writing nearly 100 compositions. His music garnered many accolades including the 1996 Pulitzer Prize for Lilacs (tenor and orchestra). Boston Symphony commissioned Lilacs to commemorate Roland Hayes. Despite a fire that badly burned her right arm, Frances Walker Slocum is a powerful organist and pianist. She received a bachelor’s degree with honors from Oberlin (1945), studied at Curtiss, and earned a master’s degree from Columbia (1952). Slocum taught and performed at Tugaloo College in Mississippi, Third Street Settlement School in New York, Carnegie Hall (on a number of occasions including a Concert of Music by Black Composers), Lincoln University in Pennsylvania, Rutgers, and Oberlin. Olly Wilson (1937– ) spoke eloquently on writing music that is ‘‘not black enough.’’ Wilson’s music includes Sometimes for Tenor and Tape. This arrangement of ‘‘Sometimes I feel like a Motherless Child’’ is a strong example of African Americana meets electronic music. Wilson’s Symphony No. 3: Hold On is based on the spiritual. His music has been performed by Chicago Symphony and New York Philharmonic orchestras. Wilson taught at Florida A&M University, Oberlin, and University of California–Berkeley. Publications crucial to examining black concert music include works by Samuel Floyd (International Dictionary of Black Composers, 1999), Dominique de Lerma (Black Composers Series, Columbia Records, 1972–1978), Eileen Southern and Josephine Wright (Images: Iconography of Music in African-American Culture, 2000), Helen Walker-Hill (From Spirituals to Symphonies, 2007). The leading 20th-century musicologist who specialized in black music was Eileen Jackson Southern (1920–2002). Southern earned a master’s degree from University of Chicago and a doctorate in musicology from New York University under the renowned Gustave Reese. Southern blazed a trail in enthnomusicology, bringing black studies to the fore of several historically black colleges and universities, City University of New York, and Harvard’s music school. Dodd Mead published Famous Black Entertainers of Today (1974) and Blacks in Classical Music: A Personal History (1977) by Raoul Abdul (1929– ). The former profiles luminaries in music,
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dance, film, theater, broadcasting, and recording. Abdul’s publication credits relative to poetry and literature reflect service as Langston Hughes’s assistant. Abdul writes for New York Amsterdam News. Southern and her husband Joseph co-founded the Black Perspective in Music (BPIM) in 1973. BPIM came on the heels of several Southern publications, including The Music of Black Americans (1971). Other titles include Biographical Dictionary of Afro-American and African Musicians (1982) and AfricanAmerican Traditions in Song, Sermon, Tale and Dance (1990).
Sacred Music Louis Armstrong, Ma Rainey, and others established Chicago as home of the blues. Ma Rainey’s pianist was Chicago-based Thomas Andrew Dorsey (1899– 1993). Inspired by the death of his wife and son in childbirth, Dorsey wrote ‘‘Precious Lord, Take My Hand.’’ As minister of music for Pilgrim Baptist Church, he wrote, directed, and nurtured great gospel musicians, including Mahalia Jackson, Clara Ward, Albertina Walker, and the Caravans. Folk spirituals, blues-tinged chords and bass lines, shouts, and glissandi serve as gospel’s foundation. Although Charles Albert Tindley’s 1916 New Songs of Paradise (a 37-song collection) predates Dorsey’s Precious Lord and Peace in the Valley, Dorsey is regarded as the ‘‘Father of Gospel Music.’’ Dorsey’s niece, Lena Johnson McLin (1929– ), cut her musical teeth in his church and earned degrees from Spelman College (bachelor’s degree) and the American Conservatory of Music (master’s degree). McLin worked as composer and choral conductor (Kenwood Academy; McLin Opera Company), mentored Whitney Houston and R. Kelly, as well as gospel, classical, and pop singers. McLin wrote ‘‘Gwendolyn Brooks,’’ ‘‘Free at Last,’’ ‘‘Little Baby,’’ and many spirituals. She is founding pastor of Chicago’s Holy Vessel Baptist Church. Many musicians contributed to the black arts movement canon. The vast roster includes C. L. Franklin, Aretha Franklin, Barrett Sisters, James Cleveland, Betty Jackson King, Noel Da Costa, Roger Dickerson, Howard Swanson, Robert Harris, Yusef Lateef, Rahsaan Roland Kirk, Margaret Bonds, Florence Price, and Undine Smith Moore, as well as many soundtrack composers.
Soundtracks and Theme Songs In 1955 most families owned a radio, yet few owned a television. By 1960, most families gathered around their television sets to watch the Kennedy-Nixon debate, and by 1968, Diahann Carroll made history—portraying a widow, mom, and nurse. Carroll was the first black star of her own television show, Julia. Although preceded by Amos ’n’ Andy (1951–1953), Beulah (1950–1952), and the Nat King Cole Show (1956–1957), Julia was the first television show with a black star. Bill Cosby shared top billing as co-start in I Spy (1965–1968). Other shows include Mission Impossible (co-star Greg Morris, 1966–1973), the Bill Cosby Show (1969– 1971), and Room 222 (Lloyd Haynes; Denise Nicholas, 1969–1974). In 1977, Roots, based on Alex Haley’s novel, was a well-viewed award winning mini-series
Black Arts Movement | 63 with an acclaimed cast of black actors and actresses. It dramatized an American tracing his African ancestry. Roots’ soundtrack was scored by Quincy Jones and Gerald Fried. Other black composers of soundtracks and theme songs include William Grant Still, Oliver Nelson, Melba Liston, and Curtis Mayfield. Liston and Mayfield wrote the Superfly soundtrack. Nelson’s television credits include Ironside, Night Gallery, Columbo, Six Million Dollar Man, Bionic Woman, Death of a Gunfighter, and Longstreet. One composer emerged as the most prolific: Quincy Delight Jones. Quincy Delight Jones (1933– ) is one of the most powerful moguls in 20th- and 21st-century music. He played trumpet with Lionel Hampton and Dizzy Gillespie; studied composition with Boulanger and Messiaen; and led his own band on a European tour that left him penniless and homeless. Vowing never to revisit misfortune, Jones gigged his way back home. Producing the hit It’s My Party (1963) for 16-year-old singer Leslie Gore was a pivot point in Jones’s career. Jones penned 30 soundtracks, including Slender Thread, Pawnbrokers, In the Heat of the Night, Come Back Charleston Blue, Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner? and the Sanford & Son theme song. Years of award-winning hits include collaborations with Michael Jackson, Ray Charles, Ella Fitzgerald, Sarah Vaughan, Betty Carter, Frank Sinatra, Sammy Davis, Peggy Lee, and many more. Jones’s international publishing and production companies issue music, books, magazines, videos, and industrial films. The end of the black arts movement is perhaps marked by the rise of blaxploitation films, a neologism created by fusing ‘‘black’’ and ‘‘exploitation,’’ hence telegraphing the films’ nature. These caricature movies (Coffey, Mandingo, and Welcome Home, Brother Charles) often were produced by whites. Two Renaissance men who affected the film industry as directors, producers, and composers were Melvin Van Peebles (1932– ) and Gordon Parks (1912– 2006). Van Peebles’s first successful movie, Watermelon Man (1970), is about a white bigot who wakes up black. He followed this film with Sweet Sweetback’s Baadasssss Song (1971); but major studios refused to release it. Van Peebles produced, directed, and scored the film featuring Earth, Wind & Fire’s music. Van Peebles’s credits include Sunlight (1957), The Story of a Three-Day Pass (1967), Don’t Play us Cheap (1973), Identity Crisis (1989), Gang in Blue (1996), and Memories of an Ex-Dufus Mother, as well as Broadway productions and an impressive discography. Gordon Parks is known for his arresting photographs that graced Life magazine covers. His motion picture hits include Learning Tree (1963), Shaft (1971), Shaft’s Big Score (1972), Super Cops (1974), and Lead Belly (1976), His documentaries include Soul in Cinema (1971), Malcolm X: Make it Plain (1994), All Power to the People (1996), and Soul Man: Isaac Hayes (2003). Metro Goldwyn Mayer released Shaft (1971) featuring Stax recording artist Isaac Hayes (1942–2008). When Hayes accepted his Oscar, he floated on stage atop a grand piano, head shaved, wearing dark shades and a vest of loosely-woven chains revealing his nakedness: a tacit Black Power statement recalling slave shackles. Hayes reinvented his R & B career and became a crossover artist, composer, actor, and DJ.
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Despite obvious inroads, many black movies flew under Hollywood’s radar. Commercial success eluded Charles Burnett’s Killer of Sheep because it lacked Hollywood distribution and advertising support. Other independent films in this category include Bush Mama, Passing Thru, Luta Continuum, and Losing Ground.
Other Music One white response to black artists’ success was the British Invasion: the Beatles, Rolling Stones, and knock-offs of the knock-offs, such as the Monkees. These groups used R & B and soul as their foundations. As Eileen Southern put it, ‘‘When they imitated and claimed our music as their own we reinvented ourselves; and that is as it should be.’’ See also Appropriation of African American Music; Concert Music—Composers and Repertoire; Concert Music—Conductors and Performers; Jazz; Movies; Television. Further Reading Jones, LeRoi. Black Music. New York: William Morrison & Company, Inc., 1968. Price III, Emmett G. ‘‘Free Jazz and the Black Arts Movement, 1958–1967.’’ PhD diss., University of Pittsburgh, 2000. Salaam, Kalamu ya. The Magic of Juju: An Appreciation of the Black Arts Movement. Chicago: Third World Press, 2007. Southern, Eileen. The Music of Black Americans. 3rd ed. New York: W.W. Norton and Company, 1997. Regina Harris Baiocchi
Black Church Music—History Music of the Black Church: 1861–1919 The ancestry of the black church movement goes back to the 1760s and 1770s when blacks began to respond to the call of religious revival of the period. This movement was the precursor to the independent black church, which included the Black Baptist, African Methodist Episcopal, and Black Methodist denominations. The black church has remained the most important communal institution in the African American community. In 1861, which marked the beginning of the American Civil War, the music of the black church was firmly rooted in American history. The music of the black church may have been quite different based on denomination. For example, black churches that were a part of Euro-African denominations—meaning those black-populated churches affiliated with the Catholic, Methodist, Presbyterian, and Lutheran denominations— concentrated on the authenticity of the musical liturgy of the respected denomination and allowed only music considered ‘‘negro worship music’’ for special
Black Church Music—History | 65 services or events that occurred outside of the regular church service, such as teas or banquets. The structure of the musical liturgy for the Euro-African church was to mirror the music of the European church without much alteration. The independent black church, however, had a different approach to the music included within their church services. The general approach was the outright abandon of the music of their European slave masters and the embrace of music that strictly was created out of their own history and struggle. Music was of extreme importance to the structure of the black church service. The music added balance, allowed for transition for one portion of the service to the next, and aided in the ‘‘movement of the spirit’’ of the congregants. Although the presence of black slaves in North American colonies came during 1619, the first form of black church music did not arrive for another 100 years. The first form of black religious music was the folk spiritual or Negro spiritual. The folk spiritual or Negro spiritual was the earliest form of indigenous music formed by blacks during slavery. This music was sung a cappella and included the melodies, chord progressions, and rhythms of West African music. It also included bible stories and bible verses taught to the slaves during their conversion into Christianity. This music became a mainstay in black church worship as it found its place being sung while the slaves worked in the fields and also was used to send messages to other slaves. For example, if an escape to the woods for prayer and worship was being organized, a voice might begin singing ‘‘Steal Away to Jesus.’’ This particular song also may also been used to tell of a slave’s plan to escape. The words include the following: Steal Away, Steal Away, Steal Away to Jesus Steal Away, Steal Away home I ain’t got long to stay here . . . The Negro spiritual played an important role in the development of black church music as it is seen as the catalyst to all black music both religious and secular. The ring shout or ‘‘running spirchil’’ was a form of the Negro spiritual that included dancing and singing. Although singing in church was common, the practice of dancing in church was practiced almost exclusively by the congregants of the black church. Because of the familiarity of blacks to the practice of song and dance in their cultural histories, the inclusion of dance was commonplace during worship. This was not encouraged by the white Christian establishment of the time and was seen as profane. The music of the ring shout includes repetition of words and melodies, handclapping, and a fast driving tempo. The ring shout was used at the point in the church service were the preacher ‘‘moved the spirit’’ or excited the congregants. The men and women arranged themselves in a ring. The music started, perhaps with a spiritual, and the ring began to move, at first slowly, then with quickening pace. The same musical phrase was repeated over and over for hours. This
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produced an ecstatic state. Women screamed and fell. Men, exhausted, dropped out of the ring. It was a survival of primitive African dance. The arranged spiritual constituted the next form of religious expression of the black church. The arranged spiritual would be pivotal to the church because it stood as the first form of black religious music that would be reproduced as sheet music rather than handed down orally like its predecessor the Negro spiritual. The arranged spiritual gave the black church the opportunity to perform the songs that had become favorites of the black church without the labor of improvisation or guessing the words to the songs. The arranged spiritual was made famous by the Fisk Jubilee Singers beginning in 1871. The Fisk Jubilee Singers were a singing group formed from the black college, Fisk University. The Fisk Jubilee Singers began a fund-raising tour using the route of the Underground Railroad, which took the Negro spiritual from the church to the concert stage. This lead to a greater sense of curiosity about the black church. Harry Burleigh became the first person to arrange the spiritual for solo voice, and he is considered the first black ethnomusicologist, that is, one who studies and preserves the music of a particular culture or ethic group. His contributions to the spiritual cannon have proven to be historical with regards to the preservation of black church music. Thanks to his contributions, the music of the black church evolved into a more structured and programmatic expression with the inclusion of the arranged spiritual on sheet music. The hymn always had been an important part of the American church service. Although the black church rejected many things European within their church services, the hymn was never completely abandoned. A hymn can be defined as a song of adoration and praise to God and derived from the Gregorian chant. These songs, usually written in three- or four-part harmony, were intended for singing among the congregation. The black church, however, used most of the lyrics of the hymns and changed harmonies and rhythms to suit their preferences. These ‘‘made-over’’ hymns were passed down orally from congregation to congregation. Black hymn writers, that is, those trained to write and reproduce music in print, did not emerge until the beginning of the 20th century.
Charles Tindley Charles Tindley (1856–1933) was among the first hymn writers. Born of slave parents, in Maryland, Tindley began his career as an itinerant preacher and camp-meeting singer. In 1902, he founded in Philadelphia the East Calvary Methodist Episcopal Church. Tindley was one of the most noted black hymn writers and is still acknowledged in the 21st century for his contributions to black church music. He also was the pastor of the Tindley Temple United Methodist Church in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Tindley’s gospel hymns defined a new genre with its basis from the Negro spiritual. Tindley included folk images, proverbs, and biblical allusions well known to black Christians for more than 100 years. ‘‘I’ll Overcome Someday’’ is the hymn that was transformed into the
Black Church Music—History | 67 greatest freedom song of the civil rights era, ‘‘We Shall Overcome.’’ Another example of Charles Tindley’s great work is ‘‘Leave It There,’’ which ends with the refrain ‘‘Take your burden to the Lord and leave it there.’’ African American life revolved around the black church, which not only was the center of worship, but also the focal point of all communal activities—social, business, political, and even educational. The church became the pivotal survival institution. The music of the black church has given its contributors the space and freedom to express their historical backgrounds. The beginning of the music of the black church found with it the development of the folk or Negro spiritual, which evolved into a more structured version of itself, the arranged spiritual. The Ring Shout gave black church music excitement and inspiration. The ‘‘made-over’’ hymn continued to reach to the historical past of the black slave and led the way to further development of black church music.
Music of the Black Church: 1919–1942 As the early 19th century saw the evolution of the Negro spiritual within the black church, the early to mid-20th century witnessed the evolution of the hymn in the black church. With the hymn arrangements and compositions of Dr. Charles Tindley having become a mainstay in the church services of the black church, other hymn writers became noteworthy as the ‘‘made-over’’ hymn became a famous component of the black worship experience. Deriving from the Gregorian chant, the hymn evolved into a song of adoration and praise to God sung communally and played a key role in the Christian worship services of most denominations in England as well as America. As blacks came to develop their own churches, the hymn evolved to suit the tastes of the congregants within these black churches.. This style of hymn included the same melodies as their predecessors, but with rhythm variation and the addition of improvisation, these hymns sounded different from the original hymns from which they derived. Charles Tindley, composer of ‘‘I Shall Overcome’’ later rearranged into the freedom song ‘‘We Shall Overcome,’’ made significant contributions to this style of hymn and is noted as the most prolific contributor to the made-over hymn. As the 20th century progressed, this style of hymn became known as the gospel hymn. ‘‘Lift Every Voice and Sing,’’ often called ‘‘The Negro National Hymn’’ or ‘‘The Black National Anthem,’’ was written as a poem by James Weldon Johnson (1871–1938) and then set to music by his brother John Rosamond Johnson (1873–1954) in 1900. Singing this song quickly became a way for African Americans to demonstrate their patriotism and hope for the future. In calling for Earth and heaven to ‘‘ring with the harmonies of Liberty,’’ they could speak out subtly against racism and Jim Crow laws and especially the huge number of lynchings accompanying the rise of the Ku Klux Klan at the turn of the century. In 1919, the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) adopted the song as ‘‘The Negro National Anthem.’’ By the 1920s, copies of ‘‘Lift Every Voice and Sing’’ could be found in black churches across the country, often pasted into their existing hymnals.
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By the 1930s the Negro spiritual had maintained its popularity for more than 100 years and still was highly regarded as a part of the black worship experience. The popularity of the Negro spiritual and the arranged spiritual still held a firm place in the black worship service, and the solo arranged spiritual held a place of pride within the black church services of the well educated. The arranged spiritual also was performed outside of the church on the concert stage by black classical singers, such as Marian Anderson and James Roberson. But a new style of worship music emerged that is firmly planted within the black worship service in the 21st century. This new style was gospel music. Gospel music grew out of its two most substantial predecessors, the Negro spiritual and the made-over hymn or gospel hymn. From 1900 to 1930, three forms of gospel music seemed prevalent: the gospel hymn style brought to popularity by Charles Tindley in Philadelphia, the rural gospel style, and the Holiness-Pentecostal style of the Church of God in Christ. These three styles of gospel music seemed to accompany the church services of many church congregations who moved collectively from the South to the North. The rural gospel style referred to music whose counterpart was rural blues. This music usually is sung by a solo voice and accompanied by a single instrument, usually a harmonica or guitar. It is simple in style with few chord changes and a basic rhythmic structure. Artists who made this genre famous were Blind Willie Johnson and Blind Mamie Forehand. Rural gospel also is called ‘‘country gospel’’ and grew into what is now considered Southern gospel, the religious music normally performed by white musicians of the Southern Christian gospel tradition. The Holiness-Pentecostal style of gospel was created by the newly formed Church of God in Christ denomination, which William J. Seymore started during the early 1900s. The music of this denomination mirrored the Negro spiritual and the ring shout. This music accompanied a style of worship service that was highly spirited and exuberant. Following is an example of a song used in a Holiness-Pentecostal church service. Jesus on the main line, tell Him what you want Jesus on the main line, tell Him what you want Jesus on the main line, tell Him what you want You can call Him up and tell Him what you want The accompaniment was the primary difference between the HolinessPentecostal gospel style and the Southern Negro spiritual. The accompaniment of the Southern Negro spiritual was much less complicated in nature than the highly spirited, polyrhythmic accompaniment characterizing the Holiness-Pentecostal gospel style. Arizona Dranes (1891–1963) was a major contributor to the Holiness-Pentecostal gospel style of music. Her recordings cover the years from 1926 to 1928 and her driving ragtime piano and highly energized vocals envelop the force of the genre of Holiness-Pentecostal gospel.
Black Church Music—History | 69 The 1940s brought with it the popularity of traditional gospel. A summation of secular and sacred traditions of the South, traditional gospel has remained a mainstay of the black church and effectively combined all three early forms of gospel music, including the gospel hymn, rural gospel style, and the HolinessPentecostal style. Although many musicians shaped traditional gospel during its early development, Thomas A. Dorsey is commonly referred to as the ‘‘Father of Gospel Music.’’ Born July 1, 1899, in Villa Rica, Georgia, Dorsey was a leading blues pianist known as ‘‘Georgia Tom’’ earlier in his life. Hoping to earn a living as a professional musician, Dorsey migrated to Chicago. After a life-changing experience, he became the music director at Pilgrim Baptist Church in Chicago 1932. His best-known composition, ‘‘Take My Hand, Precious Lord,’’ was born out of a personal tragedy. Dorsey lost his first wife in childbirth along with their son. The resulting composition remains one of the most famous of all gospel songs. Suggesting its appeal, ‘‘Take My Hand, Precious Lord’’ was a favorite of Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. It was performed at a civil rights rally the night before his assassination and also was performed by Mahalia Jackson at Reverend King’s funeral per his request. Dorsey’s historic song also was a favorite of President Lyndon B. Johnson, who also requested that it be performed at his funeral. Given the extent of his contributions and longevity of his career, which ended with his death in 1993, Dorsey influenced other Chicago-based gospel artists such as ‘‘Queen of Gospel’’ Albertina Walker and the Caravans. Dorsey provided structure for the practice and dissemination of gospel music by opening the first black gospel publishing company. He also established his own gospel choir and served as founder and first president of the National Convention of Gospel Choirs and Choruses. His influence was not limited to African American music, as white musicians also followed his lead. ‘‘Precious Lord’’ has been recorded not only by Mahalia Jackson, Aretha Franklin, and Clara Ward, but also by Elvis Presley, Roy Rogers, and Tennessee Ernie Ford, among hundreds of others. Dorsey wrote ‘‘Peace in the Valley’’ for Mahalia Jackson in 1937, which also became a gospel standard. He was the first African American elected to the Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame and also the first to be inducted in the Gospel Music Association’s Living Hall of Fame. The works of Thomas A. Dorsey may be found in the hymnals of virtually all American churches and of English-speaking churches worldwide. By the 1940s, when traditional gospel took center stage, the music of the black church had experienced a unique evolution that included three unique expressions rivaling the Negro spiritual in church and on the concert stage: the gospel hymn, rural gospel, and Holiness-Pentecostal stylization. Because of the enduring appreciation for Dorsey’s contributions and those of his contemporaries and successors, traditional gospel music has continued to develop since its initial popularity in the 1940s.
Music of the Black Church: 1942–Present The music of the black church has changed drastically over the past 60 years. From the initial incorporation of the Hammond organ by Kenneth Morris at
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Chicago’s Spiritualist First Church of Deliverance in Chicago to the emergence of church orchestras and church worship bands utilizing digital and synthesized sound, much has changed. During the 1940s as Dorsey’s gospel choir and gospel chorale movement continued through the various metropolises, generational battles ensued. Elders not ready to depart from the spirituals, the ‘‘raised hymns’’ and the church music of their generation had mixed feelings for the rising popularity of the blues-sounding gospel of Dorsey. Many churches had multiple choirs to ensure that the diversity of music was used in ministering to the multitude of generations. Senior choirs would often sing anthems, arranged hymns, and other chorale selections, while the gospel choir used the newest sheet music provided through the gospel music publishing companies and conventions. Down South, the traditions of the spirituals and linedout hymns continued as the new gospel sound was a little slower to catch hold. Although numerous quartets and small ensembles arose as prominent fixtures in the community, their contribution to the church often was relegated to afternoon programs as they often were not the main feature for Sunday morning service. During the 1950s, the rise of the gospel choir and gospel chorale continued as the popular sounds of gospel music through recordings and traveling performance groups further influenced the sounds of Sunday morning worship. The church now was firmly established as the grooming ground for young talent who would be faced with the option of whether they would stay within the black church or venture into the music industry to record and perform externally from the church. Many did both, whereas some straddled back and forth between both realms. The rise of the civil rights movement also lead to a unique nationalistic charge that always existed in the performance practice but that now was more apparent in the content and context of the hymns, composed and arranged selections, and the spirituals which often now were lead by deacons at the forefront of the worship service to set the tone and tenure for what was to occur. The Hammond organ as well as the pipe organ continued to grow in prominence within many mainline traditional congregations, whereas the upright piano remained the main instrument of choice in many charismatic, rural, and often smaller congregations. During the height of the 1960s, the black church served as the major epicenter for many approaches to the freedom movement. As a result, many of these churches were bombed, dishonored by violence, and attacked by opponents of freedom and equality. In response, the black church recharged itself through communal and collective singing. Although some of the old repertoire was revisited, many new songs were composed, arranged, and spontaneously created to speak specifically to the times and the tenor of the situation. The music of the black church during the 1960s was a source of strength, a source of power, and a tool for encouraging the populations of individuals (both Christian and non-Christian) who had one eye on survival and the other on hope for a better tomorrow. During the 1970s, as the Jesus movement permeated many white churches, a unique movement of new songs by a new crowd of contemporary gospel composers and artists invoked a new presence within gospel music. The songs of Andrae Crouch, the Hawkins Family (led by Edwin), Thomas Whitfield, and numerous
Black Church Music—History | 71 others were able to integrate some of the current sounds of popular music. This new wave also introduced the electronic keyboard, synthesizer, and electric guitars and other instruments not previously associated with music of the black church into the church. During this period, the compositions and arrangements of Rev. James Cleveland further established the sound not only of the gospel choir and gospel chorale but also of the black church. Many churches moved from sheet music to recordings as source material for Sunday morning worship repertoire. The 1980s witnessed a rise in the growing gospel music industry as recorded gospel music emerged as source material for Sunday worship. This reality further increased the various tensions between the traditional sounds of the black church rooted in the spirituals, congregational hymn singing, and composed and arranged choral selections and the contemporary sounds and performance practices that traded in traditional choir robes for colorful individualistic attire as well as a repertoire that might be heard on gospel radio stations before entering the sanctuary on Sunday morning. Within congregations, tensions rose between various choirs responsible for specific material. As the social, political, and economic context of black life in the United States continued to change, the black church’s ability to cater to the needs of a multigenerational population of varying class, varying political affiliation, and other potentially polarizing determinants became increasingly difficult, especially as new denominational structures and approaches to collective worship emerged. In many ways, these new structures decentralized the power of the church within the black community as realized during the 1950s and 1960s. These tensions were most easily recognized and in many ways sparked by the growing diversity and versatility of black church music. During the 1990s, three major developments permeated the black church: the rise of mass choirs, the transition from deaconate devotions to the rise of praise and worship, and a growing departure from congregational hymn singing as a foundational essence of the Sunday morning worship experience. As the megachurch movement changed the landscape of the black church, numerous churches (mega and smaller) moved toward the mass choir, which often combined the rosters of the various choirs of the church into one. Many argued that this not only removed the diversity of the repertoire but also created less opportunity for the traditional sounds of black church music in favor for the contemporary. Other major changes included the emergence of praise teams as well as the praise and worship section of a service being lead by a new team of worship leaders instead of by the deacons. In many congregations, deacons had represented the traditions of previous generations of the black church. With the rise of the mass choir movement and the praise teams, black churches saw a continued departure from congregational singing. The heterogeneous sounds of the spirituals, the ‘‘raised’’ hymns, and the power of communal hymn singing diminished as congregations listened and were moved by the singing of mass choirs and praise teams. The participatory nature once essential in the black church diminished during this and subsequent periods. The 21st century has witnessed a tremendous departure from the heterogeneous congregational singing that established the black church as a major location for communal singing. The different approaches to worship and the growing
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number of denominations has lead to diminished congregational singing and the usage of hymnals in favor of more musical worship led and performed by small teams of worship leaders. The use of digital accompaniment also signals a tremendous change in the role and function of the church musician. Although many of the churches (both small storefronts and large megachurches) still use musicians, many of the musicians are not as firmly rooted in the historic legacy and expansive repertoire of past generations as previously was the case. See also Black Church Music—Hymnists and Psalmists; Dorsey, Thomas; Gospel Music; ‘‘Lining Out’’; Spirituals. Further Reading Abbington, James. Readings in African American Church Music and Worship. Chicago: GIA Publications, 2001. Burnim, Mellonee V., and Portia K. Maultsby. African American Music: An Introduction. New York: Routledge, 2006. Byrd, Audrey M. ‘‘What We Say in Church: A Critical Analysis of Discourse in an African American Methodist Church.’’ PhD diss., Howard University, 2003. Higginbotham, Evelyn Brooks. Righteous Discontent: The Women’s Movement in the Black Baptist Church, 1880–1920. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1993. Higginbotham, Evelyn Brooks, Leon F. Litwack, and Darlene Clark Hine. The Harvard Guide to African-American History. Harvard University Press Reference Library. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2001. Jefferson, Cleveland, and Verolga Nix, eds. Songs of Zion. Nashville, TN: Abingdon Press, 1981. Lincoln, C. Eric, and Lawrence H. Mamiya. The Black Church in the African-American Experience. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1990. Maultsby, Portia K. Afro-American Religious Music: A Study in Musical Diversity. The Papers of the Hymn Society of America, vol. 35. Springfield, OH: Hymn Society of America, 1981. PBS (Public Broadcasting Service). ‘‘Africans in America.’’ www.pbs.org/ wgbh/aia/part3/ 3narr3.html (accessed on August 1, 2010).
Further Listening Moses, Oral. African American Spirituals.com. www.africanamericanspirituals.com. Petrie, Phil. ‘‘The History of Gospel Music.’’ http://afgen.com/gospel1.html (accessed on August 1, 2010). Shana Mashego and Emmett G. Price III
Black Church Music—Hymnists and Psalmists African American contributions to sacred song literature go back more than two centuries. In 1801, Richard Allen, founder and first bishop of the African Methodist Episcopal (AME) Church, published, and included at least one of his own
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Thomas A. Dorsey at the piano with his band, the Wandering Syncopators Orchestra, in 1923. (AP/Wide World Photos)
compositions in, the first denominational hymnbook expressly for use by an African American congregation. Throughout the 19th century, African American church leaders and hymnists such as Bishop Daniel Payne and Revs. Benjamin Franklin Wheeler, F. M. Hamilton, William G. Rosborough, and William Howard Day wrote within the metrical, thematic, and musical conventions of white Protestant hymnists, such as Issac Watts, John Newton, and Charles Wesley. African American hymns, however, expressed a deeper sorrow and despair, faith, and hope—distinctive responses to centuries of chattel servitude and political and economic deprivation. By the early 20th century, African American hymnists and gospel songwriters such as Charles Albert Tindley, Edward C. Deas, Charles Price Jones, Lucie Campbell, and Charles H. Mason employed everyday vernacular to express the emotions of their forebears and the belief that life in the present could be made better through belief in the power of Jesus. The latter was an important thematic departure from African American hymnody and spirituals, which focused on life in eternity as the solution to life’s travails. As the 20th century progressed, the gospel hymn overtook the spiritual and British hymnody as the preferred worship music in many African American churches. Compositions by Thomas Dorsey, Kenneth Morris, Rev. William Brewster, Roberta Martin, Doris Akers, James Cleveland, Cleavant Derricks, and Andrae Crouch gained such universal appeal that they crossed denominational boundaries. It was not unusual to find the Baptist Gospel Pearls in a Methodist or Pentecostal church, or hear a Dorsey song sung by a Catholic congregation. Gospel songs ultimately were anthologized in denominational hymnbooks, alongside the classic hymns of the past two centuries.
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Mahalia Jackson, ‘‘Queen of the Gospel Singers,’’ practices a new song in her Chicago apartment, August 30, 1955. With no musical training and only a few years of formal education, Mahalia Jackson would go on to perform at the Newport Jazz Festival, Carnegie Hall, and the White House. Jackson was inducted into both the Gospel Hall of Fame and the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, and received a Lifetime Achievement Grammy Award. (AP/Wide World Photos)
Further Reading Abbington, James, ed. Readings in African American Church Music and Worship. Chicago: GIA Publications, Inc., 2001. African American Heritage Hymnal. Chicago: GIA Publications, Inc., 2001. Reagon, Bernice Johnson, ed. We’ll Understand it Better By and By. Washington, DC: Smithsonian Press, 1992. Southern, Eileen. ‘‘Hymnals of the Black Church.’’ The Black Perspective in Music 17 (1989): 153–170. Spencer, Jon Michael. Black Hymnody: A Hymnological History of the African-American Church. Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 1992. Stanley, Kathryn V. ‘‘Our Treasured Hymnals: A Revered Publishing Tradition in Black Religious Music, Started in 1801, Continues Today.’’ Black Issues Book Review, November/December 2004. Robert Marovich
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Black Hymnists and Psalmists: 1861–1919 Black sacred music at the close of the antebellum period included sacred harp singing, music for camp meetings or revivals, an expansion of spirituals, new hymns, and the beginnings of a contemporary sound that was to become gospel. Participation by black worshippers includes the mainstream Protestant, Methodist, Episcopal, and Baptist churches; black separatist mainline churches, including the African Methodist Episcopal (AME), African Methodist Episcopal Zion (AMEZ), Colored Methodist Episcopal (CME), and Primitive and Missionary Baptist Churches; and new denominations, including the Church of God (Holiness) USA and the Church of God In Christ (Holiness) USA. Sacred harp singing, alternatively called shaped-note singing and fa-sol-la singing, began in the 1700s as a response to the poor singing of congregants. Rather than singing by lining out, worshippers were taught four shapes that identified pitch and duration. In effect, congregants learned to read music, rather than to learn music by rote. Africans participated in not only singing hymns and psalms using this technique but also in the development of singing schools that taught the method. Later they also would compose songs in this method. Sacred harp conventions began to appear in the South as early as 1892 throughout Mississippi and Alabama. The earliest identified shape-note hymn compositions by an African American are those of Judge Jackson (1883–1958). In the camp meetings, audiences both white and black of all denominational backgrounds met in communities and in fields to worship together. Evolving as an effect of the Second Great Awakening (1790–1840), and response to the scarcity of churches and pastors, camp meetings and revivals crisscrossed the southern frontier. Itinerant evangelists often traveling in pairs provided biblical teaching through word and music. The songs used were short and repetitive partially because of the illiteracy of the attendees, but also because of the lack of proper lighting and because carrying hymnbooks was prohibitive. Published collections of camp meeting songs began to appear in the 1850s. These collections included the standard hymns of composers like Isaac Watts and Richard Allen, adapted hymns (standard hymns with new lyrics or whose form has been altered, adding a new chorus or refrain), spirituals, and plantation songs. The newly composed camp songs were called spiritual songs. Say Brothers Will You Meet Us offers an example of an adapted hymn. The white song leader, William Steffe (1830–1890) is at times considered its composer at other times only a collector of the song. Its melody with the familiar chorus, ‘‘Glory, Glory Hallelujah’’ became the foundation for one of the favorite songs of the Civil War. Composer Julia Ward Howe (1819–1910) penned the poem The Battle Hymn of the Republic (1862) to be sung to this melody. During the war, anonymous soldiers both white and black added their own verses to this melody, including those that honored John Brown: ‘‘John Brown’s body lies a’mouldring in the grave.’’ Although all camp meetings allowed for a looser organization of the service, black participants expanded on this. Their periods of extended singing included multiples hymns, wandering refrains, song composed on the spot, exhortations,
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and prayers. These upbeat songs were rhythmically close to their dances. At the close of the camp meeting, African campers danced a dance around the encampment. These elements were noted by John Fanning Watson (1779–1860) in his publication denouncing camp meeting practices, The Methodist Error; or Friendly Christian Advice, to Those Methodists, Who Indulge in Extravagant Religious Emotions and Bodily Exercises (1814). With this publication, we have examples of the divergent worshipping styles of blacks and whites in the South. The practices of wandering refrains, improvised melodies and lyrics, sung prayers, dance rhythms, and ‘‘holy’’ dancing followed African Americans from the fields and into the churches. The first collection of revival songs (now termed spiritual songs) by a black editor was by Dr. William Marshall Taylor (1846–1887). His hymnal, A Collection of Revival Hymns and Plantation Melodies (1883), was the second hymnal produced by an African American for African American worshippers. Unlike the hymnal of Richard Allen, whose publication was for the African Methodist Episcopal Church, Taylor’s collection was for black worshippers within the predominantly white Methodist Episcopal Church. The son of former slaves, Taylor obtained his license to preach in 1868 and was ordained in 1872. Members of Taylor’s family and congregation (Union Chapel in Ohio) contributed to the collection, selection, and arrangement of the hymns. The collection was so popular that it sold out in its first printing and was reprinted shortly after. This collection differs from the Allen hymnal in another way. Many of the songs were transcribed from actual performances. Instead of the standard four-part hymn arrangement, most of Taylor’s arrangements were in two-part harmonic form: soprano and bass. In addition to music for worship that was gleaned from folk music, new hymn writers in the style of Richard Allen begin to appear. Rev. Charles ‘‘C. P.’’ Price Jones, Sr. (1865–1949), pastor of the Tabernacle Baptist Church in Selma, Alabama, was one of the new writers who composed music not specific to the Baptist or Methodist ideology. Like many black worshippers, Jones was dissatisfied with both the Baptist and the Methodist denominations, and a new budding path emerged as the holiness movement. This movement was born out of dissatisfaction with the decline of discipline found among mainline denominations. After the Civil War, this movement was revitalized and, in 1867, the National Camp Meeting Association for the Promotion of Holiness was formed. Along with Charles Harrison Mason, Jones founded The Church of God In Christ (Holiness) U.S.A. in 1906, but separated in 1907 naming his denomination, Church of Christ (Holiness) U.S.A. After receiving a call from God to compose hymns as a way to further his teachings, Reverend Jones wrote more than 1000 hymns, including Deeper, Deeper (1900), Jesus Only (1899), and His Fullness (1897). Hymnody traditions in the early 20th century began to deviate from the traditions established by the earlier generation. Composing in a style that presented the struggles and victories of the Christian life in a context that extended beyond scriptural references, Rev. Charles Albert Tindley (1851–1933) provided a blueprint for the emergence of gospel music and generation of hymnists. He
Black Church Music—Hymnists and Psalmists | 77 published his first hymns as early as the late 1890s, premiering them in concerts of sacred music. He wrote his first songs in the 1900s and, following the stream of published hymns, he published a collection of his compositions called New Songs of Paradise in 1916. Some of his best-known hymns include ‘‘I Will Overcome Some Day’’ (1901), a song that, in a revamped form, would serve as the anthem of the civil rights movement, ‘‘We’ll Understand It Better By and By’’ (1901), and ‘‘Stand By Me’’ (1905). In the years following Tindley’s death, the hymnody tradition would develop prolifically with the growing influence of various denominations, especially the National Baptist Convention, USA, which by the early 1900s was the largest black denominational convention. See also
Camp Meeting Songs; Spirituals. Further Reading
Abbington, James. Readings in African American Church Music and Worship. Chicago: GIA Publications, Inc., 2002. Benedict, David. The General History of the Baptist Denomination in America and Other Parts of the World. Louisville, KY: Lost Cause Press, 1968. Crawford, Richard. American’s Musical Life: A History. New York: W.W. Norton and Company, 2001. Darden, Robert. People Get Ready!: A New History of Black Gospel Music. London: Continuum International Publishing Group, 2004. Flucker, Turry, and Phoenix Savage. African Americans of Jackson. Chicago: Arcadia Press, 2008. Freeman, Edward Anderson. The Epoch of Negro Baptists and the Foreign Mission Board. Kansas City, KS: Central Seminary Press, 1980. Johnson, Charles, Patricia Smith, and the WGBH Series Research Team. Africans in America: America’s Journey through Slavery. New York: Hartcourt Press, 1998. Marini, Stephen. Sacred Song in America: Religion, Music and Public Culture. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2003. Spencer, Jon Michael. Protest and Praise: Sacred Music of Black Religion. Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1990.
Further Listening African American Spirituals: The Concert Tradition. In Wade in the Water, vol. 1. Smithsonian Folkways Series ASIN B000001DJE, 1994. African-American Community Gospel. In Wade in the Water, vol. 2. Smithsonian Folkways Series ASIN B000001DJK, 1994. African American Gospel. In Wade in the Water, vol. 3. Smithsonian Folkways Series ASIN B000001DJI, 1994. Yolanda Yvette Williams
Black Hymnists and Psalmists: 1919–1942 During the prewar period, African American Protestant congregations sang traditional hymns by prominent British composers and 19th-century white evangelical hymnists. Particularly in the urban North, many ministers of established
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Protestant churches were so committed to demonstrating that African Americans were an advanced people, intellectually and socially equal to their white brethren, that they replaced the spirited congregational singing of their forefathers with formal musical presentations by senior choirs directed by classically trained musicians. Choirs presented religious literature by Western European classicists, such as Bach, Handel, Mozart, and Haydn. What African American compositions these congregations did sing were limited to spirituals arranged in the Western European tradition by such musicians as Edward Boatner, Harry T. Burleigh, and R. Nathaniel Dett. Methodist churches in particular were woefully out of step with the times musically. Slow to publish new hymnals for their congregations, African Methodist, African Methodist Zion, United Methodist, and Christian Methodist Episcopal church leaders clung to the Wesleyan hymn tradition of the mother church, Dr. Watts’s Baptist long-meter hymns, and compositions by white evangelists such as Philip Bliss, Ira Sankey, and Fanny Crosby. Although classical choral works and British hymns may have appealed to the older African American settlers and staunch assimilationists, they did little for the Southern migrant who sought social and economic freedom in Northern urban centers during the first half of the 20th century. The new city-dweller preferred the Southern folk tradition of spirited, emotional singing. Unmoved by the dispassionate pageantry of senior choirs and soloists rendering highbrow oratorios and arias, some migrants retreated to the local sanctified churches, where spirited ‘‘old-time’’ preaching, praying and congregational singing of the revival hymns were familiar and more spiritually enriching. As the tide of migrants swelled Northern cities, well-established Protestant churches had little choice: incorporate the soul-stirring revival or ‘‘gospel’’ hymns popular with the new settlers, or risk alienating this group altogether, a fatal mistake from an evangelistic and economic perspective.
Charles Albert Tindley (1851–1933) Although the prewar period did not produce the quantity of African American hymnists or psalmists that the late 19th century and post–World War II did, several African American hymnists were popular at this time. One was Charles Albert Tindley. A United Methodist, Tindley was born July 7, 1851, in Berlin, Maryland. He is the author of 50 known hymns, most arranged by F. A. Clark of the African Methodist Episcopal Church. A large number of Tindley’s hymns, especially ‘‘We’ll Understand It Better By and By’’ (1901), ‘‘Stand By Me’’ (1905), and ‘‘Leave It There’’ (1918) became standards in Protestant, Pentecostal, and Holiness churches of the time. Tindley died on July 26, 1933.
Edward C. Deas (unknown–1944) A contemporary of Tindley, Edward C. Deas was a hymnist, arranger of spirituals, music publisher, and music authority for the AME Church. Deas’s hymns, such as ‘‘Big Business in Glory’’ (1921) and ‘‘Shine for Jesus’’ (1925), reflect the simplicity
Black Church Music—Hymnists and Psalmists | 79 and usage of common language characteristic of the 19th-century revival hymn. Deas also wrote the book Songs and Spirituals of Negro Composition (1928).
Charles H. Pace (1886–1963) Born in Atlanta, Georgia on August 4, 1886, Charles Henry Pace worked as an arranger for Chicago’s first African American publishing company, Lillian M. Bowles’s Music House. In addition to arranging the work of other hymnists and songwriters, Pace wrote his own sacred and secular compositions. He eventually left Bowles to focus on his own music studio, the Pace Music House (later the Old Ship of Zion Music Company). In the mid-1920s, Pace organized a small, mixed-voice ensemble called the Pace Jubilee Singers out of the Beth Eden Baptist Church Senior Choir. The Pace Jubilee Singers presented programs throughout Chicago, sang on radio station WGN, and recorded dozens of sides for the Victor and Brunswick companies. Although it did not record its founder’s compositions, the Pace Jubilee Singers were among the first to record a Tindley hymn (‘‘Stand By Me,’’ 1928). Pace hit his stride as a composer of religious songs after leaving Chicago to become music director of Pittsburgh’s Tabernacle Baptist Church. Between 1935 and 1958, Pace composed 104 hymns, including ‘‘Bread of Heaven’’ (1941), ‘‘Hide My Soul’’ (1943), ‘‘He is Real’’ (1944), and ‘‘Oh, Yes, He’s Mine’’ (1944). Pace died on December 16, 1963.
Thomas Andrew Dorsey (1899–1993) Born in Villa Rica, Georgia on July 1, 1899, Thomas Andrew Dorsey began his professional music career as a blues and jazz pianist in Atlanta and Chicago. He also served as music director and pianist for vaudeville blues artist Ma Rainey, composed and arranged secular songs, and recorded dozens of blues sides. Dorsey was moved to write his first sacred composition, ‘‘If I Don’t Get There,’’ after hearing Rev. A. W. Nix render E. O. Excel’s ‘‘I Do, Don’t You’’ at the 1921 National Baptist Convention in Chicago. Two of Dorsey’s earliest compositions, ‘‘If I Don’t Get There’’ and ‘‘We Will Meet Him in the Sweet By and By,’’ were added to Gospel Pearls and the National Baptist Hymnal respectively. During the 1920s, Dorsey also wrote ‘‘If You See My Savior,’’ ‘‘How About You,’’ ‘‘Someday Somewhere,’’ and some lesser-known hymns, but for the most part, he remained dedicated to blues and jazz. After the sudden death of his wife Nettie and day-old son, Thomas Jr., in August 1932, however, Dorsey dedicated his life to writing and publishing gospel hymns, and teaching his songs to choirs, groups, and soloists. Dorsey composed more than 800 gospel hymns, many anthologized in hymnals and songbooks in black and white churches worldwide. Some have become religious standards: ‘‘Precious Lord, Take My Hand’’ (1932), ‘‘There’ll be Peace in the Valley for Me’’ (1938), ‘‘Remember Me’’ (1939), ‘‘Hide Me in Thy Bosom’’ (1939), and his arrangement of the spiritual, ‘‘The Old Ship of Zion.’’ Dorsey died in Chicago on January 23, 1993.
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Lucie E. Campbell (1885–1963) Campbell was born April 30, 1885, in Duck Hill, Mississippi. During the week, she taught English and history in the Memphis public school system, but during the weekend, she was a powerful force behind the musical output of the National Baptist Convention, USA, Inc. Starting as music director of the Baptist Training Union Congress in 1916, and sitting on the music committee of the National Baptist Young People’s Union, Campbell had a say about what songs would, and would not, be published in National Baptist Convention songbooks and sung at the National Baptist Convention. She served on the Sunday School Publishing Board Music Committee that released Gospel Pearls. Campbell was also a prolific composer of gospel hymns. One of her first remains her most enduring: ‘‘Something Within’’ (1919). Other popular Campbell compositions were ‘‘Just to Behold His Face’’ (1923), ‘‘Touch Me Lord Jesus’’ (1941), ‘‘Jesus Gave Me Water’’ (1946), and ‘‘In the Upper Room’’ (1947). According to gospel historian Horace Clarence Boyer, Campbell introduced one new song per year at the National Baptist Convention from 1919 to 1962. Campbell died January 3, 1963, in Nashville, Tennessee.
Cleavant Derricks (1910–1977) Born May 13, 1910, in Chattanooga, Tennessee, Cleavant Derricks wrote some of the most enduring hymns of the early twentieth century, including ‘‘We’ll Soon Be Done with Troubles and Trials’’ (1934), ‘‘When God Dips His Love in My Heart’’ (1944), ‘‘Oh and Lord, Stand By Me’’ (1948). He also wrote the internationally beloved ‘‘Just a Little Talk with Jesus’’ (1937), the latter which has been sung by black and white church congregations. Derricks was the first African American hymnist to have his work published by the white StampsBaxter Publishing Company, which released his early hymns in a 1934 folio called Pearls of Paradise. Later, Derricks joined Lillian Bowles’s Music House in Chicago. He died on April 14, 1977.
Stylistic Differences of Prewar Hymnists What distinguished the compositions of Charles Albert Tindley, Edward C. Deas, Charles H. Pace, Thomas A. Dorsey, Lucie E. Campbell, and Cleavant Derricks from British hymnody were the lyrics that spoke of modern society and reflected the everyday language and colorful idiomatic expressions familiar to African Americans. Additionally, British hymns were composed primarily of verses; gospel hymnists incorporated choruses in their compositions, which encouraged spirited congregational participation. Thematically, gospel hymns refashioned Jesus from an authority figure into a friend and protector who helped the common man navigate the myriad challenges of the 20th century. The performance aesthetic of the gospel hymn also varied from the British hymn by emphasizing improvisation as well as the camp meeting tradition of handclapping, extemporaneous vocal shouting, instrumental and rhythmic accompaniment based
Black Church Music—Hymnists and Psalmists | 81 on secular musical styles, and heavily ornamented and dynamically diverse solo singing that was more an expression of a folk preacher’s cadence than the staid English hymn. A business relationship that opened the floodgates for a postwar boom in African American hymnody occurred in 1940 when Sallie Martin and Kenneth Morris established the Martin & Morris Music Studio with seed money provided by Rev. Clarence H. Cobbs, founder and pastor of Chicago’s First Church of Deliverance (Spiritualist) and a gospel hymnist himself (‘‘How I Got Over,’’ ‘‘I’m So Glad Jesus Lifted Me’’). In addition to publishing the works of established hymnists, Martin & Morris gave newcomers a chance to get their ‘‘song poems’’ set to music, published, printed, and distributed locally and nationally. See also Black Church Music—History; Blues; Jazz; Vaudeville and Tin Pan Alley. Further Reading Abbington, James, ed. Readings in African American Church Music and Worship. Chicago: GIA Publications, Inc., 2001. African American Heritage Hymnal. Chicago: GIA Publications, Inc., 2001. Boyer, Horace Clarence. How Sweet the Sound: The Golden Age of Gospel. Washington, DC: Elliott and Clark Publishing, 1995. Carpenter, Bil. Uncloudy Days: The Encyclopedia of Black Gospel Music. San Francisco: Backbeat Books, 2005. Harris, Michael W. The Rise of Gospel Blues. New York: Oxford University Press, 1992. McNeil, W. K., ed. Encyclopedia of American Gospel Music. New York: Routledge, 2005. Morris, Kenneth, and Sallie Martin. Martin and Morris Music Studio archives. Smithsonian Institution National Museum of American History Archive Center, Washington, DC. Music Committee of the Sunday School Publishing Board. Gospel Pearls. Nashville: Sunday School Publishing Board [of the] National Baptist Convention, U.S.A., 1921. Reagon, Bernice Johnson, ed. We’ll Understand it Better By and By. Washington, DC: Smithsonian Press, 1992. Southern, Eileen. The Music of Black Americans: A History: 1971–1983. 3rd ed. New York: W. W. Norton and Company, 1997. Spencer, Jon Michael. Black Hymnody: A Hymnological History of the African-American Church. Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 1992. Tyler, Mary Ann L. ‘‘The Music of Charles Henry Pace and its Relationship to the AfroAmerican Church Experience.’’ PhD diss., University of Pittsburgh, 1980. Robert Marovich
Black Hymnists and Psalmists: 1943–1968 The postwar period witnessed a renaissance of African American hymnody as the ways for which composers gained exposure for their religious songs expanded greatly. Previously, hymnists marketed their songs through sheet music, inclusion in hymnals and song folios, and artists’ appearances. Now, their hymns also could be heard when artists sang them on phonograph recordings and on radio broadcasts. The diversification of marketing resources, along with a general
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postwar religious music boom, particularly in gospel music, sparked an explosion of young hymnists. As the century progressed, a more formal and musically complex African American hymnody developed from the creative minds of the Hawkins, Winans, and Clark/Moss families, and classically trained composers such as Lena Johnson McLin and Margaret Pleasant Douroux. Eventually, ecumenical hymnals were published, such as the African American Heritage Hymnbook, African American Catholic Hymnal, and the Church of God in Christ’s Yes, Lord! These books incorporated the works of hymnists from the Protestant, Pentecostal, Holiness, and Spiritualist traditions, with some compositions becoming standards in white Protestant and Catholic churches, as well. Among the most important hymnists whose creativity peaked between 1943 and 1968, and whose work has been anthologized in latter-day African American hymnals, are W. Herbert Brewster, Kenneth Morris, Roberta Martin, Doris Akers, James Cleveland, Andrae Crouch, and Margaret Aikens Jenkins.
W. Herbert Brewster (1897–1987) Like Lucie Campbell, African American hymnist Rev. W. Herbert Brewster, born July 2, 1897, was a recognized leader in the Memphis religious community. Pastor of East Trigg Baptist Church, Brewster was a prolific writer of gospel hymns and plays. Brewster also hosted a weekly radio broadcast, called ‘‘Camp Meeting of the Air,’’ on Memphis’s WDIA. Like Dorsey, Campbell, and Tindley, Brewster wrote lyrics that spoke directly to the everyday challenges African Americans faced in mid-century America. Not surprisingly, then, the first gospel records to sell a million copies—Mahalia Jackson’s ‘‘Move On Up a Little Higher’’ (1947) and the Ward Singers’ ‘‘Surely God is Able’’ (1949)—were Brewster compositions. Among Brewster’s other gospel hymns are ‘‘I’m Leaning and Depending on the Lord’’ (1941), ‘‘Lord, I’ve Tried’’ (1945), ‘‘How Far am I from Canaan’’ (1946), ‘‘Let Us Go Back to the Old Landmark’’ (1949), and ‘‘These are They’’ (1949). His songs were popularized by the Brewsteraires, a mixed-voice ensemble that performed in churches, auditoriums, and on radio and records; and by the Ward Singers, whose publishing house sold his songs. Brewster died on October 15, 1987.
Kenneth Morris (1917–1989) Kenneth Morris was born August 28, 1917, in Jamaica, New York. He succeeded Charles H. Pace as arranger for publisher Lillian Bowles and, like Pace, eventually left her employment to start his own music publishing business, joining forces with Sallie Martin to form the Martin & Morris Studio of Music in 1940. While Martin traveled the country promoting the firm’s growing catalog, Morris remained in Chicago to handle the business end of the enterprise as well as arrange, co-author, print, and distribute songs by unknown composers who paid a fee for the privilege of tapping the estimable power of Martin & Morris.
Black Church Music—Hymnists and Psalmists | 83 Morris’s most lasting compositions, however, are wholly his own: ‘‘Does Jesus Care’’ (1943), ‘‘Jesus Steps Right In’’ (1945), ‘‘Christ Is All’’ (1946), and ‘‘Dig a Little Deeper in God’s Love’’ (1947). Morris also arranged and introduced the classic hymn ‘‘Just a Closer Walk with Thee’’ (1940). While in Kansas City, gospel artists Robert Anderson and R. L. Knowles heard William B. Hurse sing the unknown song, and brought it home to Morris who arranged and published it in 1940. ‘‘Just a Closer Walk with Thee’’ can be found in the hymnals of many 21stcentury church denominations. Gospel historian Horace Clarence Boyer notes that Morris’s lyrics were characterized by their problem-solution structure: they posed a problem to which many could identify, and resolved the issue with a call to prayer and belief in the power of Jesus. Morris died in Chicago on February 1, 1989.
Roberta Martin (1907–1969) Roberta Evelyn Martin was one of the postwar era’s most popular and beloved gospel hymnists, arrangers, publishers, and musicians. Born Roberta Winston in Helena, Arkansas, on February 12, 1907, Martin was trained in classical piano. In 1932, she auditioned for Thomas A. Dorsey and Theodore Frye to accompany the newly formed Junior Chorus at Chicago’s Ebenezer Baptist Church. While at Ebenezer, Martin became immersed in the embryonic modern gospel music industry. In 1933, she organized the Martin and Frye Singers from male members of the Junior Chorus. She renamed the group the Roberta Martin Singers in 1936. Martin’s most popular compositions—made famous worldwide by appearances and recordings by her Roberta Martin Singers—include ‘‘Didn’t It Rain’’ (1939), ‘‘Try Jesus’’ (1943), ‘‘God’s Amazing Grace’’ (1946), and ‘‘God is Still on the Throne’’ (1959). Her Roberta Martin Studio of Music, organized in 1939, published and sold the work of hymnists whose music was featured by the Roberta Martin Singers. She also published and recorded gospel hymns written by members of her ensemble, including Eugene Smith (‘‘I Know the Lord Will Make a Way, Oh Yes He Will,’’ 1941), Lucy Smith (‘‘He’s My Light,’’ 1951), Willie Webb (‘‘He’s All I Need,’’ 1951), and Gloria Griffin (‘‘God Specializes,’’ 1958). Martin’s compositional style reflected her middle-class Baptist upbringing and her classical training. She developed a delicate and timeless ensemble style that has influenced gospel hymnists and arrangers ever since; gospel promoter and announcer Joe Bostic once described Roberta Martin’s style as ‘‘rich, restful, and righteous.’’ Martin died on January 18, 1969; more than 50,000 mourners attended her memorial service.
Doris Akers (1923–1995) Doris Mae Akers was born May 21, 1923, in Brookfield, Missouri, and moved to Los Angeles in 1945. She sang with and accompanied the Sallie Martin Singers until 1948 when she formed the Simmons-Akers Singers with fellow Sallie Martin Singer Dorothy Simmons. Among the group’s first recordings was one of Akers’s first compositions, ‘‘I Want a Double Portion of God’s Love’’ (1947).
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Akers’s hymns, like Roberta Martin’s, were melodically and harmonically exquisite and steeped in the fundamentals of hymn composition. They were popular with musicians from Brother Joe May to Elvis Presley. Songs such as ‘‘Lead Me, Guide Me’’ (1955) and ‘‘Sweet, Sweet Spirit’’ (1962) have been included in a number of hymnals, the latter even giving title to the African American Catholic Hymnal, published in 1987. Among the best-known Akers songs are ‘‘You Can’t Beat God Giving’’ (1957), recorded by the Caravans, and ‘‘Lord, Don’t Move the Mountain,’’ a hit in 1972 for Inez Andrews. Akers died on July 26, 1995.
James Cleveland (1932–1991) Born in Chicago on December 5, 1932, James Cleveland was an early disciple of Thomas A. Dorsey, singing soprano in the Pilgrim Baptist Church Gospel Choir. The quintessential gospel music impresario, Cleveland wrote, arranged, recorded, produced, sang, and directed gospel music, founded the Gospel Music Workshop of America, and even started his own church, Cornerstone Institutional Baptist Church of Los Angeles. His recordings with Detroit’s Voices of Tabernacle and the Angelic Choir of Nutley in New Jersey in the early 1960s inaugurated a three decades-long era in which the gospel choir regained its position of prominence from the gospel quartets that swept the country during the 1940s and 1950s. One of the most prolific African American gospel hymnists in history, Cleveland wrote approximately 500 songs over four decades, including ‘‘Grace Is Sufficient’’ (1947), ‘‘One More River to Cross’’ (1955), ‘‘Saved’’ (1955), ‘‘Take Me to the Water’’ (1956), and ‘‘Lord, Do It’’ (1967). Every top gospel artist has, at one time or another, sung a Cleveland-penned song, drawn to their simple but emotionally charged lyrics and instantly memorable melodies. Known as the ‘‘Crown Prince of Gospel,’’ Cleveland died on February 9, 1991.
Andra e Crouch (1942– ) A product of the Church of God in Christ of which his uncle, Rev. Samuel Crouch, was an early leader and the first African American preacher to appear on radio. Born Andrae Crouch, on July 1, 1942, in Los Angeles, he transformed the sound of African American sacred music by blending traditional gospel with jazz, folk, soul, and rock. He wrote one of his most popular songs, ‘‘The Blood Will Never Lose Its Power,’’ when he was 14. It was first recorded in the early 1960s by the Church of God in Christ (COGIC), a gospel group that featured Crouch and his twin sister, Sandra. In the 1960s and into the 1970s, Andrae Crouch and the Disciples won over young churchgoers with their secular-sounding, contemporary style. Many of Crouch’s songs eventually became church standards, including ‘‘My Tribute’’ (1971), ‘‘Through It All’’ (1971), ‘‘Jesus Is the Answer’’ (1973), and ‘‘Soon and Very Soon’’ (1976), the latter enjoying tremendous popularity in churches of all races and cultures.
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Margaret Aikens Jenkins (1925–2009) Although she is better known as a member of the Ladies of Song (with her sister Celeste Scott and Robbie Preston Williams), Margaret Aikens Jenkins, born in 1925 in Lexington, Mississippi, has written dozens of sacred songs over a period of 50 years. In Chicago, she and Ollie Lafayette formed Aikens-Lafayette Publishers to distribute their work. The company also had a record label, Mag-Oll, on which artists, including the Helen Robinson Youth Choir and the Meltones, performed Jenkins and Lafayette compositions. Among Jenkins’s best-known hymns are ‘‘A Brighter Day Ahead’’ (1958), ‘‘The Only Hope We Have’’ (1960), ‘‘City in the Sky’’ (1960), and ‘‘A Spring in Galilee’’ (1961) recorded by Mahalia Jackson. Jenkins died on March 6, 2009. Further Reading Abbington, James, ed. Readings in African American Church Music and Worship. Chicago: GIA Publications, Inc., 2001. African American Heritage Hymnal. Chicago: GIA Publications, Inc., 2001. Boyer, Horace Clarence. How Sweet the Sound: The Golden Age of Gospel. Washington, DC: Elliott and Clark Publishing, 1995. Carpenter, Bil. Uncloudy Days: The Encyclopedia of Black Gospel Music. San Francisco: Backbeat Books, 2005. Jackson, Irene V. ‘‘Afro-American Gospel Music and its Social Setting with Special Attention to Roberta Martin.’’ PhD diss., Wesleyan University, 1974. Jenkins, Margaret Aikens. Interview by the author. Ingleside, CA, May 21, 2007. McNeil, W. K., ed. Encyclopedia of American Gospel Music. New York: Routledge, 2005. Reagon, Bernice Johnson, ed. We’ll Understand it Better By and By. Washington, DC: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1992. Smith, Eugene. Interview by the author. Chicago, IL, January 10, 2008. Spencer, Jon Michael. Black Hymnody: A Hymnological History of the African-American Church. Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 1992. Robert Marovich
Black Hymnists and Psalmists: 1968–Present A number of gospel music scholars and enthusiasts consider Edwin Hawkins’s 1969 hit ‘‘Oh Happy Day’’ a progenitor of contemporary gospel. Beside the crossover appeal that engaged nonchurch markets and consumers, the song embraced elements of popular genres contemporary with the times. Contemporary gospel is thus considered as post-1970s gospel song that utilizes instrumentations and exhibits attributes of popular musical styles such as R & B, jazz, and funk. This development in the areas of musical influence and performance forces obviously affected performance practice, as a more varied and complex palate prompted modifications in the nature of instrumental accompaniment and the dynamics of vocal arrangements. Along with advances in recording technologies for popular styles during this contemporary period, recordings of gospel music grew and continue to grow in popularity. The recording replaced sheet music and songbooks as the primary
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means of dissemination, but the written tradition of gospel music continued on a smaller scale and still exists in modern anthologies and hymnals. Hymnbooks such as Songs of Zion (1981); Yes, Lord (from the Church of God in Christ, 1982); the New National Baptist Hymnal (21st Century Edition, 2001); African American Heritage Hymnal (2001); and Zion Still Sings (2007) contain songs by contemporary writers as well as traditional songs. Some songwriters recognize the importance of songbooks and folios, as they still are distributed by agencies such as N-Time Music (based in Charlotte, North Carolina). These current hymnals, anthologies, and collections contain works by composers such as Margaret Pleasant Douroux, Mattie Moss Clark, Richard Smallwood, Walter Hawkins, Kirk Franklin, and V. Michael McKay. These artists have contributed to contemporary sacred music songs that traverse denominational lines, move into modern worship motifs such as praise and worship, and afford strong prospects toward a continued black hymnody.
Mattie Moss Clark (1925–1994) Pioneering choir director and composer, Mattie Moss Clark had a major impact on the development of the gospel choir and the gospel music industry on the whole. She began piano lessons as a child and eventually played for Sunday services in Methodist parishes, led by her mother, in her early teens. Through her work in the jurisdictional and national levels of the Church of God in Christ, worship music repertoires and resources expanded, new singers were introduced to gospel music markets, and refinements in choral techniques were explored and accepted by many church choir directors. She is credited with being among the first to record a gospel choir and to exploit the full potential of three-part harmony. According to gospel historian Horace Boyer, she is remembered for ‘‘certain temperamental qualities’’ but still is celebrated as one of the most influential women in gospel music, as practitioners sought her training, direction, and guidance until her death. Artists such as the Hawkins Family (Edwin, Walter, and Tremaine), Andrae and Sandra Crouch, Rance Allen, and Hezekiah Walker are known to have benefited from musicals and other concerts that were under Moss’s direction. She has recorded with James Moore and Vanessa Bell Armstrong, among others. Daughter Elbertina ‘‘Twinkie’’ Clark, of the influential and highly touted Clark Sisters, is a songwriter whose works are beginning to appear in hymnals (‘‘A Praying Spirit’’ and ‘‘I Can Do All Things through Christ’’). Mattie Moss Clark penned more than 100 songs and among the notables are ‘‘Saved Hallelujah’’ (1962), ‘‘Sanctify Me, Holy’’ (1964), ‘‘Praise the Lord’’ (1964), and ‘‘Salvation is Free’’ (1965).
Margaret Pleasant Douroux (1941– ) Hymnist Margaret Pleasant Douroux is a respected leader in the gospel music community. Born to an esteemed pastor, Douroux began to play the piano at an early age. She matriculated through graded positions in the music ministry at
Black Church Music—Hymnists and Psalmists | 87 her father’s church, beginning as an accompanist for the children’s choir and becoming the accompanist for the Sunday School Training Union and the Young Peoples Choir. Her formal education led to the completion of the doctoral degree at Beverly Hills University and a 13-year career with Los Angeles City Schools. A noted composer, performer, and historian of gospel music, Douroux is still in demand as a clinician and workshop leader. A prolific and award-winning composer, Douroux has been recognized by the Gospel Music Workshop of America, Inc. for her outstanding contributions. Her songs have been performed by many notable gospel singers. Among those who have performed her songs are James Cleveland, Shirley Caesar, Keith Pringle, Helen Baylor, Vanessa Bell Armstrong, the Gospel Soul Children, and Kelly Price. Perhaps, her best-known piece is ‘‘Give Me a Clean Heart’’ (1970), which has been included in a number of hymnals. Other noteworthy titles by Douroux are ‘‘What Shall I Render’’ (1975), ‘‘Day and Night Praise’’ (1984), and ‘‘High Praise’’ (1989).
Walter Hawkins (1949– ) For more than 30 years, Walter Hawkins has been in the company of gospel’s greatest songwriters and performers. His first offerings in music ministry came in the late 1960s and early 1970s as a member of his brother’s (Edwin Hawkins) touring group. Upon a commission from his pastor, Hawkins founded the Love Center Church in 1973, and the Love Center Choir recorded its first album Love Alive in 1975. Love Alive was a hit and garnered some crossover appeal. Other significant albums in the Love Alive series were recorded in 1978, 1990, and 1993. Hawkins also recorded with Donald Lawrence and with the Mississippi Mass Choir as guest artist. Although revered as a gospel great, he has remained true to his pastoral calling, expanding the physical space and ministries at the Love Center Church, which now boasts a membership of more than 2,000. Honors for his songwriting and performances include Dove Awards, Grammy Awards (1981), and Stellar Awards. As psalmist, singer, and producer, he has influenced and worked with such notables as Mary Mary, Yolanda Adams, Donny McClurkin, Kurt Carr, Daryl Coley, and Byron Cage. His impressive catalog of compositions includes ‘‘Changed,’’ ‘‘Goin’ Up Yonder,’’ ‘‘Jesus Christ Is The Way,’’ ‘‘Be Grateful,’’ and ‘‘Marvelous.’’
Richard Smallwood (1948– ) Songwriter, pianist, and singer Richard Smallwood is best known for his distinctive compositional voice that blends nuances of Western concert music (or classical music) with the vocal and piano styles of the traditional black church. Smallwood began to play piano by ear at an early age and began to study formally by age seven. He continued his formal education at Howard University and also continued to develop as a gospel musician, helping found the Howard Gospel Choir. The Richard Smallwood Singers were founded in 1977 and their self-titled debut album, released in 1982, spent more than 18 months on Billboard’s spiritual chart.
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Smallwood and the Singers continued to record through the 1980s and into the 1990s with successful albums. In 1996, he formed Vision, a larger choir, and recorded Adoration. Perhaps his greatest song, ‘‘Total Praise,’’ is on this recording. Smallwood and Vision followed Adoration with more chart-topping recordings. Nominated for multiple Grammy and Stellar awards over the past two decades, he offers a consistent, creative voice that remains among the most distinctive in the gospel music industry. Notable examples of his work include ‘‘Center of My Joy’’ (1987, words written by William and Gloria Gaither along with Richard Smallwood), ‘‘The Glory of the Lord’’ (1988, words written by William and Gloria Gaither along with Richard Smallwood), and ‘‘I Love the Lord’’ (1990) and ‘‘Total Praise’’ (1996). These songs and others by Smallwood have been sung by artists such as Whitney Houston, Yolanda Adams, and Donnie McClurkin.
Thomas Whitfield (1954–1992) Affectionately remembered as the ‘‘Maestro,’’ Thomas Whitfield left an indelible mark on contemporary gospel music. Encouraged by his mother and local musicians in Detroit, the young Whitfield flourished early on keyboard instruments. He completed formal music studies at the Detroit Conservatory of Music and became a well-known pianist and organist in the city’s music circles. Whitfield began his rise to national prominence during the late 1970s because of his contributions to James Cleveland but his most prolific period as producer, composer, and musician was during the 1980s. During that decade, he released Hallelujah Anyhow, I’m Encouraged, and . . . And They Sang A Hymn and also collaborated with Vanessa Bell Armstrong, Keith Pringle, Douglas Miller, and Paul S. Morton. In addition to the list of gospel singers he inspired, Whitfield influenced gospel music production. He was among the first in the 1980s to fully explore the possibilities of synthesizers and musical instrument digital interface (MIDI) technology in album production. His recorded virtuosic displays on piano and organ are just as influential for modern gospel enthusiasts and instrumentalists alike. Whitfield’s legacy continues in the 21st century as a number of artists have rerecorded his songs. Among those newly recorded songs are ‘‘We Need a Word from the Lord’’ (Vickie Winans, 2003), ‘‘In Case You’ve Forgotten’’ (Byron Cage, 2005), and ‘‘Nothing But the Blood’’ (Bishop Paul S. Morton, 2006).
V. Michael McKay (1952– ) Much like W. Herbert Brewster, songwriter, essayist, and clinician V. Michael McKay is more known for his songwriting than for his performances. Like many contemporary songwriters who have the resources to create their own ensembles for their music, McKay’s success has come by way of his writing for various artists. He is a Dove Award winner and an inductee in he Gospel Music Hall of Fame. His prominent contemporary work has been recorded by Yolanda Adams (‘‘The Battle Is the Lord’s’’ and ‘‘Through the Storm’’) and the Gospel Music Workshop of America. His catalog of published work, however, also
Black Church Music—Hymnists and Psalmists | 89 contains such gems as ‘‘The Potter’s House’’ (1990), ‘‘The Lamb,’’ and ‘‘Anticipation’’ (2006).
John P. Kee (1962– ) Considered a leading innovator in contemporary gospel with a traditional sound, John P. Kee has one of gospel music’s most recognizable voices and is among its most talented songwriters. Teaching himself how to play piano at an early age, Kee became a proficient keyboardist. His formal studies include tenures at the North Carolina School of the Arts and Yuba College Conservatory. He honed his performance skills outside the church, as he performed with the R & B band Cameo and jazz great Donald Byrd. Life outside the church brought personal challenges and tragedies to Kee, and he eventually returned to the church. He formed the New Life Community Choir in the mid-1980s, and they served as a test group for many of his original works. A breakthrough with James Cleveland and the Gospel Music Workshop of America Mass Choir in 1985 was the beginning of his being nationally recognized. He released his first album Wait on Him in 1987 and continued to produce a steady stream of successful albums as a solo artist and with the Victory in Praise Seminar Mass Choir. Kee was most prolific during the 1990s, and his string of outstanding recordings included Wash Me (1991), Never Shall Forget (1991), We Walk By Faith (1992), Show Up (1995), Stand (1996), Strength (1997), and Not Guilty (2000). These recordings contain such mainstays as ‘‘Stand,’’ ‘‘He’s Able,’’ ‘‘It Will Be Alright,’’ and ‘‘Jesus Is Real.’’ Kee is the senior pastor of the New Life Christian Center in Charlotte, North Carolina, and continues to produce quality work that is respected throughout the gospel music industry.
Kirk Franklin (1970– ) As the leading voice in contemporary gospel music, Kirk Franklin has made a significant impact on sacred music as a producer and songwriter. Realizing his talents at an early age, he was ‘‘minister of music’’ at his church by age 11. Following an early teen period of being away from the church, he returned during his late teens and seriously focused on music. Although the traditional sounds of the church were in his heart, the secular sounds of the day were in his ear, as he was influenced by pop, rock, and R & B artists. He assembled a band and choir in the early 1990s, the Family, and they released Kirk Franklin and the Family in 1993. The hit single ‘‘Why We Sing’’ crossed over to secular markets and received much airplay on R & B stations. Crossover success continued into Franklin’s next ensemble venture, God’s Property. God’s Property from Kirk Franklin’s Nu Nation topped the charts with the 1997 hit single ‘‘Stomp.’’ While he enjoyed success in the mainstream, Franklin’s work was met with some resistance by more traditional voices in the church and industry. The resistance was more an issue of method than message, as Franklin used hip hop, rap, and other secular forms as the backboard for his message. Just as Dorsey and Hawkins withstood opposition, however, so too did Franklin.
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As a solo artist, Franklin’s stature as a leading figure in gospel remains in tact. Sensational projects, such as The Nu Nation Project, The Rebirth of Kirk Franklin, and Hero, reveal his relevancy for younger generations, and he has collaborated with popular and gospel artists such as Shirley Caesar, Rance Allen, Donnie McClurkin, Mary J. Blige, Bono, and Fred Hammond. A multiple Grammy, Dove, and Stellar award winner, Franklin’s notable compositions include ‘‘Till We Meet Again’’ (1992), ‘‘Now Behold the Lamb’’ (1995), ‘‘My Life Is In Your Hands’’ (1996), and ‘‘Hosanna’’ (2001). Other notable contemporary gospel songwriters include Kurt Carr, Byron Cage, Shirley Caesar, Smokie Norful, Donald Lawrence, and Marvin Sapp. These artists, among others, find their inspiration in both the traditional styles of church music and popular music sources, such as rock and hip hop. African Americans also have contributed significantly to contemporary Christian music, which is delineated from gospel because of its strong allegiance to pop and rock styles, industry designation, and its mostly nonblack consumer market. Among the notable contributors are Ron Kenoly, Alvin Slaughter, and Nicole C. Mullen. See also Black Church Music—History; Funk; Jazz; R & B (Rhythm and Blues). Further Reading Boyer, Horace. How Sweet the Sound: The Golden Age of Gospel. Washington, DC: Elliot and Clark Publishing, 1995. Burnim, Melonie, ‘‘Gospel.’’ In African American Music: An Introduction, edited by Mellonee V. Burnim and Portia K. Maultsby, 73–77. New York: Routledge Taylor and Francis Group, 2006. Carpenter, Bil. Uncloudy Days: The Gospel Music Encyclopedia. San Francisco: Back Beat Books, 2005. Darden, Robert. People Get Ready: A New History of Gospel Music. New York: Continuum International Publishing Group, 2004. Franklin, Kirk, and Jim Nelson Black. Church Boy. Nashville: Word Publishers, 1998. McNeil, W. K. Encyclopedia of American Gospel Music. New York: Routledge Press, 2005.
Black Hymnists and Psalmists: Conventions, Associations, and Societies The music divisions and conventions of several Protestant denominations and gospel music conventions provide opportunities for African American hymnists and psalmists to demonstrate their latest compositions. Among other activities, these events bring together songwriters with a ready-made audience for whom to demonstrate their latest compositions. Ministers of music, choir directors, singers, groups, and musicians travel across the country and around the world to attend the conventions, learn new songs, and teach these songs to their choirs, congregations, and groups. The best hymns and psalms make their way from church to church, with some becoming national hits and even standards as a result.
Black Church Music—Hymnists and Psalmists | 91 Although diverse in structure and purpose, these organizations share several common characteristics: they meet regularly, provide workshops and performance opportunities for new hymns and psalms to be heard, encourage attendees to teach the songs to their local chapter and congregation, and make live performances of mass choirs and soloists available in recorded and sheet music formats.
National Association of Negro Musicians, Inc. The National Association of Negro Musicians, Inc. (NANM) is, according to the organization’s promotional materials, the ‘‘country’s oldest organization dedicated to the preservation, encouragement and advocacy of all genres of the music of African Americans.’’ Founded in Chicago in 1919, the NANM facilitates the exchange of ideas and musical works among African American musicians and music teachers, especially those who work within the classical music tradition. Its early membership included several musicians who arranged, taught, and conducted sacred music: arrangers of spirituals John W. Work, R. Nathaniel Dett, and Edward Boatner; and Professor J. Wesley Jones (NANM president, 1928–1930), director of Chicago’s award-winning Metropolitan Community Church Choir. For the price of annual membership—a mere $5 in the beginning—African American church musicians, hymnists, and arrangers working within established Protestant churches can share their compositions with classically trained musicians throughout the country. An annual convention brings together the best and brightest African American musical talent for solo, ensemble, choral, and instrumental performances.
National Baptist Convention USA, Inc. The National Baptist Convention USA, Inc. is the oldest and largest religious convocation of African Americans in the United States, with an estimated membership of 7.5 million. It was formed in 1895 from a merger of separate Baptist conventions. Held annually in a different city, the convention is part religious ceremony, part educational opportunity, and part social gathering. Under the leadership of gospel hymnist and organizer Lucie E. Campbell, who was named the organization’s director of music in 1916, the National Baptist Convention developed into an indispensable showcase for African American hymnists and gospel songwriters. To ‘‘demonstrate’’ one’s songs, or get them heard at the convention, was essential for a sacred songwriter, especially before the era of massproduced, mass-marketed sound recordings. Campbell herself wrote one song each year for the convention’s 1,000-voice choir. Furthermore, the Convention’s Goodwill Singers, led by Professor J. Earle Hines, traveled the country performing and recording gospel hymns that had earned the convention’s imprimatur. Sometime during the late 1940s, the National Baptist Music Convention, a subset of the larger organization, was launched. If an advertisement in the Chicago Defender for the September 1953 Convention, held in Miami, Florida, was any indication, it was graced by the era’s top African American religious singers
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and songwriters. Composers reported to have attended included Rev. William Herbert Brewster, Geneser Williams Smith, Roberta Martin, Mollie Mae Gates, Clarence Hatcher, and Robert Anderson. Songwriter and publisher Kenneth Morris was executive secretary of the convention at the time. Such a gathering of gospel music luminaries demonstrated just how far the National Baptist Convention had come since the early 1930s, when it initially considered Dorsey’s gospel songs far too modern and secular-sounding for its conservative taste.
African Methodist Episcopal Quadrennial Conference and Music and Christian Arts Ministry The African Methodist Episcopal (AME) Church conducts a quadrennial conference at which music ministers and church hymnists and psalmists collaborate and learn new hymns and arrangements from one another through performance and networking. Resolutions to compile, publish, or update denominational hymnals are made at quadrennial conference business meetings. In addition to the conference, the AME Music and Christian Arts Ministry (MCAM) was organized ‘‘to promote Music and Christian Arts used for Worship in the AME Church, educate the leadership, and preserve the musical heritage and tradition of the AME Church.’’ For an annual membership fee, music ministers receive a membership directory, a subscription to the Journal of Christian Education, and notices about special meetings and workshops for musicians.
Church of God in Christ Music Department and Convocations and Conventions Members of the Church of God in Christ (COGIC) make an annual pilgrimage to the denomination’s headquarters in Memphis, Tennessee, for the International Holy Convocation. Among the convocation’s many workshops are the activities of its International Music Department. During the convocation, as well as at the annual Auxiliaries in Ministry (AIM) conference, COGIC music ministers, hymnists, choirs, groups, and soloists learn new songs, hymns, and arrangements from one another. Perhaps more than any other religious denomination, the COGIC has a high regard for the role of music in worship. The International Holy Convocation reflects this by integrating sacred music throughout its annual program.
Church of Christ Holiness National Music Workshop Each year, the Church of Christ Holiness USA (COCHUSA) conducts a National Music Workshop to teach music ministers an appreciation for the vast hymnic output of its founder, Charles Price Jones, as well as to teach newly written hymns and psalms by emerging composers. Like the Gospel Music Workshop of America, the COCHUSA National Music Workshop produces a live recording of its mass choir and soloists, and provides accompanying sheet music.
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National Convention of Gospel Choirs and Choruses Colloquially referred to as the ‘‘gospel singers’ convention,’’ the National Convention of Gospel Choirs and Choruses (NCGCC) was founded in August 1932 and held its first annual convention in Chicago in 1933. Its principal organizers were Magnolia N. Lewis-Butts, Thomas A. Dorsey, and Theodore A. Frye. Like the National Baptist Convention and the National Association of Negro Musicians, the NCGCC was held annually in a different U.S. city. The NCGCC not only became a gathering of gospel choruses from around the country, but also served as a site for gospel hymnists and psalmists to demonstrate their latest works. If a composition caught the interest of attendees, it would be brought back to churches and taught to gospel choruses throughout the country. This resulted in sheet music sales and, later, phonograph recordings. The NCGCC celebrated its 75th anniversary in 2008.
The Gospel Music Workshop of America Taking plenty of cues from the National Baptist Convention and NCGCC, in which he served as a youth department organizer and active participant, James Cleveland founded the Gospel Music Workshop of America (GMWA) in Detroit, Michigan, in March 1967. The GMWA was organized to perpetuate and promote gospel music around the world. The first division Cleveland created was the Performance Division. According to GMWA historian Dr. Charles F. Reece, the Performance Division gave musicians and songwriters an opportunity to teach their compositions to other gospel musicians and singers present at the convention. In the 21st century, this division encompasses the primary means of disseminating new gospel hymns among the membership: the GWMA National Mass Choir, James Cleveland Gospel Chorus (for traditional gospel enthusiasts) and the Thurston G. Frazier Memorial Chorus (for musicians who can read music and wish to explore works outside of the gospel genre). The New Music Seminar developed within the GMWA was another venue for composers to demonstrate their latest works to fellow gospel music artists and performers. The GMWA presented new gospel hymns and compositions in much the same way as the National Baptist Convention and the NCGCC: members were expected to teach songs they learned at the convention to their home congregations, choirs, and other local singing groups. When the local chapter system was established in 1972, GMWA local chapter representatives and their choirs were responsible for demonstrating new music and arrangements at the annual convention and bringing songs they learned back to share with local groups.
The Music and Arts Seminar and Love Fellowship Conference The first Edwin Hawkins Music and Arts Seminar was held in San Francisco in 1979 to teach musicians the history of gospel music and foster an appreciation of gospel music as an art form. Recordings of the Music and Arts Seminar choirs
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and soloists introduced congregations of many denominations to compositions by emerging African American hymnists and psalmists. In 1988, the Love Fellowship Convention was developed by pastors in Atlanta, Georgia, as an ecumenical platform for fellowship across denominational boundaries. Bishop Walter Hawkins was named to lead this convention. Six years later, the two Hawkins brothers combined their respective programs to create the Music and Arts Love Fellowship Conference. Like the Gospel Music Workshop of America and the NCGCC, the Conference is a formal venue that fosters the sharing of new and old hymnody and psalmody via printed music and performance activities. Further Reading Abbington, James, ed. Readings in African American Church Music and Worship. Chicago: GIA Publications, Inc., 2001. African American Heritage Hymnal. Chicago: GIA Publications, Inc., 2001. African Methodist Episcopal Quadrennial Conference. www.ame-church.com/ Chicago Defender (National Edition). 1953. Church of Christ Holiness National Music Workshop. www.cochusacongress.org/db/ Church of God in Christ. http://cogic.net/ The Gospel Music Workshop of America. www.gmwanational.net/ Harris, Michael W. The Rise of Gospel Blues: The Music of Thomas Andrew Dorsey in the Urban Church. New York: Oxford University Press, 1992. The Music and Arts Seminar and Love Fellowship Conference. http://musicandartslovefellowshipconference.org/recent/ National Association of Negro Musicians, Inc. www.nanm.org/ National Baptist Convention USA, Inc. www.nationalbaptist.com/ National Convention of Gospel Choirs and Choruses. www.ncgccinc.com/site/ Reagon, Bernice Johnson, ed. We’ll Understand it Better By and By. Washington, DC: Smithsonian Press, 1992. Reece, Charles F. The Gospel Music Workshop of America, Inc. Dayton, OH: The Gospel Music Workshop of America, Inc., 2004. Southern, Eileen. ‘‘Hymnals of the Black Church.’’ The Black Perspective in Music 17 (1989). Spencer, Jon Michael. Black Hymnody: A Hymnological History of the African-American Church. Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 1992. Stanley, Kathryn V. ‘‘Our Treasured Hymnals: A Revered Publishing Tradition in Black Religious Music, Started in 1801, Continues Today.’’ Black Issues Book Review, November/December, 2004. Robert Marovich and Horace J. Maxile, Jr.
Black Rock Music Black rock is a genre created by a core of black musicians that invites artistic individuality, exploration, and innovation. The genre is an expression of the hybridity that has came to define a segment of black youth in the late 20th century. Black artists in the 1960s, such as Chuck Berry, Little Richard, Bo Diddley, and Ike Turner pioneered rock ’n’ roll. As the music industry successfully disassociated rock ’n’ roll from the black tradition, black participation in rock floundered.
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Musical group Living Colour. Left to right: Muzz Skillings, Corey Glover, Vernon Reid, Will Calhoun. (Photofest)
Political and social changes in the 1960s and record industry practices continued to assign artists to musical genres based on race. As a new generation of black youth came of age in post–civil rights America, they also became uncomfortable with the narrow boundaries imposed on their creativity by the recording industry. Striving to remain true to the cultural legacy inherited from the 1960s black nationalist generation, while also embracing the full spectrum of the African American experience in America, black rock was born. The core of black musicians that formed the genre sought not only to reclaim the rock genre as a viable form of black expression, but also strove to break free from the aesthetic boundaries imposed by genres and the recording industry. In some ways, black rock could be thought of as an artistic movement in addition to being a genre of music. These musicians define themselves as rockers because they are committed to the genre’s innovation and freedom; they utilize the qualifier ‘‘black’’ to define the locus that informs the music-making process. Valuing innovation and synergy, black rock musicians borrow from jazz, blues, hip hop, avant-garde, and varying rock styles to express themselves in a way that cannot be categorized or confined to any singular genre.
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The term black rock was first used in the advent of the release of James Blood Ulmer’s Blackrock. The music on the album could not be confined to any singular genre. Ulmer used influences of many genres to create an experimental music that was distinctive in its sound. It would not be until 1985, however, that black rock began to be used as a term to define a separate genre.
Historical Overview Labeled as ‘‘race records’’ before Billboard magazine’s renaming of black music to rhythm and blues (R & B) in 1947, the stylistic tendencies of musical tracks held little influence over their categorization. All music produced by black artists was categorized as R & B, which demonstrates the coded social messages that accompany genre labeling. Conveying specific relationships between performer, producer, and audience, genres are embedded with messages from society concerning race, gender, and class. These delineations were used to reinforce racial boundaries and were used to market the music to specific audiences of a particular race. In the early 1950s, the term rhythm and blues was a catchall term for all black popular music. Popular artists of the time such as Bo Diddley, Ike Turner, and Chuck Berry made the guitar the lead instrument, marking a slight departure from previously produced songs. At this time rock ’n’ roll was used interchangeably with R & B to describe the music produced by these musicians. Closely related to other black genres, R & B and rock ’n’ roll was written in form; it typically discussed such issues as courtship, material possessions, and other touchstones of daily life. From its inception, rock ’n’ roll was a genre that grew out of rhythm and blues, although white musicians became the trustees of the genre, such as Elvis Presley and Jerry Lee Lewis. Adhering to both legal and de facto racial policies of the 1950s, record labels sought out white artists who could mimic the black style of performance and marketed them as rock ’n’ roll. The general attitude of R & B was appropriated by white artists who worked to embody the attitude, style, and sexuality of black artists. Through marketing tactics, black-identified R & B was shifted toward white rock ’n’ roll. Elvis Presley was a central figure at the beginning of rock ’n’ roll’s appropriation. As the sound was spread to communities in Europe, youth in England began to play the music and identify with it as well. During this time, the term ‘‘rock ’n’ roll’’ was shortened to ‘‘rock’’ by Rolling Stone magazine in 1969. The shortening of the genre’s name marked a distinct change in the music. As the racial connotations of rock ’n’ roll shifted, the guitar became ever more prominent. Despite any social progressions made during this time, record companies continued to classify music along racially stratified boundaries. White artists were classified as rock artists, whereas black artists playing the same music were still classified as R & B artists. Rock became the center of popular music among white youth.
Jimi Hendrix (1942–1970) Hendrix is one of the most important fixtures in the development of black rock. Hendrix rose to solo fame during the 1960s. Accepted by white America for his
Black Rock Music | 97 talent and showmanship, he was not embraced by the whole of black America because he chose to play a genre of music identified with ‘‘the other.’’ His innovative guitar playing and experimentation with distortion, which mimicked the sounds of the electric blues, symbolizes the cutting-edge work that future generations of black rockers would hope to create. Marginally popular among the black community as a solo artist, Hendrix’s refusal to participate in racial discussion, which dominated much of the discourse at the time, played a role in his limited appeal among blacks. During interviews in which he was asked about how he felt about race relations in America, Hendrix was hesitant to take any solid stance. More focused on music, its universality, and its ability to transcend race and ethnicity, Hendrix differed from some of the more politically charged soul artists of the day. Hendrix’s refusal to be a part of this aspect of the struggle placed him on the fringes of the black aesthetic ideology as contemporary black rock musicians find themselves on the fringes of acceptance because they resist cultural norms that confine them artistically. Hendrix also embodied the belief that the music, like people, should be judged by content and not by ethnicity. Along with Hendrix were such performers as Labelle (Pattie LaBelle, Nona Hendryx, Cindy Birdsong, and Sarah Dash), Shuggie Otis, Sly and the Family Stone, Betty Davis (former wife of jazz musician Miles Davis), and a host of others. These artists performed rock tunes and utilized technology to create new and complex sounds that would be integrated into their music.
Bad Brains and Punk Rock Also important in the development of black rock is the group called Bad Brains. Originally formed in 1979, the Washington, D.C.,-based band members of H. R., guitarist Dr. Know, bassist Darryl Jenifer, and drummer Earl Hudson formed what is considered to be the first hard-core punk rock group. Punk is a style of rock featuring stripped down, hard and fast instrumentation and lyrics geared toward antiauthoritarian ideologies. Heavily influenced by Rastafarianism and reggae, Bad Brains was originally founded as a jazz-fusion band called Mind Power. For many, these stylistic developments are contrary to the black aesthetic ideology. Essentialist notions of what it means to be black prevent many from divorcing narrow definitions of black authenticity and perpetuate the dismissal of the work of black punk musicians, such as Bad Brains. In their vast corpus of work the song ‘‘I Love I Jah’’ (1982) stands as an example of Bad Brains’ effort to produce lyrics that speak specifically to an issue: questioning young black sisters as to why it is so difficult to accept black men such as themselves that do not easily fit the generally accepted code of blackness. Lyrically, the music of the Bad Brains focused on correcting what they considered to be the ills of society and keeping a positive mental attitude. In one interview, Daryl A. Jenifer stated, ‘‘And don’t mistake them for just a band, for they were a clan, always living their daily lives under the premise of PMA (positive mental attitude); concepts derived and practiced by cats like Andrew Carnegie and the Rockefellers during the industrial age.’’
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Living Colour The band Living Colour is one of the first black rock bands to achieve mainstream success. Formed in New York City in 1983 by guitarist Vernon Reid, lead singer Corey Glover, bassist Doug Wimbish, and drummer Will Calhoun, Living Colour grew out of the efforts of the Black Rock Coalition (BRC). They were signed to Epic Records in 1987 and released their first album Vivid in 1988. Living Colour’s music is a blend of heavy metal, funk, guitar-based rock, free jazz, hardcore punk, and hip hop. Their hit ‘‘Cult of Personality’’ won a Grammy Award for best hard rock performance in 1989. They were also named Best New Artist at the 1989 MTV Video Music Awards.
Fishbone Fishbone is a significant band in the development of black rock. The band was formed in 1979 in South Central Los Angeles and was composed of vocalist and saxophonist Angelo Moore (Dr. Madd Vibe); guitarist Kendall Jones; bassist John Norwood Fisher; drummer Phillip Fisher (Fish); vocalist and trumpeter Walter A. Kibby II (Dirty); and trombonist and keyboardist Chris Dowd. The band’s sound combines a blend of funk, rock, ska, reggae, and heavy metal. Performing in clubs since 1979, Fishbone did not release their first record until 1985. Although the band has not won any significant mainstream awards, their contribution to black rock is felt through their notoriety and appearances on popular television shows like Saturday Night Live.
The Black Rock Coalition Founded by Vernon Reid, Greg Tate, and Konda Mason in New York in 1985, the BRC is a conglomeration of black musicians who do not wish to be confined to musical categories established along stringent racial boundaries. In addition to reclaiming the right to rock, the goal of the BRC is to support, promote, and provide venues for the performance of black rock musicians. The organization has grown since its inception and now has chapters in New York and Los Angeles.
Contemporary Black Rock Wicked Wisdom was formed in Los Angeles in early 2003 and emerged as a neo soul, R & B, funk fusion band. The band features Jada Pinkett-Smith (Jada Koren) as the lead singer, along with guitarist Pocket Honore, bassist Rio, and guitarist and keyboardist Cameron Graves (Wirm). Leaning more toward heavy metal in their album releases, the band’s ‘‘Bleed All Over Me’’ made it to number 55 on the U.S. singles charts. Among the most successful 21st-century female rock musicians is punk rocker Tamar-kali. A Brooklyn native, Tamar-kali opened her own production company in 2005 and later released the Geechee Goddess Hardcore Warrior Soul EP. Tamarkali has also been featured on tracks by hip hop artists OutKast and Fishbone.
Black Rock Music | 99 Hip hop artist, spoken word poet, rapper, singer, actor and self-proclaimed black rock musician Saul Williams has been among the most prolific black rock musicians to have emerged in the late 1990s. Williams was born in Newburg, New York, and is a graduate of Morehouse College. In 2001, he released Amethyst Rock Star to much acclaim. Since that time, Williams has toured with rock bands such as Nine Inch Nails, and has performed with hip hop artists such as the Fugees and De La Soul. German-born singer, songwriter, rapper, bassist, and multi-instrumentalist, Meshell Ndegeocello (Michelle Lynn Johnson) is an eclectic musician whose music features elements of funk, soul, hip hop, reggae, R & B, rock, and jazz. Ndegeocello, who was raised in Washington, D.C., was signed to the Maverick recording label in 1993, but parted with the label, in part, because of their inability to appropriately market her music. Of the five releases on that label, each represents a different style, making it difficult to categorize her in any particular genre. ‘‘If That’s Your Boyfriend’’ peaked at number 74 on Billboard’s music charts in 1994. Several other dance hits have been added to Ndegeocello’s list of accolades, including ‘‘Leviticus: Faggot’’ (1996), ‘‘Stay’’ (1997), ‘‘. . . Boyfriend’’ (1994), and ‘‘Earth’’ (2002). One of the few mainstream black rock musicians to emerge in the 1980s is Lenny Kravitz. Born in New York to an Ukrainian-Jewish father and a BahamianAmerican mother, Kravitz debuted in 1989 with ‘‘Let Love Rule.’’ Initially offered recording contracts by multiple labels, Kravitz was asked to change his style because he did not conform to the stereotypes superimposed on other black musicians. Refusing to adhere to industry pressure, Kravitz has earned three gold, two platinum, and two double platinum albums, as well as one triple platinum album to his credit. Additionally, Kravitz has also won the Grammy for Best Male Rock Vocal Performance five consecutive times (1998, 1999, 2000, 2001, 2002). Formed in 1992, in California, by ‘‘MC Gift of Gab’’ (Timothy Parker) and DJ and producer ‘‘Chief Xcel’’ (Xavier Mosley), Blackalicious is a hip hop duo that classifies themselves as black rock musicians. The duo is most noted for their innovative approach to hip hop. Of the three albums released by the duo, only Blazing Arrow (2002) appears on a major recording label, MCA Records. The other two, Nia (2000), and The Craft (2005), appeared on independent labels. Black rock’s influences on hip hop have begun to manifest as such artists as Jay-Z (Shawn Corey Carter) and the Shop Boyz (Demetrius ‘‘Meany’’ Hardin, Richard ‘‘Phat’’ Stevens, and Rasheed ‘‘Sheed’’ Hightower) have released tracks that place hip hop lyrics over rock instrumentals. Jay-Z’s ‘‘99 Problems’’ (2003) features a recurring heavy metal guitar rift that cannot be mistaken for anything other than rock. The Shop Boyz’s ‘‘Party Like a Rockstar’’ (2007) features a heavy hip hop bass line, over an electric guitar, and the song glamorizes hanging out with rock superstars like Ozzy Osborne and supermodel Pamela Anderson, and crowd surfing (which happens when one is raised in the air and passed around by a concert audience). The female presence among black rock musicians continues to grow, with many of the genre’s big name acts being female headliners. Twenty-first-century black
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rock musicians emphasize their mission to reclaim the right to rock, insisting that, because of its roots, rock music is a black cultural product and a viable means of black cultural expression. Black rock stands alongside hip hop as one of the soundtracks of generation Xers (those born between 1965 and 1984). Because it does not lend itself to definition, black rock embodies rebelliousness, innovation, and a celebration of the hybridity that has shaped African American culture. See also Appropriation of African American Music; Funk; Hendrix, Jimi; Ndegeocello, Meshell; Neo Soul; Race Music and Records; Rock ’n’ Roll. Further Reading Crazy Horse, Kandia, ed. Rip It Up: The Black Experience in Rock ‘N’ Roll. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2004. Mahon, Maureen. Right to Rock: The Black Rock Coalition and the Cultural Politics of Race. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2004. Tate, Greg. Flyboy in the Buttermilk: Essays on Contemporary America. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1992. Tate, Greg. Midnight Lightning: Jimi Hendrix and the Black Experience. Chicago: Lawrence Hill Books, 2003.
Further Listening Living Colour. Pride. Epic B0000029GK, 1995. Fishbone. Still Stuck in Your Throat. Ter a Terre (Europe)/Sound in Color (USA) B000PKG7U2, 2006. Bad Brains. Build A Nation. Megaforce Records B000PTYNJ0, 2007. Hendrix, Jimi. Band of Gypsys. Capitol B000002UVX, 1970. Williams, Saul. Black Stacey. Wichita B000ALLLWK, 2005. Brandon Darnell Houston
Black-Owned Music Publishing Companies As the popularity of black music grew in the years following emancipation and Reconstruction, control over the dissemination of that music became increasingly important. In time, many black entrepreneurs turned their attention to the publication and eventual recording of this music. Although recordings became increasingly important in documenting and disseminating musical culture throughout the 20th century, publishing houses were the first to be instrumental in documenting musical trends and disseminating them to the larger public. Although a number of entrepreneurs worked in the 19th century, it was not until 1905 that the first permanent black-owned publishing house appeared. The Gotham-Attucks Music Company not only was significant because it was the first black-owned publishing house, but also was instrumental in moving the focus of black-written music away from the ‘‘coon song’’ stereotypes that were dominant in the late 19th century. The company was the result of a merger between the smaller firms—the Attucks Music Company and Gotham Music Company. The Attucks Music Publishing Company, named after Crispus Attucks, opened in 1904 at
Black-Owned Music Publishing Companies | 101 1255 Broadway in New York City. Shepard N. Edmonds (1876–1957) ran the day-to-day operations, which consisted of a writing staff composed of a number people who had been involved with music and show business for years, including Bert Williams, Jesse Shipp, Alex Rogers, and Tom Lemonier. The Gotham Music Company was started in 1905, but little is known about the company. What is clear is that James Reese Europe, Tom Lemonier, and Will Marion Cook all had some relationship with the company in its short history, which lasted only six months. Of the three, Cook had more of his music published by the firm than any other publishing house. On June 6, 1905, the two companies merged forming Gotham-Attucks Music Company. The company boasted a writing staff, which consisted of a who’s who of black show business, including Ford Dabney, R. C. McPherson, Will Marion Cook, Henry Creamer, Bert Williams, and Jessie Shipp. Although the company signed Bert Williams and George Walker to an exclusive contract that gave them rights over their popular show tunes, the company fought to maintain its roster of songsters and against competing companies who had the ability to publish multiple versions of songs in different formats. Its most productive year was 1908, with a total of 12 copyrights being filed. After that year, however, many of the firm’s biggest names began to disappear from its roster. The company’s last year as a legitimate song publisher was 1911, as the company was sold that year to a song shark that purchased the company’s name to hide his fraudulent business practices with songwriters. The purchase of Gotham-Attucks by Ferd E. Mierisch marked the end of its chapter in African American history. Although the company was short-lived, its cover art made a significant contribution to American popular music culture. Most published black music until this time featured figures that reinforced black stereotypes of blacks as criminals and lazy, among other things. Although many companies continued to publish songs and covers that reinforced these stereotypes, Gotham-Attucks sought to elevate the content and images of black popular songs. One of the most enduring of early black publishing houses was the Pace and Handy Music Company. Founded in 1912 in Memphis, Tennessee, by Harry Herbert Pace (1884–1943) and composer and bandleader W. C. Handy (1873– 1958), the company was instrumental in shaping the blues market in the years preceding the recording boom of the 1920s. The idea for the company originated with Handy’s desire to publish his own works. In 1911, the composer, who is most noted for his early arrangements of the blues, formed Handy Music Company to publish his famous composition, ‘‘Memphis Blues.’’ The success of the work and its dissemination deepened the collaborative relationship between Handy and Pace, which had begun with the writing of several songs. Both took on distinct roles in the company, with Pace providing the money and business contacts and Handy running the day-to-day operations and composing most of the music. The company’s first publication was Handy’s ‘‘Jogo Blues’’ (1913). Less than one year later, the composer’s ‘‘St. Louis Blues’’ and ‘‘Yellow Dog Rag,’’ which would be renamed ‘‘Yellow Dog Blues,’’ would establish the company as a formidable disseminator of the blues. One of the things that helped propel the success of
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the company was the eventual recording of many of Handy’s compositions by a number of bands. In its early years, however, the firm depended heavily on Chicago jobbers for distribution and advertising primarily done through ads in black newspapers like the Chicago Defender. Nevertheless, Pace and Handy Music Company continued to grow in its influence and, by 1917, had earned enough revenue to move to Chicago. But it would not remain there. By 1918, the firm moved again—this time to New York, where it became a specialty house in Tin Pan Alley. It was here that the company cemented its place in music history. Located in the Gaiety Building at 1547 Broadway, the firm’s catalog and notoriety grew. Their publication of Eddie Green’s ‘‘A Good Man Is Hard to Find’’ (1918) became a signature song of Sophie Tucker. The catalog also included Bert Williams’s 1918 recording of Clarence A. Stout’s ‘‘O Death Where Is Thy Sting,’’ which scored big with audiences. Money generated by the recording of many of their publications allowed the firm to once again move two more times in ensuing years. At the height of its activity, the firm’s staff included such notables as composer William Grant Still and Fletcher Henderson, whose arrangements would become the foundation of the big band jazz boom of the 1930s. But, in 1921, Pace sold his interest to Handy and departed the firm to start the recording company Black Swan Records. Handy would continue with the business turning it into a family venture and renaming it Handy Brothers Music Company. Even after his death in 1958, the company continued to operate. Despite the domination of larger, white-owned publishing firms in field of popular music, a number of companies devoted to the publication and dissemination of black sacred traditions dates back to the 19th century. It was during this period that Richard Allen, founder of the African Methodist Episcopal Church, published the first hymnal used by the all-black denomination. While other congregations followed with their own compilations and songsters, few affected black sacred traditions as much as subsequent works released by the Sunday School Publishing Board associated with the National Baptist Convention, USA. At the turn of the century, the National Baptist Convention was the largest of all the black denominations. It sought to define the theological and liturgical order of the church through this entity. But the board’s influence extended beyond the publication of theological materials to include music. One of the earliest publications associated with the publishing board was the ‘‘National Jubilee Melodies,’’ which is thought to date from 1916. But the most significant musical publication of the early 20th century would be Gospel Pearls. When published in 1921, it was the first collection of religious songs to use the term ‘‘gospel’’ to designate a specific genre of music and a different type of performance practice than that associated with spirituals and hymnal singing. In addition to Gospel Pearls, the press also published The Baptist Standard Hymnal (1924; updated in 1961) and The New National Baptist Hymnal (1977). One of the prominent gospel composers associated with the National Baptist Convention was Lucie Campbell (1885–1963), who served on the selection committee for the denomination’s songbooks and hymnals and as music director of the Sunday School and Baptist Training Union from 1916 until 1963. Campbell not only published most of her works through the denominational press, but also allowed the firm to control the rights and profits to her works.
Black-Owned Music Publishing Companies | 103 Other denominations followed with their own publications, including the Church of Christ (His Fullness Songs, 1977), the Church of God in Christ (Yes, Lord! 1982) and the Christian Methodist Episcopal Church (The Hymnal of the Christian Methodist Episcopal Church, 1987). As significant as these publishing firms were in documenting the hymnal tradition in the black church, individual publishing houses, which emerged first during the 1930s, were instrumental in promoting black gospel traditions. These publishing houses not only provided customers with the most current compositions, but also did so more affordably than the denominational press, which focused on costly hymnals. The first influential publishing house dedicated to black gospel music was opened in Chicago in 1932. The Dorsey House of Music was opened by composer and pianist Thomas A. Dorsey (1899–1993), who would become known as the ‘‘Father of Black Gospel Music.’’ The firm’s importance in establishing gospel music as a popular genre increased when he organized the National Convention of Gospel Choirs and Choruses. Until the emergence of Dorsey’s publishing company, the religious publishing industry was built entirely around the selling of expensive hymnals. But Dorsey’s sales of sheet music of the most contemporary gospel songs redefined the publication and dissemination of religious music. The combination of business partner Sallie Martin’s (1895–1988) ingenuity and Dorsey’s grassroots advertising, which included song demonstrators that traveled to churches across the country, earned the composer considerable profits, which he lived on throughout his life. The company primarily published the works of Dorsey, which during the height of its activity amounted to some 500 of the composer’s songs. It was so instrumental in cementing the style and performance practice of gospel music that any song, regardless of author, that mirrored this style was called a ‘‘Dorsey.’’ Although Dorsey’s music established the gospel sound, it was Sallie Martin’s business sense that provided the blueprint for the gospel music industry that would derive from it. The two often disagreed on certain aspects of the business, however, and Martin was known for having a prickly personality. Following an argument in 1940, Martin split from Dorsey and began etching out her own place in gospel music history. Although Sallie Martin was significant in the performance of gospel music in the early years of the genre, she is most known for her role in the Martin and Morris Music Company. In 1940, Martin joined with Kenneth Morris, who had come to the city first as a jazz musician. Health issues eventually derailed his jazz career, and Morris soon joined the staff of a publishing company owned by Lillian Bowles (1884–1949). Hoping to enter the field of publishing gospel music, Bowles hired Morris as an arranger and songwriter. Morris worked at Bowles’s Music House from 1934 until 1940, replacing gospel composer Charles Pace, who launched the Old Ship of Zion Music Company in 1936 in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Morris’s association with Bowles eventually led to him meeting Rev. Clarence H. Cobbs, who was the pastor of the First Church of Deliverance. Cobbs convinced Morris to direct his choir, which led to him meeting Sallie Martin. He and Martin decided to tap into the market of gospel songs and composers that Dorsey’s publishing house ignored. In time, Martin and Morris
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Music became the leading publishing company in Chicago and boasted a roster of songwriters that included Alex Bradford, Sam Cooke, W. Herbert Brewster, Lucie Campbell, and Dorothy Love Coates. Martin primarily promoted the firm’s music by traveling with her singers and performing, while Morris remained in Chicago arranging, composing, and transcribing music. He and his wife Necie managed the day-to-day activities of the company. The company was significant in publishing a number of gospel standards, including Morris’s ‘‘Yes God Is Real’’ (1944), ‘‘Christ is All’’ (1946), and ‘‘Come Ye Disconsolate’’ (1948). During the 1950s, the company changed its name to Martin and Morris Studio of Music and expanded its operation to include music instruction. In 1973, Martin sold her share of the business to Morris, who continued to run the company until his death in 1988. At the time of his death, the company was the only surviving black sheet music distribution house in the nation. Chicago and the surrounding area was also home to a number of publishing houses. Singer and pianist Roberta Martin opened Roberta Martin Studio of Music in 1939. Unlike Dorsey, she published works by other composers, but only those performed by her group, the Roberta Martin Singers. James Cleveland, Alex Bradford, and Dorothy Norwood were among the composers published by Martin. Although she published a number of gospel standards, including ‘‘He Knows How Much We Can Bear’’ (ca. 1941), her most famous publication was the group’s theme song, ‘‘Only a Look’’ (1948). Robert Anderson, an alumnus of Martin’s group, formed the Good Sheperd Music House in Gary, Indiana in 1942 after departing the group to launch a solo career. He published a number of songs, including his compositions ‘‘Oh Lord Is It I?’’ (1953) and ‘‘Nothing Shall Disturb My Faith’’ (1954). As a center of gospel, Philadelphia became home to a significant publishing firm, Ward’s House of Music. Opened in 1953, the company was primarily focused on the production and promotion of the original compositions of Clara Ward and W. Herbert Brewster, two individuals that completely redefined gospel music during the years following World War II. Although the company began as a disseminator of sheet music, it eventually expanded its inventory to include recordings, the first gospel souvenir tour books, and greeting cards. The company’s staff of arrangers included Dorothy Pearson, Berisford Shepherd, and Mary Wiley. Ward’s sister Willa managed the company, which publicized its inventory through performances and circulars. Despite the success of the company in its early years, by the early 1960s the company fell into decline, and it closed in 1965. But the company’s importance in promoting the music of W. Herbert Brewster cannot be overstated. His collaborations with Ward led to him being one of the most influential composers of post–World War II gospel music. Although a number of gospel publishing firms appeared on the west coast and Miami, the scarcity of composers in these areas made these companies dependent upon companies in the Midwest and East for their inventory. Nevertheless, the numerous small publishing houses that emerged out of the growing popularity of black gospel music in the years following World War II were significant in shaping the repertory and performance practice of the music until the focus of the industry moved away from the production of sheet music to recordings.
Black-Owned Music Publishing Companies | 105 The success of gospel music publishing houses also influenced how black entrepreneurs approached the dissemination of black popular music during the postwar years. Many focused their efforts on the recording industry and the growing dominance of small independent labels, but some recognized the importance of songwriting copyrights and the publishing rights of the songs being recorded. One of the most popular examples of this is Berry Gordy’s Jobete Music, which served as the publishing company associated with Motown Records. Formed in 1958, the Jobete Music publishing house extracted its name from the names of Gordy’s three children—Joy, Berry, and Terry—and was founded to oversee the licensing of the label’s songs. It was one of a conglomerate of businesses that controlled every facet of the music, images, and profits generated by the label. These companies included Motown Record Corporation; Hitsville, USA; Berry Gordy, Jr. Enterprises; and International Talent Management, Inc. Artists who signed to the label as performers or songwriters signed agreements for their works to be published through Jobete, which meant that artists who wrote material would have their songwriting royalties used to cover the cost incurred in the production of their records. All of the label’s songwriters, including Smokey Robinson and Holland-Dozier-Holland, were required to sign distribution and copyright agreements with the company, which gave Gordy complete control over the use of the material. Jobete’s catalog grew to be influential and lucrative. All of the hits of the label recorded during Golden Age (1963–1970) were controlled by Jobete. Throughout the 1960s, the company was consistently named Broadcast Music Inc.’s top publishing company and, with the crossover success of Motown, it was one of a few companies not adversely affected by the British Invasion. The company’s policies did not escape scrutiny, however, and eventually artists and songwriters Holland-Dozier-Holland left the label over royalty disputes. Despite the controversy, Jobete still has one of the most lucrative catalogs in popular music history. Gordy was not the only person who understood the importance of owning publishing rights. Artists Sam Cooke and Ray Charles, two of the earliest purveyors of soul music, would form their own publishing companies that would provide them with the autonomy achieved at that time only by a few white performers and a number of black gospel performers and composers. Cooke launched Kags Music in 1958 with business partner J. W. Alexander. Kags along with his record company Sam, Alex & Roy Records (also known as SAR records) would provide Cooke with the control he desired over his sound and image. Most of the songs he wrote between 1958 and his death in 1964 were licensed, with Kags making him the only artist black or white to own his own record and publishing company. Only two years later, in 1960, pianist and singer Ray Charles— who had come to prominence with the Atlantic Record label—created his own publishing company, Tangerine Music. Signed to an unprecedented deal with ABC-Paramount that gave him total control and ownership of his music had sparked Charles’s decision. The creation of the company meant that, unlike his early hits with Atlantic, all royalties from airplay and record sales would be paid directly to Tangerine, thus increasing his profits. Much like Cooke and Gordy,
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Charles eventually expanded his operation to include the Tangerine Record Corporation, Crossover Records, and Racer Personal Management. Although Charles wrote most of his material, he did employ other songwriters to the Tangerine staff. One of the most notable was Percy Mayfield, who had been an R & B artist in the early 1950s but had had his career sidetrack by an accident. Mayfield wrote a number of hits for Charles, including ‘‘Hit the Road Jack’’ (1960, recorded in 1961), which became one of his most requested songs from this period. With his growing popularity and expansion into many different genres of music, Charles became one of popular music’s most influential and wealthy performers. And for years Tangerine generated profits from the use of his music in commercials, radio play, and covers by other artists. Artist-owned publishing companies became a rare phenomenon as the 20th century progressed, but artists like Stevie Wonder (Black Bull Music) and Michael Jackson sought to still control their music through unprecedented contracts. Jackson provides one of the most important lessons about the importance of publishing rights. In 1985, he bought a portion of ATV music’s catalog, including most of the Beatles’ songs. The transaction gave Jackson control over thousands of important copyrights, which generated huge profits for the artist. Although music publishers began as publishers of sheet music for commercial use, by the end of the 20th century, they had become primarily responsible for ensuring that both songwriters and composers receive payment for the commercial use of their music. As of 2010, five companies primarily controlled the licensing of commercial popular music: EMI Music Publishing, the world’s largest firm; Universal Music Publishing Group; Bertelsmann Music Group; Sony/ATV Music Publishing; and Warner/Chappell Music. See also Black Church Music—Hymnists and Psalmists; Black-Owned Record Labels; Dorsey, Thomas A.; Gordy, Berry; Motown Sound; Race Music and Records; Recording Industry. Further Reading Boyer, Horace Clarence. The Golden Age of Gospel. Urbana and Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 1995. Darden, Robert. People Get Ready! A New History of Black Gospel Music. New York: Continuum Books, 2004. George, Nelson. Where Did Our Love Go? The Rise and Fall of the Motown Sound. Urbana and Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 1985. Guralnick, Peter. Dream Boogie: The Triumph of Sam Cooke. New York and Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 2005. Jasen, David A. ‘‘Pace and Handy Music Company.’’ In Tin Pan Alley: An Encyclopedia of The Golden Age of American Song, 305–307. New York: Routledge, 2003. Lydon, Michael. Ray Charles: Man and Music. New York: Riverhead Books, 1998. Reagon, Bernice Johnson. We’ll Understand it Better By and By: Pioneering African American Gospel Composers. Washington, DC: Smithsonian Institute Press, 1992. Shirley, Wayne. ‘‘The House of Melody: A List of Publications of the Gotham-Attucks Music Company at the Library of Congress.’’ The Black Perspective in Music 15, no. 1 (spring 1987): 79–112.
Black-Owned Record Labels | 107 Smith, Suzanne E. Dancing in the Street: Motown and the Cultural Politics of Detroit. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1999. Ward-Royster, Willa, and Toni Rose. How I Got Over: Clara Ward and the World Famous Ward Singers. Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1997. Tammy L. Kernodle
Black-Owned Record Labels Black-owned and operated record labels began to appear in the early 20th century (ca. 1919). They featured recordings of not only music, but also comedy routines and political speeches as well. The labels provide an interesting provocative view into black life, as one can identify the types of recordings that were deemed important to those who produced the recordings and also to the communities that supported the recording companies. Compellingly in contrast to the mainstream white record companies, black-owned record companies typically were staffed and
Mary Wells Two Lovers and Other Great Hits on the Motown label. (Photofest)
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run by active performers, rather than sole businessmen. Their recordings presented more than marketable music, as they sought to preserve the music and spoken words of the black community. Black-owned and -operated record labels, in some cases, also operated as talent agencies and informal music unions. In the 1920s, the popularity of blues spawned the Race Record craze. Black performers, composers, and arrangers participated in the production of Race Records by owning their own labels and serving as music directors and talent scouts for other labels both large and small. Examples of these include the Pace Phonograph Company of Henry Pace and W. C. Handy. Berry Gordy’s Motown and Tamla labels, which became synonymous with the soul-infused pop sounds of the 1960s and 1970s. Seventies soul artists like Curtis Mayfield left their mark on the industry by forming independent labels that produced music with a unique black message. During the 1970 and 1980s, the record industry realized a major increase in black-owned labels. From Malaco records focusing on Gospel Music to Sugar Hill Records leading the rap music revolution into the rise of the hip hop moguls exemplified by the Bad Boy Records (Diddy), Def Jam Records (Russell Simmons), and No Limit Records (Master P), black-owned record labels have taken an increasing position of leadership within the greater music industry. During the early years of the 21st century, record labels are struggling with the public’s increasing accessibility to low-priced, high-impact technology, which enables everyday people to produce and record quality products, in turn making the record labels less and less popular. Yolanda Yvette Williams
Black-Owned and -Operated Record Labels before 1942 African Americans began founding independent record labels in the early 1900s. They relied heavily on the relationships between their music businesses, the composers, and arrangers of the day and black performers. Though beginning in small, cramped spaces, their legacy provides an aural history of black participation in all genres of music.
Broome Special Phonograph Records The first black-owned record label for which we have documentation is Broome Special Phonograph Records, which was organized in 1919. Its advertised location was 23 Clayton Avenue in Medford, Massachusetts. George W. Broome began the manager in charge of sales for Roland Hayes (1887–1977), black concert tenor and original member of the Fisk Jubilee Singers. Hayes sold by mail order the release he recorded for Columbia Records. Broome’s releases under his label originally were sold by mail order through advertisements in black newspapers such as The Crisis: A Record of the Darker Races, the magazine of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NACCP) beginning in 1919. Some of his products were derived from existing masters from the
Black-Owned Record Labels | 109 Gennett (Starr Piano Company) and Columbia Personal Record pressings. His original work includes the recordings of concert artists Henry ‘‘Harry’’ T. Burleigh (1866–1949), Florence Cole-Talbert (1890–1961), and others. Other versions of this label appeared in the form of the Brown Seal Record and one in blue print in the 1920s. Although still in operation in 1923, no recordings produced beyond that year have been located, although surplus pressings were available as late as the 1940s.
See Bee One of the most obscure of the early black-owned record labels is the See Bee label. Organized around 1922, See Bee produced about nine releases. One of the most historic of its releases is the only surviving recording of Marcus Garvey (1887–1940), entitled Explanation of the Objects of the Universal Negro Improvement Association. See Bee additionally issued recordings of Christian music and popular music performed by New York dance bands.
Pace Phonograph Company In February 1921, after having dissolved a partnership with W. C. Handy (1873–1958), Harry Herbert Pace (1884–1943) set up the Pace Phonograph Company. His Black Swan label, named for operatic singer Elizabeth Taylor Greenfield (1824–1876), was organized under the laws of the state of Delaware for the borrowed capital of $30,000. His board of directors included such luminaries as Dr. W. E. B. Du Bois (1868–1963), John Nail (1884–1947), and Emmet Scott (1873–1947). Its advertising slogan was ‘‘The Only Genuine Colored Record. Others Are Only Passing for Colored’’ (Macee 2005, 21). His music staff included recording manager James Fletcher Henderson (1897– 1952), a former song plugger for the Pace Handy Publishing Company. Also hired was composer William Grant Still as musical director. These staff members presented a balance of knowledge and talent of artists from both the veins of popular music and the concert music. Because of the exclusionary practices of some white-owned record companies, Pace’s New York offices had to send their masters all the way to Port Washington, Wisconsin, for pressing. Black Swan’s studio musicians were some of the finest New York had to offer. For marketing purposes, a group of studio musicians traveled the nation in vaudevillian touring shows. Label vocalists, the Black Swan Troubadours, were accompanied by the studio instrumentalists, the Black Swan Jazz Masters. These tours, as well as strong songwriting from Creamer and Layton, Higgins and Overstreet, and Sissle and Blake, established Black Swan as a major label. At its greatest height in popularity, the label employed as many as 30 people in its offices, an eight-man orchestra, seven regional managers, and more than 1,000 district managers in places as exotic as the Philippines. Pace purchased part ownership of a processing plant in April 1922. This allowed for further growth and expansion of the label’s offerings and mission, which was to introduce music in every genre, including
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concert music. The label became famous for its production of blues. Among its singers were those who would become significant figures were Alberta Hunter (1895–1984), Trixie Smith (1895–1943), and Ethel Waters (1896–1977), and a long line of female vocalists who would experience limited success. Bessie Smith (1895–1937), who would go on to earn the title the Empress of the Blues, actually was rejected by this label because her tone was considered too rough to be appreciated by New York palates. The decline of the Black Swan label can be traced to several factors. One was the broken promise Pace made to produce only performances of black artists. Pace used the name of Fletcher Henderson as well as pseudonyms for recordings made of white orchestras. The popularity of black artists also made it difficult for Pace to be successful in the bidding wars that ensued. Finally, the Pace Phonograph Company was not able to compete with the larger labels of Okeh, Paramount, and Columbia. In 1923, the Pace Phonograph Company reorganized as the Black Swan Phonograph Company, but it produced no new records. Bankruptcy was declared in December 1923. Paramount announced that it would begin to lease the Black Swan catalog in 1924. Although the company was short-lived, its impact on the recording industry as well as on black music is undeniable. It made large white-owned record labels aware of the commerciality of black performers. This, then, provided black artists with more avenues for performance. Because some of the significant gains made by the Pace Phonograph Company were the result of its publishing schemes, white-owned labels had to spend increased portions of their advertising budgets on black newspapers to remain competitive with black audiences.
Chicago Record Company Promoter, songwriter, and manager Mayo ‘‘Ink’’ Williams (1894–1980) founded the Chicago Record Company in 1927. Its label, Black Patti, was named in honor of black opera star Matilda Sissieretta Joyner Jones (1869–1933). Born in Pine Bluff, Arkansas, Williams attended Brown University where he excelled in track and football. During the 1920s, he played professional football for the National Football League, only one of three black athletes to do so. In 1924, Paramount Records hired Mayo as a talent scout, supervising the Race Record recordings of Ma Rainey (1886–1939), Papa Charlie Jackson (1890–1938), and Blind Lemon Jefferson (1893–1929), among others. The short-lived Black Patti label (1927) released recordings of jazz, blues, vaudeville, gospel, and sermons. Frankie ‘‘Half Pint’’ Jackson (alternate spelling, Jaxon, 1895–1970) and Charles ‘‘Cow Cow’’ Davenport (1894–1956) were two of the artists featured. After this label failed, Williams moved on and began to work for the subsidiary label of Brunswick Records, Vocalion. In the 1930s, Williams was hired as the head of the Race Records division at Decca, which recorded Mahalia Jackson, Alberta Hunter, and Boy Fuller. Williams later formed Ebony Records in Chicago in 1946, where he recorded the young Muddy Waters.
Black-Owned Record Labels | 111 Leon and Otis Rene were born into a musical family. Though Leon had little formal training, he learned piano from a cousin and progressed so quickly that he was asked to perform for parties. He honed his skills as a performer as a pianist in Covington, Louisiana, for movie houses. The two brothers collaborated on several songs, including ‘‘Sleepytime,’’ which became one of jazz trumpeter Louis Armstrong’s signature tunes. The family moved to California after World War I, where they founded the labels, Exclusive and Excelsior, to produce the songs they wrote. They also owned their own pressing plant, but the market standard changed from 78 rpm to 45 rpm. Unable to press records at the faster speed, this label went out of business. Later, their Class label and the Rendezvous Record Company produced many of the rhythm and blues hits by Leon’s son Rafael Rene and Bobby Day, ‘‘The Original Rockin’ Robin.’’ Day’s hit by the same title later became a hit for the Jackson Five.
Sunshine Records Sunshine Records, a small label based in California, was founded by Benjamin Franklin ‘‘Reb’’ Spikes (1888–1982) and his brother John. As musicians, their careers began with a traveling minstrel show. Their next major performance opportunity was with McCabe’s Georgia Troubadours (1913). Advertised as the ‘‘World’s Greatest Saxophonist,’’ Reb Spikes landed in San Francisco, performing with Sid le Prottis’ So Diff’rent Jazz Orchestra, with a number of performances at Purcell’s So Diff’rent Club. In 1919, the brothers moved to Los Angeles where they opened the first jazz record store and publishing company, Spikes Bros and Carter—The So Diff’rent Music House. Ostensibly intended to cater to the black community, the Spikes realized that a market also existed for their records among wealthy white patrons. During an interview in 1951, Reb recounted, ‘‘The richest folks in Hollywood would pull up their limousines and send their chauffeurs to buy the ‘dirty music’’’ (Floyd 1951). They contracted the recording and production of records by Edward ‘‘Kid’’ Ory’s band from the Creole Cafe and local blues singers Ruth Lee and Roberta Dudley to the Nordskog Record Company. When the records returned from the Arto Plant in New Jersey, the Nordskog label and catalog numbers were featured and not those of Sunshine Records. The Spikes’ relabeled the records and advertised the relabeled records in the Chicago Defender. The lack of substantial sales and a Los Angeles County Superior Court ruling against the brothers for failing to pay for the 5,000 pressings ultimately led to the label’s demise. The two tracks presented on that recording, however, represent the first recordings of jazz by a black band and of the first jazz recording by a blackowned record label.
Black-Owned Record Labels: 1942–Present Despite the short-lived success of Black Swan Records, small independently owned record labels were hardly a phenomenon during the years before World
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War II. However, with diminishing revenues caused by the Depression, the war, and a recording ban launched by the American Federation of Musicians (AFM), the recording industry experienced considerable changes in subsequent years. Of the many factors that contributed to the redistribution of power within the recording industry, the 1942–1944 recording ban had the greatest impact. Besides resolving royalty issues, the biggest contribution of the recording ban was the emergence of an environment through which smaller, independent recording labels, called ‘‘indies’’ could come to prominence in shaping the postwar popular music culture. As a result, these smaller labels usurped the power of major labels like Columbia, Paramount, RCA-Victor, and others. Without the tenacity of these labels, many of the regional styles that came to define popular music in the subsequent years would not have been recorded. Two types of independent labels (indies) emerged in the second half of the 20th century. First were the labels that were largely white owned, but specialized in various forms of black music. Representative of this type were King, Atlantic, Chess, Specialty, and Stax, even though the latter was largely an experiment in social and musical integration. Second were black-owned labels, which like their white counterparts concentrated on regional musical styles or specific genres of black music. Such labels include DC (started by Lillian Claiborne), Peacock, and Vee-Jay in the years following World War II.
Vee-Jay Of these labels, Vee-Jay was one of the most successful black-owned labels of the 1950s and early 1960s. DJ Vivian Carter and her husband James Bracken launched the label in 1953 in Gary, Indiana. Using their first initials as the company’s name, the duo turned a $500 loan into one of the powerhouse R & B labels of the 1950s. Vee-Jay quickly earned the distinction as the biggest blackowned label of its day with its first releases making the top 10 on the national R & B charts. Its roster included bluesmen John Lee Hooker, Jimmy Reed, and Memphis Slim along with Jerry Butler, Gene Chandler, and Billy Preston, as well as, in the early 1960s, Little Richard, who rerecorded his early hits on the label. But Vee-Jay did not limit itself to urban blues and R & B styles; jazz musicians Lee Morgan, Wynton Kelly, and Wayne Shorter also recorded on the label. Notably, the label also released an early Beatles single in 1962, and the album Introducing the Beatles in 1963 before their famed tour of America in early 1964 and the launch of American Beatlemania. Those early records initially were not successful, but following the Beatles’ American appearances, they sold in record numbers. Without doubt, Vee-Jay provided a blueprint for Berry Gordy’s Motown, as it was successful for many years in producing hit records, including Jerry Butler and the Impressions’ ‘‘For Your Precious Love’’ (1958), Hooker’s ‘‘Boom Boom’’ (1961), and Gladys Knight and the Pips’ early hit ‘‘Every Beat of My Heart’’ (1961). In 1966, the label experienced cash-flow problems and was forced to file for bankruptcy in August of that year. Eventually the label’s holdings were purchased and an important era in recording history ended.
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Duke-Peacock Records Don Robey’s Duke-Peacock Records, founded in 1953, was one of Vee-Jay’s biggest rivals. The label scored one of its biggest hits with the release of Big Mama Thorton’s ‘‘Hound Dog’’ in 1953. Little Richard, Memphis Slim, and jazz vocalist Betty Carter also recorded for the label. But after the early 1960s, Duke-Peacock focused exclusively on recording gospel music. For years, they recorded some of the most notable gospel groups, including the Dixie Hummingbirds, the Sensational Nightingales, and the Five Blind Boys of Mississippi. Throughout the 1960s and early 1970s, a number of subsidiary labels were launched by Robey, including Song Bird Records, which was devoted to gospel music, Back Beat, and Sure Shot. In 1973, Robey sold Duke-Peacock and the other labels to ABC, but he remained a consultant until his death in 1975.
LuPine and Flick In the 1960s, black-owned labels had limited independence and short life spans due to the fact that they were generally undercapitalized and small. Many labels projected this trend, but Detroit-based labels LuPine and Flick stand out because of how their roster of talent would go on to affect the R & B scene of the 1960s. Founded by Robert West in the late 1950s, LuPine and Flick focused on a gospelized R & B style. The roster consisted of a number of upstarts, including the Primes (who would later became known as the Temptations) and their sister act, the Primettes (the future Supremes). Despite some early hits with some of its acts, LuPine folded when its distributor, an independent blackowned firm called B&H, was implicated in the payola scandal of the 1960s. But Detroit soon would find its place in music history forever cemented with the emergence of Motown Records.
Motown Records Motown is largely identified as the most successful black-owned record label, but it did not avoid its own set of problems and scandals. Started in 1959 through a $500 loan, the label came to personify the crossover of black music to the mainstream. Its success during the last four decades of the 20th century was unprecedented and it set a standard for subsequent major and independent labels in respect to the recording and marketing of black music. Berry Gordy’s success with Motown was centered on his ability to capitalize on young regional talent while creating a distinct ‘‘house’’ sound that in the 1960s came to define the Northern soul aesthetic. The years 1963–1968, often identified as the Golden Age of the label, marked Motown’s dominance of the nationwide charts. The label’s move to Los Angeles in 1968 signified a new chapter in its history, which would be defined in the introduction of new acts like the Jackson Five and the revamping of existing acts like the Supremes without Florence Ballard and the Temptations without David Ruffin and Eddie Kendricks. Motown’s music, through the efforts of Stevie Wonder and Marvin Gaye, also became more politically and socially
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conscious, something that Gordy had shied away from during the label’s early years. Gordy expanded Motown’s influence on popular culture with the move into the production of movies and television shows. The company became significant in creating films that provided opposite readings of black life from the popular blaxploitation films of the time. Lady Sings the Blues (1972), a biopic of Billie Holiday’s life, was the company’s first venture. Starring Diana Ross as the title character, the film, despite inaccuracies regarding Holiday’s life, was critically acclaimed with the actress earning an Oscar nomination. Subsequent projects would include an inner-city rag-to-riches love story called Mahogany and a kung fu film called The Last Dragon (1985).
Philadelphia International Records Although Motown continued the chart with hit albums from Stevie Wonder, Rick James, the Temptations, and Smokey Robinson during the 1970s, it never dominated in the manner it had in the previous decade. The 1970s soul sound was influenced and shaped more by Philadelphia International Records (PIR). PIR came to signify black entrepreneurship. The brainchild of songwriters Keith Gamble and Leon Huff, PIR documented the evolving identity of the black community in the years following the civil rights and Black Power movements. Their ‘‘symphonic soul’’ brought a message and consciousness to black R & B that resonated not only with black listeners, but also with whites. Like its predecessors and rivals, PIR built a successful formula that was centered on a core set of musicians and songwriters. Acts like the O’Jays and Harold Melvin and the Bluenotes featuring Teddy Pendergrass scored hit after hit. PIR continued to dominate the charts in the 1980s with acts like Phyllis Hyman, Teddy Pendergrass, and Patti LaBelle. But the dominance that the early indies had over the dissemination of black music disappeared in the late 1970s as major labels drew talent way from the rosters of black labels with the institution of Black Music Divisions, which welded more marketing power and larger budgets.
Enjoy Records By the 1980s, however, a new genre of music was beginning to define youth culture. With the emergence and growing popularity of hip hop, the recording and marketing of black music underwent some radical changes. The first labels to record early hip hop in New York initially were R & B labels, but they all recognized the growing influence the music had on the cultural life of inner-city youth. Enjoy Records, started in 1951 by Booby Robinson, had boasted a roster that included Gladys Knight and the Pips and King Curtis. Robinson’s nephew Spoonie Gee, one of the early emcees of the New York club scene, fueled his interest in hip hop. The label is credited with ‘‘discovering’’ Grandmaster Flash and the Furious 5 as well as Funky Four Plus One, a group that featured one of the earliest and influential female emcees. The label also produced some of the earliest rap records, including Super Rappin’ Part I and II by Grandmaster Flash
Black-Owned Record Labels | 115 and the Furious 5 (1979) and Funky Four Plus One’s Rappin’ and Rocking the House (1979). The label also was home to the Treacherous Three, featuring LA Sunshine, Kool Moe Dee and Positive K, and Spoonie Gee. Although Enjoy’s rival Sugarhill Records is credited with mainstreaming rap music, Robinson was significant in documenting the earliest emcees who defined the genre.
Winley Records and Sugarhill Records Winley Records, started by Paul Winley in 1956, had acquired an interest in rap music by the 1970s. Although the label was home to a number of acts, its biggest contribution to early hip hop was the recording of what many hip hop scholars and artist acknowledge as the first rap record to gain notoriety through radio play King Tim III (Personality Jock) by the Fatback Band. Rapper’s Delight is credited with being the first rap record to achieve mainstream success through radio play, but this is based solely on its worldwide commercial success, whereas King Tim achieved success through regional radio play. With the mainstream success of Rapper’s Delight, Sugar Hill Records came to personify what a successful rap label was in the early 1980s. Unlike its rivals Enjoy and Winley, Sugarhill was the first record label fully devoted to rap music. Founded by Sylvia and Joe Robinson, the label, before its demise in 1985, was responsible for signing and recording many of the major pioneers of rap. Their roster included the Sugarhill Gang; Sequence, the first female group to make rap records; and many of the acts that initially had recorded on Enjoy and Winley, including Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five, the Treacherous Three, Funky Four Plus One, and Spoonie Gee. But for their dominance of the charts and importance in cementing the popularity of rap music in the early 1980s, the label’s financial situation was in decline. By 1985, contract disputes along with $3.5 million in loans and advances with its distributor MCA consumed the label’s profits. It was forced into bankruptcy and 10 years later its back catalog was bought by Rhino Records.
Rap Labels By 1985, a number of rap labels had emerged, each with its own approach to production and marketing. Cold Chillin’/Prism Records became influential in defining the east-coast rap sound with its in-house producer Marley Marl and a roster that included Biz Markie, Roxanne Shante, Big Daddy Kane, MC Shan, and Kool G Rap and DJ Polo. The label was distinguished from others through its extensive use of sampling—especially the use of James Brown riffs. Uptown Records, founded by Andre Harrell, became one of the most influential hip hop and R & B labels of the early 1990s. It became the ‘‘birthplace’’ of hip hop soul with artists like Mary J. Blige, Jodeci, Christopher Williams, and Soul 4 Real. New jack swing also found a home there when Guy, featuring Teddy Riley, was signed. The label’s most successful act, however, was Heavy D and the Boyz, which also was the first group to sign with Harrell. Bad Boy Records started by former Uptown intern and Harrell protege Sean ‘‘Puffy’’ Combs continued to
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expand the fusion of hip hop and shifted rap’s attention back to the East Coast following the explosion of west-coast rap. Combs created a style that fused samples from 1980s R & B with vocal hooks and lyrical raps that advanced notions of a ghetto-fabulous lifestyle of expensive cars and high fashion. Death Row Records, started by former N.W.A. (‘‘Niggaz with Attitude’’) member Dr. Dre and former bodyguard Suge Knight, emerged as a rap music powerhouse in the early 1990s. With a house sound centered on funk samples from the 1970s and lyrics that spoke of a gang and drug culture of the West Coast, Death Row dethroned New York from being the center of rap music. Suge Knight’s predilection for violence eventually sparked the departure of Dr. Dre and the East Coast– West Coast rivalry that ended in the deaths of Tupac Shakur and the Notorious B.I.G. Suge Knight’s subsequent legal and financial problems lead to the label being seized and its holdings being auctioned off in 2009. Death Row’s success, however, lead to emergence of other regional styles of rap and the companies to produce and market them. New Orleans–based rapper Master P tapped into Southern ‘‘gangsta’’ rap with his No Limit Records. His label became significant in establishing the ‘‘Dirty South’’ as the third coast of rap music. Cash Money Records also came to personify the Southern rap movement of the 1990s. But of all of the labels to emerge during this period, Def Jam has been the most enduring and successful. Founded by Russell Simmons and Rick Rubin, Def Jam created a successful formula that promoted the music without stifling the artist’s vision or personality. During its early years, the label was home to Whodini, Stetasonic, and the Beastie Boys. But its roster came to include LL Cool J, 3rd Bass, Slick Rick, Public Enemy, DMX, Method Man, and Jay-Z. It also spawned other subsidiary labels, including Def Jam West, which attempted to tap into the west-coast gangsta rap scene; Def Soul, which focused on artists such as Kelly Price, Musiqsoulchild, and the neo soul movement of the late 1990s; Murder Inc (Irv Gotti); Roca-Fella Records; and Boodline.
Gospel Labels Although not the focus of early record labels in the manner of some of these other genres of music, gospel also became central to the history of black-owned labels. One of the first labels to establish a reputation for recording Southern gospel traditions as well as R & B and soul was Malaco. Tommy Crouch and Wolf Stephenson started the enterprise as an extension of their business of booking bands at the University of Mississippi. In 1967, the duo opened their recording studio in Jackson, Mississippi, which remains the home of the company to this day. Although the company initially was successful in recording R & B and soul, in 1975, it turned its focus to gospel music. The first gospel group recorded during this time was the gospel quartet group, the Jackson Southernaires. Their recordings were so popular that other gospel artists signed on, including the Soul Stirrers, the Sensational Nightingales, the Williams Brothers, the Truthettes, and the Angelic Gospel Singers. The Southernaires’ Frank Williams became Malaco’s director of gospel
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LL Cool J’s G.O.A.T. Featuring James T. Smith: The Greatest of All Time on the Def Jam label. (Photofest)
operations, producing virtually every Malaco gospel release until his untimely death in 1993, and the label became known worldwide for its cultivation of Southern black gospel. Stylistic shifts in gospel music were well-documented in the 1990s and early 2000s by two prominent labels—Gospo Centric and Verity. During the past 15 years, both labels have battled for the distinction of the number one gospel label. Gospo Centric Records was launched by Vicki Mack Lataillade and her husband Claude in 1993. Less than two years later, the label was ranked the number four gospel label in the world by Billboard, and in 1996 it reached number one. Gospo Centric has been a leader in producing and marketing contemporary gospel music and the newest artists. Its first signee, Kirk Franklin, has served as one of the leading figures in the contemporary gospel music genre. The label is also significant in the nontraditional methods it has taken in marketing its artists. In 1999, it produced the first gospel pay-per-view concert (Kirk Franklin). It also had the first gospel video to receive heavy rotation on MTV (Kirk Franklin, ‘‘Stomp’’) as well as the first album of all-new, original gospel
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music written for a motion picture (Kingdom Come, 20th Century Fox). The label is home to some of contemporary gospel’s leading artists, including Dorinda Clark-Cole, Byron Cage, and Kurt Carr and the Kurt Carr Singers. With the success of Gospo Centric, Latilliade launched the imprint B-Rite Music, which features artists Trin-i-tee 5:7 and God’s Property to name a few, and was conceived as being an avant-garde label. In 2001, the two labels were merged. Although Latilliade sold Gospo Centric to the Zomba Music Group in 2008, she remains active in the gospel music industry and still serves as president of the company. Verity Records, Gospo Centric’s leading competitor, was launched in 1993 with two artists on its roster—John P. Kee and Vanessa Bell Armstrong. Its first release was John P. Kee’s solo album Colorblind (1994). It struck a chord with audiences, but paled in popularity to Kee’s subsequent release with the New Life Community Choir entitled Show Up (1994). The album was seen as setting the standard for Contemporary Gospel Choirs. In the 21st century, the label is responsible for 42 percent of all sales in black gospel music and is home to some of the genre’s biggest names, including Daryl Coley, Ben Tankard, Fred Hammond, and the Canton Spirituals. The last decade of the 20th century and the first five years of the new century marked a period of continuous growth in terms of black-owned record labels. Although many were subsidiaries of larger companies, such as Dre’s Aftermath (Interscope) or LA Reid and Babyface’s LaFace Records (Arista), they all continued in the same vein of those early indies in recognizing the importance of regional styles in spurring the evolution of American popular music. See also Black-Owned Music Publishing Companies; Motown Sound; Philadelphia Sound; Race Music and Records; Recording Industry. Further Reading Floyd, Levin. ‘‘The Spikes Brothers.’’ Jazz Journal 4, no. 12 (1951). Gushee, Lawrence. ‘‘New Orleans: Area Musicians on the West Coast, 1908–1925.’’ Black Music Research Journal 22, Best of BMRJ supplement (2002): 5–21. Jackson, John. A House on Fire: The Rise and Fall of Philadelphia Soul. New York: Oxford University Press, 2004. Kennedy, Rick, and Randy McNutt. Little Labels—Big Sound: Small Record Companies and the Rise American Music. Bloomington and Indianapolis: Indiana University Press, 1999. Macee, Jeffrey. The Uncrowned King of Swing: Fletcher Henderson and Big Band Jazz. New York: Oxford University Press, 2005. Miller, Leta. ‘‘Racial Segregation and the San Francisco Musicians’ Union 1923–1960.’’ Journal for the Society of American Music 1 (2007): 161–206. Ogg, Alex. The Men Behind Def Jam: The Radical Rise of Russell Simmons and Rick Rubin. New York: Omnibus Press, 2002. Posner, Gerald. Motown: Music, Money, Sex and Power. New York: Random House, 2005. Ronin, Ro. Bad Boy: The Influence of Sean ‘‘Puffy’’ Combs on the Music Industry. New York: Pocket Books, 2001. Ronin, Ro. Have Gun, Will Travel: The Spectacular Rise and Violent Fall of Death Row Records. New York: Broadway Books, 1998.
Blake, Eubie | 119 Sutton, Allan, and Kurt Nauck. American Record Labels and Companies: An Encyclopedia (1891–1943). Littleton, CO: Mainspring Press, 2000. Ward, Brian. Just My Soul Responding: Rhythm and Blues, Black Consciousness and Race Relations. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1998. Tammy L. Kernodle
Blake, Eubie (ca. 1883–1983) A phenomenal pianist and organist noted for his tremendous contributions to ragtime and musical theater, Eubie Blake was both a performer and composer of more than 350 songs and a contributor to more than 10 musicals. James Hubert Blake was born in Baltimore, Maryland, on February 7, 1883, to former slaves. Although he was famous for living to the age of 100, he might not have truly reached that milestone. Some sources give 1883 as his birth year, but records of the 1900 census and a 1937 application for a Social Security card show February 7, 1887, as his date of birth. Nicknamed Eubie (short for Hubert), Blake began study of the piano and organ at the age of four. Although his religious parents did not approve of ragtime, he learned to play it and earned his first paying gig at age 15. Soon he was a mainstay at Baltimore clubs. In 1899, Blake composed and performed his first rag, ‘‘Sounds of Africa,’’ which later would be published in 1919 as ‘‘Charleston Rag.’’ In 1915, while performing with Joe Porter’s Serenaders, Blake met bandleader and songwriter Noble Sissle, with whom he later formed a partnership. The two played in James Reese Europe’s Society Orchestra in 1916 and ventured out on the Keith circuit as the Dixie Duo in 1919, boasting no blackface and a piano as the only stage prop. While attending a 1920 National Association for the Advancement of Colored People benefit in Philadelphia, Blake and Sissle met and befriended veteran black entertainers Flournoy E. Miller and Aubrey Lyles. The foursome created the first musical written by blacks and featuring an all black cast. Shuffle Along not only brought jazz dance to Broadway but also launched careers for Florence Mills, Josephine Baker, Paul Robeson, Hall Johnson, and numerous other talented black artists. Instead of the standard blackface or funny costumes, the show presented black entertainers dressed in tuxedos and speaking standard English. Blake continued performing, composing, and scoring musicals during the 1920s and 1930s. During World War II, Blake toured Europe with the United Services Organization (USO) and eventually retired from all professional activities in 1946, around which time he attended New York University, earning a degree in musical composition. By the 1950s, Blake was one of the last surviving innovators of ragtime. During the 1950s and 1960s, Blake largely lectured and performed loosely until record producer John Hammond recorded a double album featuring Blake performing and answering questions in an interview format. The record was a huge hit and sparked a ragtime revival. Blake returned to a demanding schedule of concerts, festivals, and university appearances. In 1978, the musical Eubie was released on Broadway, celebrating and honoring the legend. The recipient of numerous
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awards, including the 1981 Presidential Medal of Freedom and five honorary doctorates, Blake made his last public appearance at the Lincoln Center on June 19, 1982. Blake died on February 12, 1983, in New York, and he was posthumously honored with a 1995 U.S. postage stamp. See also Black Theater and Musicals; Sissle, Noble; Vaudeville and Tin Pan Alley. Further Reading Bolcom, William, and Robert Kimball. Reminiscing with Sissle and Blake. New York: Cooper Square Press, 2000. Carter, Lawrence T. Eubie Blake: Keys of Memory. Detroit: Balamp Publishing, 1979. Rose, Al. Eubie Blake. New York: Schirmer Books, 1979. Emmett G. Price III
Blakey, Art (1919–1990) A jazz drummer and bandleader of the Jazz Messengers, Art Blakey was known for his hard bop style of drumming and mentoring younger jazz musicians. Blakey was born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and started playing professionally as a teenager. During his early career, he was influenced by the drumming style of Chick Webb, and he toured with the Fletcher Henderson (1897–1952) and Billy Eckstine (1914–1993) big bands. His reputation was formed through his work with jazz greats like Charlie Parker (1920–1955), Dizzy Gillespie (1917–1993), and Thelonious Monk (1917–1982) as well as through his own band’s recordings. He was Monk’s drummer on several recordings. He was a house drummer for Blue Note records. Blakey reported that he went to Africa in the late 1940s and was exposed both to polyrhythmic African drumming and to Islam. He adopted the name Abdullah Ibn Buhaina (and the nickname Bu) after this trip. Also in the late 1940s, he formed the first incarnation of the Jazz Messengers, a 17-piece practice big band. In 1954, he recorded an influential live album at Birdland for Blue Note records with Horace Silver (1928– ) on piano, Lou Donaldson (1926– ) on alto saxophone, Clifford Brown (1930–1956) on trumpet, and Curly Russell (1917–1986) on bass. In 1955, he and Silver co-founded the Jazz Messengers quintet. Silver left the band in 1956, and Blakely continued to lead the band under the Jazz Messengers name, with a rotating group of musicians, until his death. Blakey’s drumming style was marked by a driving rhythm that not only kept time but also responded to and guided the playing of the other band members and for his signature two and four beat on the hi-hat cymbal. The Jazz Messengers were known for their straight jazz style throughout Blakey’s career, even through periods like the 1970s when many jazz artists were experimenting with fusion styles and the addition of electronic instruments. Important Jazz Messengers songs include ‘‘Moanin,’’ ‘‘Along Came Betty,’’ and ‘‘Blues March’’ (all recorded on the 1958 album, Moanin’). The latter was played over the airport intercom in Tokyo in 1960 when the Jazz Messengers
Blind Boys of Alabama | 121 arrived for the first tour of Japan by an American jazz band. They also are known for their recording of Gillespie’s ‘‘Night in Tunisia’’ (1942). As important as Blakey was as a drummer, he was equally important for fostering the careers of younger jazz musicians by including them as members of the Jazz Messengers. He fostered the careers of such musicians as pianists Bobby Timmons (1935– 1974), Cedar Walton (1934– ), and John Hicks (1941–2006); trumpeters Clifford Brown and Freddie Hubbard (1938–2008); and saxophonists Benny Golson (1929– ), Wayne Shorter (1933– ), Keith Jarrett (1945– ), Chuck Mangione (1940– ), and Wynton Marsalis (1961– ). He fostered the younger musicians both as players and as composers and arrangers. Timmons composed several of the Jazz Messengers songs, such as ‘‘Moanin’’’ during his time in the band. The Jazz Messengers were a kind of jazz university with Blakey as the professor. Many of the musicians whose careers he fostered went on to lead their own bands. Through his dedication to the straight hard bop style and to mentoring the younger generations, Blakey influenced six decades of American jazz. See also Eckstine, Billy; Gillespie, Dizzy; Henderson, Fletcher; Jazz; Marsalis, Wynton; Monk, Thelonious; Parker, Charlie. Further Reading Gourse, Leslie. Art Blakey: Jazz Messenger. New York: Schirmer Trade Books, 2002.
Further Listening A Night at Birdland, vols. 1, 2. Blue Note, 1954. Moanin’. Blue Note, 1958. A Night in Tunisia. Blue Note, 1960. Jessica Parker
Blind Boys of Alabama The Blind Boys of Alabama is a gospel group that was formed at the Talladega Institute for the Negro Deaf and Blind in the 1940s and much later experienced a surge of popularity and critical recognition in the first decade of the 21st century. Clarence Fountain, Jimmy Carter, and George Scott were placed by their respective parents in the school near Birmingham, Alabama, in 1937. All blind, they were between the ages of 6 and 10 at the time and were to be trained to make furniture. However, the school also taught them to sing, which was considerably more appealing to the boys. By the time they were teenagers, they had gathered the six best male singers at Talladega and formed the Happy Land Jubilee Singers, which performed in area churches. The group included, along with Fountain, Carter, and Scott, students Johnny Fields, Velma Bozman Taylor, and Olice Thomas. The Happy Land Jubilee Singers went on the road in 1944. Scott was only 15 at the time, and all of the young men were unsophisticated, but they were
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determined to make their living singing gospel. Only one left the group. Within a couple of years, they had made a recording, I Can See Everybody’s Mother But Mine, in a basement recording studio. The record sold well and gave the group a reputation on the gospel circuit. In 1947, a New Jersey promoter staged a competition between the Happy Land Singers and another group called the Jackson Harmoneers, from Jackson, Mississippi. He advertised the event as the ‘‘Five Blind Boys of Mississippi versus the Five Blind Boys of Alabama,’’ and it was hugely successful, leading to a change in the group’s name. For several years, the two groups appeared regularly in this ‘‘sing-off’’ format. The Blind Boys of Alabama had another hit record, Stand By Me, Oh Lord, and they thrived in the world of gospel music well into the 1950s. The coming of rock ’n’ roll eroded the gospel fan base, and for the next three decades, life was difficult for the Blind Boys of Alabama. At one point, the group even split. Then, in 1983, they were chosen to perform in the play The Gospel at Colonus, a retelling of the Oedipus story set in an African American church. Clarence Fountain played a speaking role as the older, blinded Oedipus, and the group as a whole sang. The show, also starring Morgan Freeman and James Earl Jones, went on to Broadway, where it was both popular and influential. The Blind Boys began touring and recording again. In 1992, they recorded Deep River for the Nonesuch Explorer label, performing songs somewhat beyond the usual gospel repertoire, such as ‘‘I Believe in You’’ by Bob Dylan. Less successful were two albums for the House of Blues label. Then-producer John Chelew took the group to Real World Records, where they made Spirit of the Century in 2001. The highlight of the album was a rendition of the lyrics of ‘‘Amazing Grace’’ set to the tune of the blues song ‘‘House of the Rising Sun.’’ The Blind Boys agreed to do the song because the lyrics were still gospel, but the result was a crossover hit that sparked another stage in their career. Spirit of the Century won the Grammy Award for best traditional soul gospel album in 2001. Their next album, Higher Ground, won the same award in 2002, and Go Tell It on the Mountain made it three in a row in 2003. There Will Be a Light, released in 2004, entered the Billboard gospel album chart in the number one position in the United States, France, and Italy, the number three position in Switzerland, and the top 10 in Australia and Portugal. It also received three Grammy nominations. See also
Gospel Music. Further Reading
Mazur, Marcia Levine. ‘‘The Blind Boys of Alabama—Singing from the Soul: After 60 years, the Career of the Blind Boys of Alabama Is Skyrocketing.’’ Diabetes Forecast 2 (2004): 40–45. Nickson, Chris. ‘‘The Blind Boys of Alabama: Talent on Loan from God.’’ Sing Out! 46 (2002): 34–38. Santoro, Gene. ‘‘Visiting the Folks.’’ The Nation 5 (2001): 32. Kathleen Thompson
Blues | 123
Blues Including • • • • • • • • •
Delta Blues/Country Blues Classic Blues Period Piedmont Blues Chicago Blues Kansas City Blues Urban Blues Jump Blues West-Coast Blues Blues Revival
‘‘Blues’’ generally conveys one of three interrelated meanings: (1) a sense of melancholy or dejection, as in ‘‘having the blues,’’ an expression that seems to have entered the American vernacular shortly after the Civil War; (2) a genre of secular music developed in Southern African American society around the turn of the 20th century and quickly disseminated north with the Great Migration; and (3) a composition based on the highly variable but recognizable harmonic progression typically employed within the genre of the blues but also commonly found in jazz, folk, rock, and other popular music. The blues as a genre depends on a certain amount of improvisation, facilitated by the reliance on stock harmonic patterns. Although the blues form began as a highly variable collection of harmonic progressions, the 12-bar form came to predominate. Singers generally utilize lyrics constructed of three-line stanzas (AAB) where the first two lines are identical and the third is different but rhymes with the preceding lines. The typical 12-measure progression with the AAB lyric structure can be diagrammed as follows (the Roman numerals represent chords built on the first, fourth, and fifth degrees of the diatonic scale):
Typical 12-Measure Progression A
I
(IV)
a
I
I
IV
IV
b
I
I
V
(IV)
I
IfiV
The exact link between the blues and music of the African continent continues to be the subject of heated scholarly debate, but the genre reveals traits of African musical ancestry (particularly with respect to rhythm and melodic inflections, such as ‘‘bent’’ or ‘‘blue’’ notes) and the European musical tradition (with respect to harmony) that its originators encountered in America. The direct antecedents of the blues include the responsorial work songs sung on the plantation before
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emancipation and the field hollers that became more typical following the end of Reconstruction. Further Reading Barlow, William. ‘‘Looking Up at Down’’: The Emergence of Blues Culture. Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1989. Oliver, Paul. The Story of the Blues. Boston: Northeastern University Press, 1969. Chadwick Jenkins
Delta Blues/Country Blues Also known as ‘‘down-home blues,’’ the Delta blues is one of the earliest forms of the blues and has been the formative influence in the development of the majority of the later blues styles. Although the style developed before the turn of the 20th century, the earliest recordings of the Delta blues date from the mid1920s; thus, the earliest stages of the style’s development are known only through anecdotal evidence. The recordings generally feature a solo singer accompanying himself on guitar, although live performances often featured larger performing forces. The soloist incorporated the call-and-response format of responsorial work songs by filling in the measures in between vocal phrases with guitar improvisations, sometimes featuring the bottleneck or slide guitar technique. Partly owing to the fact that these were solo performances, the recordings exhibit an unpredictably free approach to structure. The Delta blues gets its name from the area of flat, fertile farmland on either side of the Mississippi River that stretched roughly from Memphis, Tennessee, to Vicksburg, Mississippi. This region was one of the richest cotton-producing areas in the nation and had a greater concentration of African Americans than anywhere else in the South, outnumbering the white population by three to one. Aside from cotton, the area boasted a robust lumber industry. Although the terms ‘‘country blues’’ and ‘‘Delta blues’’ typically are used interchangeably, this early style of blues seems to have developed in three areas: the Delta, east Texas, and the Piedmont. The emancipation of the slaves following the Civil War did not lead to the dismantling of the plantation economy but rather to its restructuring. The majority of the black population became tenant farmers or sharecroppers. Emancipation, however, vouchsafed individuals greater freedom of movement; thus, sharecroppers typically moved frequently in search of better income. This situation provided for two factors that were integral to the development and dissemination of the Delta blues style. First, the sharecroppers and tenant farmers worked Monday through Saturday and therefore looked to Saturday evenings for relaxation, creating a frequent demand for musicians and allowing these musicians to attain semiprofessional status. These dances were held at homes, outdoors, and, later, at so-called juke joints. Second, the fluid nature of the community brought musicians from different plantations together, thus spreading the style of music throughout the Delta region and beyond.
Blues | 125 The Delta blues reinforced the oral tradition of African American society with the musicians acting as oral carriers of the culture. These musicians drew on the traditional song forms of 19th-century ballads and employed common proverbs and folk sayings in their lyrics. Moreover, the blues seems to have developed out of responsorial work songs and the field hollers that largely replaced them after the Civil War. Indeed, many blues composers (such as McKinley Morganfield ‘‘Muddy Waters’’) claimed that they made up many of their lyrics while working in the fields and first performed them as field hollers to pass the time. The music moved away, however, from the traditional square dances and fiddle-tunes that earlier generations performed during Saturday night dances (tunes such as ‘‘Old Grey Mare’’ and ‘‘Little Lisa Jane’’) toward the blues and a more intimate form of dancing between couples. The guitar and harmonica replaced the fiddle and banjo. Thus, the blues performers simultaneously embraced and broke with folk tradition. The lack of adequate documentation makes it impossible to determine with any accuracy the exact development of the musical forms associated with the Delta blues. Judging from the reports and transcriptions of blues lyrics from the turn of the century, early Delta blues employed a great variety of forms, including (among others) a two-line stanza (AB) set to roughly eight measures of music, a single-line repeated twice (AAA) set to roughly 12 measures of music (for instance, ‘‘Big Bill’’ Broonzy’s recording of ‘‘Joe Turner,’’ a tune Broonzy believed to be the foundation for all later blues compositions), and the familiar three-line stanza where the first two lines are identical and the third is different but rhymes with the preceding two lines (AAB) set to roughly 12 measures of music. When the Delta blues was first recorded in the 1920s, the latter was the most prevalent form, but that does not necessarily mean that it was the most prominent of the forms during the genre’s inception. Indeed, the 12-measure, threeline stanza seems to be a crystallization of the great variety available to early blues performers. This form often included either a few extra or a few less measures per stanza because performers (often doubling as both singer and accompanist) took great liberties with the exact dimensions of the form. The flexibility of the forms and the high level of repetition within the verse structure allowed performers the freedom to improvise (both with respect to the lyrics and the instrumental ‘‘fills’’ employed in a responsorial manner) and to adjust the length of compositions to suit their functional purpose as the accompaniment to social dances. Despite the variety and the heightened individuality among the performers, certain stylistic traits are prevalent. These include the moaning quality and relatively rough timbre of the vocals, the occasional use of falsetto, the percussive aspect of the guitar playing, the restriction to three primary harmonies (the tonic and the chords built on the fourth and fifth degrees of the scale, or, in Roman numerals, I, IV, and V), a heavy reliance on syncopation against a fairly pronounced beat, an alternation between duple and triple subdivisions of the beat, and the use of ‘‘blue’’ notes—that is, slightly flattened pitches on the seventh, third, and sometimes the fifth degrees of the scale. Occasionally, the guitar player used smooth metal or glass surface (typical materials
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were bottlenecks and knife blades) as a slide to imitate vocal sounds with the guitar. The lyric content of the Delta blues runs the gamut from difficulties in romantic relationships (Sonny Terry’s ‘‘The Woman Is Killing Me’’) to tales of violence (Roosevelt Sykes’s ‘‘44 Blues’’) and visions of death (Charley Patton’s ‘‘Prayer of Death’’) to the desire for escape and expressions of humor (Memphis Slim’s ‘‘Just a Dream’’) to sexually charged double entendres (Johnny Temple’s ‘‘Lead Pencil Blues’’) and protests against social injustice (Broonzy’s ‘‘Black, Brown, and White’’). One of the earliest proponents of the Delta blues was Charley (or Charlie) Patton (1891–1934), sometimes referred to as the ‘‘Father of the Delta Blues.’’ In 1900, his family moved to the huge Dockery plantation outside of Drew, Mississippi, where he learned the emergent blues style from Henry Sloan. (Sloan was never recorded, so his individual approach to the blues is lost.) Patton soon became an extremely popular bluesman, performing across the Delta region on various plantations and in taverns. He was a consummate performer, dressed flamboyantly, and sometimes played the guitar behind his back or between his legs. He was the first true blues star and was extremely influential on such successors as Son House and Robert Johnson. Eddie James ‘‘Son’’ House, Jr. (1902–1988) studied to be a preacher as a youth, taught himself guitar, and performed with Charley Patton. He mastered the slide technique but only made a few field recordings in the 1930s and 1940s. He then retired from performing, working for the railroad, until he was ‘‘rediscovered’’ during the 1960s blues revival. His style features a strong rhythmic drive, rough vocal timbres, and a heavy reliance on repeated figures in between the vocal lines executed with the slide. Although male performers predominate most accounts of Delta blues, females also were important purveyors of the style. Perhaps the most important and influential was Memphis Minnie (1897–1973). A phenomenally gifted musician, Minnie often demonstrated her toughness in the bars and juke joints where she played by cursing, chewing tobacco, and engaging in bar fights. She had early hits in 1929 with ‘‘Bumble Bee’’ and ‘‘When the Levee Breaks.’’ More mysterious was Geeshie (or ‘‘Geechie’’) Wiley who recorded eight songs with another female blues guitarist, Elvie Thomas, for Paramount in 1930 and 1931. Aside from these recordings, little is known about Wiley. Perhaps the most famous Delta blues performer (whose reputation was given a huge boost by the release of a box set of his recordings in 1990), Robert Johnson (1911–1938) remains a figure of mystery. His precocious mastery of the guitar and references to the Devil in his lyrics gave rise to legends that he had sold his soul in exchange for his performing prowess (a legend perpetuated by Son House). He only recorded two sessions’ worth of music (three days in November 1936 in San Antonio, Texas, and two days in June 1937 in Dallas). His compositions, however, most prominently ‘‘I Believe I’ll Dust My Broom’’ and ‘‘Crossroad Blues,’’ have influenced later performers of the blues (such as Elmore James who had a huge hit with the former) and rock performers such as Eric Clapton, Led Zeppelin, and the Rolling Stones.
Blues | 127 Further Reading Barlow, William. ‘‘Looking Up at Down:’’ The Emergence of Blues Culture. Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1989. Fahey, John. Charley Patton. London: Studio Vista, 1970. Oliver, Paul. Broadcasting the Blues: Black Blues in the Segregation Era. New York: Routledge, 2006. Palmer, Robert. Deep Blues. New York: Penguin Books, 1982. ‘‘Robert Johnson.’’ Delta Haze Corporation. www.deltahaze.com/johnson/ (accessed May 2007). Titon, Jeff Todd. Early Downhome Blues: A Musical and Cultural Analysis. 2nd ed. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1994.
Further Viewing Deep Blues: A Pilgrimage to the Crossroads. Directed by Robert Mugge. New York: WinStar TV and Video, 1999. Chadwick Jenkins
Classic Blues Period The classic blues period encompasses a time frame roughly spanning 1902 (when Gertrude Pridgett ‘‘Ma’’ Rainey maintained she first began incorporating the blues into her performances) to the early 1930s, when the style fell into obscurity, in part because of the Great Depression. ‘‘Classic blues’’ typically is used to signify a style of blues that features a female vocalist fronting a small ensemble (usually a jazz band but sometimes a jug band) and singing a variety of tunes (including but not exclusively composed of the 12-bar blues structure) in various vaudeville houses, theaters, and tent shows. The classic blues was the first style of blues to be preserved in acoustic recordings. Although scholars tend to mark a strict division between the classic blues and the country or Delta blues, important connections can be made between the two traditions. Important proponents of the classic style include Rainey, Bessie Smith, Victoria Spivey, Ethel Waters, Mamie Smith, Ida Cox, Sippie Wallace, and Lucille Hegamin. Traditionally, scholars have presented the classic blues in sharp distinction from the Delta blues. Whereas the Delta blues artist was typically (but not exclusively) male, the classic blues singer was female. The Delta musician was a selfaccompanying singer, whereas the classic blues singer fronted a small ensemble. The Delta musician performed traditional or self-written songs, whereas the classic blues singer performed material largely written by professional composers who were not, strictly speaking, part of the blues tradition but rather employed the blues style among others to create finely crafted, popular compositions. Delta blues is said to be a folk tradition, whereas the classic blues is a form of popular (commodified) music. Classic blues was performed in the theater, while Delta blues was performed informally. Additionally, some scholars contrast the rough timbres of the Delta singers with the smoother delivery of the classic singers (Titon 1994, xvi–xviii).
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Crazy Blues. Words and music by Perry Bradford. (New York Public Library)
Certainly such strong dichotomization clarifies the distinctions between the two traditions, but it effaces the strong ties between them and ignores the roots of the classic style in the Delta tradition. Both traditions had an enduring connection to the vaudeville stage and minstrelsy. Both featured professional and semiprofessional performers; furthermore, the distinction between smooth and rough timbres is not borne out by the recordings of the two most celebrated classic singers, Ma Rainey and Bessie Smith, both of whom famously employed rougher timbres in their singing as part of their signature sounds. Finally, the composers and performers of the classic blues style consciously drew on the folk tradition of the Delta blues as the material for their compositions and the basis of their performance styles. Nevertheless, the classic blues style did indeed arise within the context of the second companies of big circuses (tent shows), as well as vaudeville and famous traveling minstrel shows, such as Tolliver’s Circus and Musical Extravaganza, and the Rabbit Foot Minstrels. Black minstrel performances were among the most popular forms of entertainment in the late 19th and early 20th centuries within the African American community. These shows would tour the South each season, stopping at various plantations as well as lumber and coal camps. In addition
Blues | 129 to the singers, these performances included juggling, wrestlers, comics, novelty acts, and so-called jungle scenes. During the first years of the 20th century, such shows had an increasing presence within theaters (usually owned and managed by white businessmen). Many of these shows were managed by the Theater Owners’ Booking Association (T.O.B.A.). African American female singers often were featured as stars of the T.O.B.A. circuit and other vaudeville shows. The singers were given various titles; for instance, ‘‘Ma’’ Rainey was the ‘‘Mother of the Blues’’ or the ‘‘Gold Necklace Woman of the Blues’’ (in honor of her necklace composed of gold pieces, purportedly worth $20 each), while Bessie Smith was the ‘‘Empress of the Blues,’’ and Mamie Smith was known as ‘‘America’s First Lady of Blues.’’ Advertisements often featured the singers in crowns, sequins, and gaudy jewelry—perhaps as a burlesque parody of opera divas. The growing influence of the vaudeville circuit was reinforced by the rising prominence of Tin Pan Alley. At the turn of the 20th century, the primary source of income for composers was the sale of sheet music. The largest publishing firms maintained offices that were concentrated on 28th Street in New York City between Broadway and Fifth Avenue; this area became known as ‘‘Tin Pan Alley,’’ a term supposedly coined by newspaperman Monroe Rosenfield to characterize the cacophony of so many pianos playing different songs at once as composers fashioned their latest tunes. In 1909, Congress passed the first copyright law in the United States and soon after, in 1914, the American Society of Composers, Authors, and Publishers (ASCAP) was founded to collect royalty fees and distribute the income appropriately. Thus, music publishing became an increasingly profitable and prominent business. Many Tin Pan Alley composers, among them African Americans such as Ben Harney and W. C. Handy, contributed songs to the vaudeville tradition, in which the classic blues singers worked. Handy is the most famous of these composers; he regularly employed song structures borrowed from the rural blues tradition (often mixing those structures with other forms such as the tango featured as the B-section in ‘‘St. Louis Blues’’), including such widespread compositions as ‘‘Memphis Blues,’’ ‘‘Yellow Dog Blues,’’ and the wildly popular ‘‘St. Louis Blues.’’ A late-coming form of support for the classic blues—indeed the medium through which the style achieved its greatest prominence—was the so-called race record. Harlem composer, bandleader, and singer Perry Bradford brought Mamie Smith to the studios of Okeh Records and convinced recording manager Fred Hager to allow Smith to replace Sophie Tucker (who had taken ill) during a recording session. They recorded two of Bradford’s compositions (neither a blues), ‘‘That Thing Called Love’’ and ‘‘You Can’t Keep a Good Man Down.’’ The recording sold well and Smith was brought back to the studio later that year to record two Bradford blues, ‘‘Crazy Blues’’ and ‘‘It’s Right Here For You.’’ The August 1920 release of ‘‘Crazy Blues’’ inaugurated the ‘‘blues craze’’ of the early 1920s, selling 75,000 copies within the first month and more than 1 million within the first year. Okeh and other recording companies realized the potential profits to be earned
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from such recordings, and they initiated what were termed ‘‘race’’ records (a term supposedly coined by Okeh’s Ralph Peer)—a series of recordings made by African American performers for consumption primarily by African Americans. Gertrude ‘‘Ma’’ Rainey began her stage career when she was 14 and began touring with the Rabbit Foot Minstrels. Rainey heard a woman singing a new style of music in 1902, and she began to emulate it in her shows; she claimed to have coined the term ‘‘blues’’ to describe the new approach. Rainey signed with Paramount Records and recorded more than 100 songs between 1923 and 1928. Bessie Smith joined a traveling minstrel show in 1912 at the age of 18. In 1923, Columbia records invited her to New York City to audition for a recording contract, and her first recordings were released just as America was struck by the ‘‘blues craze.’’ She became a huge success. T.O.B.A. gave her a contract that made her the highest paid African American performer of her time; she even bought her own railroad car for her tours. The classic blues tradition began to wane in the late 1920s, owing to numerous factors, including the weakening of the T.O.B.A. circuit (which increasingly lost ground to the radio and talking motion pictures), the saturation of the market with recordings in the style made during its heyday, and the Great Depression, during which the opulence reflected by the classic singers seemed increasingly out of place. The legacy of the classic blues is contested. On the one hand, the ‘‘blues craze’’ allowed for a remarkable promulgation of the music, but on the other hand, the continual production of tunes in the style led to a homogenization of structure and style that was rather impoverished in comparison to the rich variety of the folk tradition. See also
Delta Blues/Country Blues. Further Reading
Barlow, William. ‘‘ ‘Laughin’ to Keep from Cryin’:’ Vaudeville Blues.’’ In ‘‘Looking Up at Down:’’ The Emergence of Blues Culture, 119–181. Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1989. Brooks, Edward. The Bessie Smith Companion: A Critical and Detailed Appreciation of the Recordings. Oxford, MS: Bayou Press, 1982. Oliver, Paul. The Story of the Blues. Boston: Northeastern University Press, 1969. Reublin, Rick. ‘‘In Search of Tin Pan Alley.’’ Parlor Songs. http://parlorsongs.com/ insearch/tinpanalley/tinpanalley.asp (accessed May 2007). Stewart-Baxter, Derrick. Ma Rainey and the Classic Blues Singers. New York: Stein and Day, 1970. Titon, Jeff Todd. Early Downhome Blues: A Musical and Cultural Analysis. 2nd ed. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1994.
Further Listening Bessie Smith. The Essential Bessie Smith. Sony 64922, 1997. Chadwick Jenkins
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Piedmont Blues The Piedmont is a geographic region of the eastern United States; an upland plateau extending from the Hudson River southwest to central Alabama, bounded by the Blue Ridge Mountains to the west and the Atlantic coastal plain to the east. The Piedmont blues style named for the region is neither confined to the region nor do all the blues of the Piedmont region conform to the Piedmont style. Practitioners of the Piedmont blues style did not, until recently, use this term to describe the music they played; it is a descriptive term devised not by the musicians themselves or the community for whom they traditionally performed, but by white fans and scholars who came to the study of the blues decades after their emergence and widespread popularity with both black and white Southerners. Several researchers visited the region before the 1960s—most notably Samuel Charters’s visit to see Pink Anderson and Baby Tate in South Carolina—but the first systematic attempt to study east-coast blues was conducted by Bruce Basin and Pete Lowry in the 1960s and 1970s. Building on their work, important contributions to the study of Piedmont blues have been made by Kip Lornell, Barry Lee Pearson, and Charles Perdue, among others. Blues performance in the Southeastern states was primarily a community function; it was performed at home and at neighborhood functions—such as the ‘‘frolic,’’ a good-time local gathering that usually happened at someone’s house and included food and alcohol—often to accompany dancing, both set and flat foot varieties. It evolved as a component of the larger string band tradition shared by white and black musicians. Local communities throughout the South developed their own distinct versions of the blues, and the Piedmont region was characterized by an exciting diversity of blues styles from the 12-string guitar work of Robert ‘‘Barbecue Bob’’ Hicks with its use of slide as both drone and ornament to his fellow Georgian Peg Leg Howell’s raucous string band blues. This stylistic diversity is evident in the commercial phonograph records made of musicians from the Piedmont region in the 1920s, the first decade of blues record production. The early commercial success of certain musicians, especially Blind Blake, led to the dominance of a specific way of playing the guitar in the Southeastern states. This guitar style, later to be known as the ‘‘Piedmont blues,’’ became the singular focus of commercially recorded blues music of the Southeast. Little is known about Blind Blake. Thought to be from Florida, perhaps named Arthur Phelps or Blake, Blake was an itinerant musician who worked the Southeast but who also has been recalled playing in the Mississippi Delta and elsewhere. For a period, he made Chicago his headquarters and, between 1926 and 1932, he recorded 84 songs under his own name and numerous others as accompanist for the Paramount label. Blake’s ragtime piano-influenced guitar playing was the first, and many feel finest, recorded occurrence of the Piedmont style of guitar playing. Blake’s brilliance in this style has not been surpassed, and his influence has been felt by all the guitarists of the region—and many beyond—who followed him. The Piedmont guitar style, at its most simple, involves the alternating use of the index finger of the picking hand up-picking the melody on the higher strings
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and the thumb down-picking rhythm and bass on the lower strings. This alteration—derived, in part, from traditional ways of playing the banjo—sets up a regular pattern, referred to by Virginia guitarist John Cephas as the ‘‘Williamsburg lope.’’ In addition to the melody, the fretting hand contributes to the rhythm with its lively chord changes. At its most elaborate, such as in the hands of master musicians such as Blake, South Carolina’s Blind (later Reverend) Gary Davis, and Willie Walker, the Piedmont style involved the use of additional fingers to pick elaborate ragtime-influenced patterns and produce extraordinary guitar runs. In the early 1930s, the popularity of three guitarists, Buddy Moss, Josh White, and Blind Boy Fuller established the Piedmont guitar style as the primary commercial vehicle for blues from the Southeastern states. Eugene ‘‘Buddy’’ Moss, born in Jewel, Georgia, in 1914, learned to play harmonica as a child. In 1928, Moss moved to Atlanta and joined its bustling blues scene. He worked with Curley Weaver and Barbecue Bob Hicks with whom he recorded as one of the Georgia Cotton Pickers in 1930. His superb guitar playing—influenced especially by the recordings of Blind Blake and Texan Blind Lemon Jefferson— was featured on his first record in 1933. His records sold well until he ceased recording after being imprisoned on a murder charge. He recorded again in 1941 but was unable to rekindle his career. ‘‘Rediscovered’’ in the 1960s, Moss recorded again and performed for a new audience. He died in Atlanta in 1984. Joshua Daniel ‘‘Josh’’ White was born in Greenville, South Carolina, in 1914. As a young man, White worked with older musicians including Blake, Walker, and Blind Joe Taggart. In 1932, White recorded his first of many records, which were released under the name of Joshua White or as ‘‘Pinetop Tom.’’ Though his blues records sold well, by 1940, White had moved to New York City and had become involved in the racially mixed, politically progressive, folk music revival scene, and his music and subsequent recordings changed accordingly. His later recordings (as Josh White) were of little interest to his native community, but they sold well to the international folk music market. White became a well-known entertainer, appearing on radio, television, film, and in theater. He died in 1969. Following White’s voluntary and Moss’s involuntary removal from the Southeastern blues community, Blind Boy Fuller became the most popular and influential blues musician of the Piedmont blues tradition. Born Fulton Allen in Wadesboro, North Carolina, in 1907, and totally blind by 1928, Fuller had to depend on his guitar and welfare for support. Influenced by Gary Davis (with whom he later recorded) and the records of Moss, Blake, and others, Fuller played for the laborers at the Durham tobacco warehouses. He first recorded in 1935 and continued to record until shortly before his death—from complications related to a bladder infection—in 1941, producing 129 titles. Fuller was so popular that, after his death, manager J. B. Long recruited another master of the Piedmont guitar style, Walter Brown ‘‘Brownie’’ McGhee (1915–1996), to record as ‘‘Blind Boy Fuller #2,’’ playing Fuller’s National Steel guitar and emulating his sound. Playing for the laborers at the tobacco warehouses and textile factories was an important source of income for musicians. Because the workers were both white and black, the most successful musicians developed varied repertoires of songs
Blues | 133 and styles that would appeal to both races. This tendency toward a more integrated music—incorporating elements derived from both African and European antecedents—had characterized the music of the Southeast even before the emergence of the blues. Scholars have speculated that racial oppression was less harsh, race relations more amiable, and cross-racial fraternization more common in the Southeast than in other parts of the South. No discussion of the Piedmont blues should be made without mention of the idiosyncratic brilliance of Georgia’s Blind Willie McTell (1901–1959). McTell— who first recorded in 1927 and recorded last in 1956—was a master of many styles and of the 12-string guitar. His instrumental, vocal, and song-writing abilities are justifiably legendary. Although McTell does not readily fit into the Piedmont style, he was a true blues genius from the region. Scholars have not focused on the Piedmont harmonica style as they have the guitar, yet a distinctive style of harmonica playing—closer to the preblues mimicry of animals, machines, and the human voice, and often accompanied by hollers and yelps—characterized the Piedmont tradition. Saunders ‘‘Sonny Terry’’ Terrell (1911–1986), the preeminent harp blower of the region, teamed with Fuller and later McGhee and with the latter became a fixture on the folk music revival circuit. Other players of the Piedmont harmonica include Moss, Neal Pattman, Buster Brown, and Phil Wiggins. After World War II, unlike the Delta blues, which transformed itself into an electrified band version of itself, Piedmont blues lost favor with its public to be replaced by rhythm and blues. Although some Piedmont traditionalists continued to record for small labels (for example, Gabriel Brown’s excellent records on the Joe Davis label), the interracial roots of Piedmont blues—and its continued incorporation of ideas from white musicians—encouraged new directions, and the Piedmont became the primary source of the new music with innovators like Little Richard Penniman, James Brown, and Ray Charles taking the Piedmont blues in entirely new directions. Further Reading Bastin, Bruce. Red River Blues: The Blues Tradition in the Southeast. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1986. Hay, Fred J. ‘‘Music Box Meets the Toccoa Band: The Godfather of Soul in Appalachia.’’ Black Music Research Journal 23, no. 1/2 (2003): 103–133. Pearson, Barry Lee. ‘‘Appalachian Blues.’’ Black Music Research Journal 23, no. 1/2 (2003): 23–51. Pearson, Barry Lee. Virginia Piedmont Blues: The Lives and Art of Two Virginia Bluesmen. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1990. Fred J. Hay
Chicago Blues During World War II, an urbanized and energetic style of blues emerged in Chicago that featured electric guitar, bass, drums, and sometimes keyboards and harmonica or saxophone. Progenitors of the style include ‘‘Big’’ Bill Broonzy,
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Howlin’ Wolf, U.S. blues singer, guitarist, and harmonica player. (Hulton Archive/Getty Images)
Memphis Minnie, Elmore James, Howlin’ Wolf, Sonny Boy Williamson, Little Walter, and Muddy Waters; many of the recordings that launched the Chicago blues were produced at Chess Records. The term sometimes is used interchangeably with ‘‘urban blues’’ and ‘‘city blues,’’ although the latter two terms arguably have a wider applicability. The Chicago blues was integral in launching what would become known as rock ’n’ roll. Although at the turn of the century, approximately 90 percent of the African American population still lived in the South, increasing numbers of individuals began to move to the North with the onset of World War I. In part, they were lured by the promise of less prejudice, higher wages, and greater opportunities for work. These migratory African Americans settled in cities such as Detroit, Chicago, Baltimore, and New York. Many musicians also moved north. Those in the Mississippi Delta region mostly moved to Chicago, bringing with them the Delta blues style, which they then adapted to suit the new urban environment. Chicago offered a number of advantages to performers looking to establish their reputations. By 1920, only Harlem in New York boasted a larger African American community. Between 1916 and 1920, the black population more than doubled, jumping from 50,000 to 109,000. This fact, coupled with the political influence of the underworld (allowing for easy access to alcohol even during the
Blues | 135 Prohibition), made Chicago a major center for entertainment (again second only to New York), and the community supported numerous theaters, cafes, cabarets, and dance halls. Chicago became a center for recording African American music, with the industry reaching its peak in the 1920s with so-called race records constituting 5 percent of all records sold in the United States. Following the Depression, record sales fell precipitously. Companies promoted only established artists, and recordings exhibited a greater tendency toward repeating successful formulas. This may have contributed to the standardization of Delta blues forms that allowed for larger groups of people to perform together—an important feature of what would become the Chicago blues. One of the most popular Chicago musicians in the late 1920s and 30s was Big Bill Broonzy. William Lee Conley ‘‘Big Bill’’ Broonzy (1893/1898–1958) was born in Mississippi. A successful semiprofessional fiddler, he came to Chicago in 1924 and learned to adapt his violin skills to guitar under the tutelage of ‘‘Papa’’ Charlie Jackson. In the mid-1930s, Broonzy became one of the first to use a small band in his recordings (many of these recordings were released under the moniker Big Bill and his Chicago Five). Blues promoter John Hammond asked Broonzy to substitute for Robert Johnson (who had just been murdered) for the first ‘‘From Spirituals to Swing’’ concert held at Carnegie Hall in New York City. By 1942, Broonzy was using electric instruments and thus inaugurated (along with Memphis Minnie) what would become Chicago blues. Many of Broonzy’s later recordings, however, feature him playing in the Delta blues style. Broonzy was a pioneer not only in recording with a backing band and the use of electric instruments but also in his strikingly modern approach to the guitar, as his recording of ‘‘Guitar Shuffle’’ demonstrates. Broonzy builds this instrumental number, performed on acoustic guitar, out of a thudding, steady rhythm that serves as the foundation to numerous short, repeated melodic figures and daring harmonies (including a dominant seventh with a raised ninth). Memphis Minnie (1897–1973) and Kansas Joe McCoy (1905–1950) made Chicago their base in 1932, and Minnie’s virtuosity on the guitar immediately attracted attention. The duo soon adopted a more urban sound in their recordings of the 1930s, employing trumpet, piano, bass, and, by 1937, drums. Minnie’s wide-ranging style and successful ability to play various genres earned her many adherents. Sometime in the early 1940s (the exact date is a point of contention), Minnie adopted the electric guitar in her live performances. Langston Hughes delivered a memorable description of her aggressive approach to this instrument in the Chicago Defender in 1943. Unfortunately, these pioneering performances were not recorded. The style of the Chicago blues emerged with the greatest clarity in the work of McKinley Morganfield who went by the name Muddy Waters (1915–1983). Born in Issaquena County, Mississippi, Waters began playing guitar as a teenager during Saturday night dances and fish fries. He emulated two of the most popular Delta bluesmen of the time, Son House and Robert Johnson, taking his vocal inflections from the former and his virtuosic approach to the guitar from the latter. Alan Lomax came to Stovall, Mississippi, where Waters ran and performed in a juke joint, during the summer of 1941 to record the Delta blues for the Library of Congress.
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Lomax recorded Waters that year and the next. Waters moved to Chicago in 1943 to become a professional musician and, by 1945, he was playing the electric guitar. In the spring of 1947, Evelyn and Charles Aron decided to start a record company with another couple; they called the venture the Aristocrat Recording Corporation and decided to specialize in pop and race records. Later that year, Leonard Chess, who owned and ran the Macomba Lounge in Chicago, became involved with the company. Not long after that, Muddy Waters recorded at Aristocrat as a sideman to Sunnyland Slim. In April 1948, Waters returned to the studio and, among other songs, sang two with only the bass and his guitar as support; Aristocrat released these songs as a 78-rpm single. This initial release (Aristocrat 1305) featured two traditional Delta blues tunes, ‘‘I Can’t Be Satisfied’’ and ‘‘I Feel Like Going Home,’’ but with Waters’s electric guitar and vocal delivery, the familiar tunes were revitalized. The recording sold exceedingly well. In 1948, Aristocrat Records became Chess Records (with Leonard and his brother Phil at the helm) and Waters had his first major hit with ‘‘Rollin’ Stone.’’ At first, Waters did not record with his live band, but by the early 1950s, his recordings featured one of the strongest ensembles of the era—Little Walter on harmonica, Jimmy Rogers on guitar, Ernest ‘‘Big’’ Crawford on bass, Elgin Evans on drums, and Otis Spann on piano—and this became the established sound of the Chicago blues. Waters had a string of hits, many of them written by the composer and bassist (and producer at Chess Records) Willie Dixon, including ‘‘Hoochie Coochie Man’’ and ‘‘I’m Ready,’’ both released in 1954. The lyrics featured hypermasculine machismo and the instrumental support was equally aggressive. In the mid-1950s, members of Waters’s band began to leave to form their own groups. His popularity on the wane, Waters traveled to England and reverted to the Delta blues style. In the late 1970s, however, with the help of guitarist Johnny Winters, Waters staged a remarkable comeback with the album Hard Again (1977), released on Blue Sky Records. Elmore James (1918–1963) was born in Richland, Mississippi, and began playing guitar at a relatively young age. He played with such prominent figures as Sonny Boy Williamson and Robert Johnson; indeed, the latter probably taught James his composition, ‘‘I Believe I’ll Dust My Broom,’’ which later became James’s signature tune. During World War II, James joined the Navy and was stationed in Guam. Upon his return, he resumed performing but now began playing an electrically amplified guitar, which, in combination with his aggressive slide technique (in emulation of Johnson and others), gave James his characteristic sound. He began recording with Trumpet Records (based in Jackson, Mississippi) in 1951 first as a sideman and then as a session leader. His recording of ‘‘Dust My Broom’’ that year became a hit and launched James as a recognizable figure among the bluesmen of his generation. James is a particularly fine example of the continuity between the Delta blues tradition, in which he was raised, and the Chicago blues sound of the post– World War II era. James performed updated versions of several tunes from the older tradition (including, in addition to ‘‘Dust My Broom,’’ tunes like ‘‘It Hurts Me Too’’) and recorded other tunes, such as ‘‘Shake Your Moneymaker’’
Blues | 137 that clearly looked ahead to rock ’n’ roll. James’s individual style was wildly influential on later guitarists (especially among members of the British blues boom in the 1960s). It featured a pared-down, forceful approach to melodic lines articulated with slide technique, the tendency to build larger sections of instrumental solos out of a few short motives with distinctive rhythmic profiles, and a plaintive but cleanly articulated singing style. The Chicago blues style and Chess Records were foundational in the early development of rock ’n’ roll. The sound of the amplified backing band and the prominent, upfront sound of the drums on the recordings of the Chicago blues would come to be characteristic of rock ’n’ roll as well. Furthermore, Chess Records was the first to record, on the recommendation of Muddy Waters, one of the forefathers of rock ’n’ roll, Chuck Berry. Berry quickly became one of the most valuable assets Chess Records had with such hits as ‘‘Maybellene’’ (1955), ‘‘Sweet Little Sixteen’’ (1958), and ‘‘Johnny B. Goode’’ (1958). See also
Delta Blues/Country Blues. Further Reading
Cohodas, Nadine. Spinning Blues into Gold: The Chess Brothers and the Legendary Chess Records. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 2000. Keil, Charles. Urban Blues. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1966. ‘‘Muddy Waters.’’ The Estate of McKinley Morganfield. www.muddywaters.com/home. html (accessed May 2007). Palmer, Robert. Deep Blues. New York: Penguin Books, 1982. Rowe, Mike. Chicago Blues. New York: DaCapo Press, 1981. Tooze, Sandra. Muddy Waters: The Mojo Man. Toronto: ECW Press, 1997. Chadwick Jenkins
Kansas City Blues Although Kansas City, Missouri, has a long history of blues performances, ‘‘Kansas City blues’’ typically is used to refer to a style of blues mixed with elements of jazz that flourished in Kansas City and the surrounding area during the 1920s and 1930s. (Owing to its hybrid nature, the style is referred to also as ‘‘Kansas City jazz.’’) This was a hard-swinging form of blues that exhibited a heavy reliance on riffs (short melodic gestures that were repeated throughout a performance) and often featured a ‘‘blues shouter,’’ such as Jimmy Rushing and ‘‘Big’’ Joe Turner. Important bandleaders in this style include Benjamin ‘‘Bennie’’ Moten, Walter Page, Andy Kirk, and William ‘‘Count’’ Basie. The boogie-woogie aspect of this style of blues (particularly, as heard in the piano playing of Pete Johnson) made it a precursor to early rock ’n’ roll. The hybrid of jazz and blues (with a strong infusion of boogie-woogie) that constituted the Kansas City blues style developed gradually over a period of several decades before it came to full fruition in the 1920s and 1930s. The roots of the style go back to the last decades of the 19th century and the music of prominent pianists such as John William ‘‘Blind’’ Boone.
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Blind Boone performed a variety of styles, including spirituals, plantation songs, classical music, ragtime, and his own compositions. Boone and the contractor John Lange, Jr. formed the Blind Boone Concert Company in 1880. The company provided musical concerts across the country; from 1897 to 1916, it was based in Kansas City. Boone’s 1909 composition, ‘‘Blind Boone’s Southern Rag Medley No. Two: Strains from the Flat Branch,’’ mixes jazz and blues elements and is the first published example of a walking bass (a bass figure that outlines the tones of the chord it supports in groups of four or eight notes to the measure, typical of the boogie-woogie style). This rhythmic device altered the stress patterns in the meters employed in compositions in this style from the strong accentual stress on the first beat of each measure (as in the march-like meters of ragtime and early New Orleans jazz) to a more evenly distributed accentual stress on all four beats of the measure; this smoother, flowing approach to the rhythm is a necessary condition for the rise of the ‘‘swing’’ feel. The politics of Kansas City helped foster this particular blues style. At the turn of the 20th century, Jim Pendergast’s political machine controlled Kansas City’s working-class ghettos. Pendergast, who was a liquor wholesaler in addition to a politician, promoted gambling and prostitution within the city with the tacit protection of the police. In 1910, his younger brother Tom Pendergast became the political boss of the ward. Under his regime, the city’s red-light district thrived and, even during Prohibition, the city’s entertainment industry flourished until Pendergast was convicted for income tax evasion in 1938. Kansas City’s prosperity under Pendergast’s corrupt machine made it attractive to migrant African Americans, particularly the entertainers. By 1930, 15 percent of the population was African American, and they had established a thriving neighborhood in the vicinity of 18th and Vine that bolstered a sense of community not unlike that in Harlem in New York City. The relative liberality of the law and the high concentration of performance venues made Kansas City a popular center for musicians throughout the 1920s and 1930s. Early local bands were formed by Dave Lewis, George E. Lee, and, most famously, Bennie Moten. Bennie Moten was raised in the 18th and Vine area and he learned piano first from his mother and, later, from Thomas ‘‘Scrap’’ Harris, a student of Scott Joplin. Moten formed his first band in 1918 and soon developed a reputation for his strong business acumen and his ability to assemble the finest musicians. Moten’s orchestra made its successful radio debut over WHB in March 1923, which was followed seven months later by the first recordings the group made on Okeh Records. During the session, Moten’s group accompanied two local singers in the classic blues idiom, Ada Brown and Mary Bradford. Although highly talented rivals constantly challenged his position, Moten largely maintained his dominance of the Kansas City music scene until his death in 1935, in part by poaching talent from the so-called territory bands such as Walter Page’s famous Blue Devils. In the 1920s, myriad musical ensembles were formed as territory bands. These bands covered huge swaths of the Midwest, playing for a short period at one venue before moving on to another. Territory bands performed a wide variety of
Blues | 139 music (ranging from polkas and waltzes to blues and jazz) to cater to the diverse audiences within their territory. One of the most prominent of the territory bands was Walter Page’s Blue Devils. This group included numerous outstanding improvising soloists, such as Oran ‘‘Lips’’ Page on trumpet, Henry ‘‘Buster’’ Smith on alto saxophone and clarinet, and Jimmy Rushing on vocals. Count Basie joined the unit in July 1928. One of the most important musical advances of the Blue Devils involves Walter Page’s use of the double bass in the place of the more typical brass bass instrument (such as the tuba). Whereas the tuba, owing to the physical limitations of the instrument, usually played only on the first and third beats of the measure, the string double bass could perform walking bass lines (already employed in the Boone composition discussed above) and thereby could create more evenly flowing rhythmic structures, facilitating a ‘‘swing’’ feel. Because so many musicians and bands converged on Kansas City to participate in performances, battle-of-the-bands competitions, and after-hours jam sessions, the blues became an important musical form in the area. The chord progression of the blues was familiar to the diverse players that traveled to the city; the blues can be played at a variety of tempos to convey different moods and can easily accommodate a mixture of ensemble playing and improvised solos. The Kansas City players devised a format wherein the performance would begin and end with the full ensemble playing a melody (often composed of repeated riffs); the internal choruses were then given over to improvised solos, while the orchestra supported the soloist with interjections of the riff. Thus, the riffs were both melody and accompaniment; they served to unify performances and add interest to the orchestral support given to soloists. This format simultaneously emphasized individual creativity and precision ensemble performance. Andy Kirk and his Twelve Clouds of Joy were a popular territory band that based themselves in Kansas City in 1929, after playing an extended engagement at the Pla-Mor Ballroom on Main Street. Although not yet an official member, Mary Lou Williams (1910–1981) played the piano for the band occasionally. More important, she composed and arranged many of their tunes, including ‘‘Little Joe from Chicago’’—one of the first big band arrangements to feature the boogiewoogie rhythm. Her compositional approach was soon in demand and, in 1937, she penned another boogie-woogie tune, ‘‘Roll ‘Em,’’ for Bennie Goodman. Prominent among blues musicians in Kansas City were the blues shouters. In accordance with the new style, singers cultivated a more boisterous and raucous vocal approach. The two most important blues shouters were Jimmy Rushing and ‘‘Big’’ Joe Turner, both natives of Kansas City. Rushing performed with the Blue Devils, Moten’s band, and, after Moten’s death, with Count Basie’s orchestra. Turner worked as a bartender and singer at various clubs in Kansas City with the virtuoso boogie-woogie pianist Pete Johnson. By 1933, they were established at the Sunset Crystal Palace (managed by Walter ‘‘Piney’’ Brown, a great supporter of musicians in Kansas City). Shortly after Moten’s death, Count Basie organized his own group featuring former Moten players and, later, the saxophonist Lester Young. Producer John
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Hammond heard the group during a radio broadcast in 1936 and brought them to New York. Similarly, Hammond persuaded Big Joe Turner and Pete Johnson to come east to perform in his ‘‘From Spirituals to Swing’’ concert at Carnegie Hall. With the departure of some of its most popular musicians and the collapse of the Pendergast regime, the Kansas City blues ceased to be a distinct style and many of its characteristic elements were absorbed into the national swing movement. Count Basie’s band inspired other groups to adopt a lighter and more agile rhythm section, as well as an emphasis on the blues. Through Charlie Parker, who played with Jay McShann in Kansas City, the blues maintained its prominence in the burgeoning bebop style. Finally, Big Joe Turner brought his style of singing to the rhythm and blues idiom and had a hit in 1953 with ‘‘Shake, Rattle, and Roll,’’ a song that would play a role in the development of rock ’n’ roll. See also
Territory Music, Theater Owners’ Booking Association (T.O.B.A.). Further Reading
Barlow, William. ‘‘ ‘Stormy Monday’: Urban Blues in the Southwest.’’ In ‘‘Looking Up at Down:’’ The Emergence of Blues Culture, 230–249. Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1989. Currier, Terry. ‘‘Big Joe Turner.’’ Cascade Blues Association. www.cascadeblues.org/ History/BigJoeTurner.htm (accessed May 2007). Driggs, Frank, and Chuck Haddix. Kansas City Jazz: From Ragtime to Bebop—A History. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005. Dugan, James, and John Hammond. ‘‘An Early Black-Music Concert from Spirituals to Swing.’’ The Black Perspective in Music 2, no. 2 (1974): 191–207. Pearson, Nathan W. Goin’ to Kansas City. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1987. Silvester, Peter J. A Left Hand Like God: A Study of Boogie-woogie. London: Quartet Books, 1988. Yanow, Scott. Jazz: A Regional Exploration. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 2005. Chadwick Jenkins
Urban Blues As many African Americans moved from rural to urban environments during the 20th century, they expressed the hopes, opportunities, and conflicts found in their new communities through their principle secular music, the blues. The stories told in the blues sung in cities exclaimed the hopes of newly found freedoms, the opportunities of steady employment, and the conflicts of racial inequity that could not be escaped by leaving the farms and plantations. The music was transformed as well, as urban instruments replaced the rural ones, and arrangements became increasingly sophisticated. Such musical developments were necessary, for the blues found a new audience when transplanted to the city, an audience that encountered the music through records, radio, and live performances that took place in large nightclubs, as opposed to the intimate setting of the rural juke joint. Ultimately, this move from the plantation to the city allowed the blues to evolve in an infinite variety of ways and introduced the
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Chicago blues guitar legend Buddy Guy is considered the electric blues’ greatest living guitarist and the most influential roots stylist of the rock generation. (AP/Wide World Photos)
music to the world at large. Thus, as rural blues told the stories of the Mississippi Delta region, urban blues was shaped by the African American experience in Chicago, Kansas City, Memphis, and dozens of other cities where people forged a new life in the 20th century. The migration of African Americans from plantations to towns and cities was one of the most crucial factors affecting the evolution of urban blues. This movement began immediately after the Civil War, with black migration escalating in the years surrounding World War I and World War II. Often, a family would leave their home and go first to a Southern city, such as Mobile, Dallas, or Memphis, exchanging a life of sharecropping for work in a factory. Eventually, untold numbers of people left the South entirely for the urban centers of the North, settling into Harlem, Chicago, Detroit, Kansas City, and dozens of other cities where their lives were changed, new communities were formed, and African American music evolved to meet these demands. It is impossible to know exactly how many people migrated north during this time, but the process was certainly transformative for the United States as a whole and the blues in particular. For example, in the years after the Civil War, the black population of Chicago doubled every decade, reaching more than
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100,000 by the turn of the century. More than 1 million left the South for the urban North in a phenomenon known as the Great Migration, inspired by the Northern need for industrial production during and after World War I. Kansas City’s black population tripled from 1912–1930, and similar figures are seen in all Northern cities. In 1890, around three-quarters of the black population lived in rural areas. By 1930, half were living in cities. With the population explosion came new opportunities for blues musicians to reach wider audiences and to make a music that connected with the shared experiences of the new arrivals. Factory jobs meant a steady income, and the urban African Americans now had the buying power to purchase sheet music and recordings, and to see live performances. The vaudeville shows were the first places where a style of blues connected to urban life appeared. Vaudeville companies like the Theater Owner’s Booking Association (T.O.B.A.) created touring circuits that took them through the cities, and they were particularly popular in the cities of the South and Midwest. These shows featured a different type of blues than that found on the plantation. The singers usually were female, and they dressed in spectacular fashion. Their furs and jewels were a part of their stage presence, for now the blues was a theatrical show. The music changed as well, to meet the demands of the urban audience. Professional composers and arrangers were hired, and song forms became standardized and more sophisticated. A full band now often accompanied singers, including pianists and horn players who gave to the music stylistic idioms adopted from urban jazz. Whereas country blues singer Son House would accompany himself on guitar, and might sing a blues song that could be expanded or contracted as he saw fit, the blues performed in vaudeville shows utilized complex arrangements to appeal to a larger audience, who now had more entertainment options from which to choose. As the blues musicians and composers encountered the larger audiences of the cities, they took advantage of the possibilities of mass distribution, first in the publication of sheet music, and then through the recording industry. The music publishers followed closely the vaudeville singers and their arrangers in their search for new hits, and by the early 1910s, the sales of blues songs in sheet music arrangements exploded, including the most famous blues songs based on urban themes, ‘‘Memphis Blues’’ and ‘‘St. Louis Blues,’’ by W. C. Handy. The relationship between vaudeville and music publishing thus enabled the blues to travel to the urban South and, ultimately, to the North as well. By the early 1920s, millions of African Americans had left the plantation for urban centers, and a million or more had arrived in the North. When factory work replaced sharecropping as a means of employment, blacks possessed a new economic power that was soon discovered by the recording industry. Mamie Smith’s 1922 recording of ‘‘Crazy Blues,’’ and its resulting commercial success, demonstrated to the recording industry the financial possibilities of a certain type of blues—that is, the style that was deeply connected to vaudeville and that used jazz instruments, arrangers, and female singers. These recordings brought a sophisticated form of blues into the homes of people who could not play the music
Blues | 143 themselves, as the sale of millions of copies directly coincided with the Great Migration and the economic expansion that preceded the Great Depression. As the blues became urbanized, the poetry evolved to express the hopes and fears engendered by urban living. Many songs specifically addressed the process of urban migration, such as ‘‘Jim Crow Blues,’’ recorded by Charles ‘‘Cow Cow’’ Davenport (1894–1956): I’m tired of this Jim Crow, gonna leave this Jim Crow town Doggone my black soul I’m sweet Chicago bound . . . And since the urban blues of the 1920s and 1930s so often were sung by women, a new feminist voice was now free to be expressed. Perhaps Violet Mills (also known as Julia Moody) spoke for thousands of women, who had left their families only to encounter a whole new set of problems in the city, when she sang in ‘‘Mad Mama’s Blues,’’ Give me gunpowder, give me dynamite [twice] Yes I’m gonna wreck the city, gonna blow it up tonight. During the years surrounding World War II, another wave of African American migration occurred, brought about by the expansion of Northern factories, and the increasing mechanization of the cotton industry that lessened the South’s reliance on sharecropping. At the same time, the Fender and Gibson guitar companies began to produce electric guitars, basses, and amplifiers, which brought more volume and new possibilities of expression through the use of electronic distortion. The result was a new type of blues, as musicians originally from Mississippi arrived in the North, amplified their instruments, and added a rhythm section to play in larger clubs. Musicians such as Muddy Waters (1915– 1983) and Howlin’ Wolf (1910–1976) transplanted their rural blues style, with its expressive vocalization and vivid poetry, to the city, and used amplification to enhance the timbre and rhythms of the Mississippi sound. During the 1950s, the urban blues was transformed in countless ways, aided by worldwide distribution through recordings and radio play. Chicago, Kansas City, Memphis, and Texas each produced its own variety of the blues, with unique communities of musicians, radio stations, record producers, and, of course, listeners. In 1956 one could hear, live, on record, or on the radio, the electrified Mississippi Delta blues of Chicago, the jump-and-shout rhythm and blues of Kansas City, and boogie-woogie all through the South. The music was now crossing racial barriers, as white teenagers were tuning into radio stations playing a type of rhythm and blues that was being called rock ’n’ roll. By the late 1950s, the blues was an international phenomenon, heard particularly in England, where young guitarists attempted to imitate the master musicians recorded in Chicago and Memphis. By the early 1960s, the urban blues belonged to the world.
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Further Reading Abbott, Lynn, and Doug Seroff. ‘‘ ‘They Cert’ly Sound Good to Me:’ Sheet Music, Southern Vaudeville, and the Commercial Ascendancy of the Blues.’’ American Music 14 (winter 1996): 402–454. Barlow, William. ‘‘Looking Up at Down:’’ The Emergence of Blues Culture. Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1989. Keil, Charles. Urban Blues. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1966. Levine, Lawrence W. Black Culture and Black Consciousness: Afro-American Folk Thought from Slavery to Freedom. New York: Oxford University Press, 1977. Oliver, Paul. The Story of the Blues. Boston: Northeastern University Press, 1969. Yurchenco, Henrietta. ‘‘ ‘Blues Fallin’ Down Like Hail:’ Recorded Blues, 1920s– 1940s.’’ American Music 13 (winter 1995): 448–469. Marc Rice
Jump Blues Ascertaining the origin of musical genres can sometimes be a futile enterprise. To a significant degree, the very notion of such categories seems antithetical to music-making, and it can be argued that the phenomenon emerges more out of the minds of marketers than from the sensibilities of musicians. Nonetheless, generic terminology attaches itself to specific bodies of performances, and the point in time at which these works began to assemble some critical mass can be determined as well as the individuals who created them. In the case of jump blues, the designation attaches itself to a considerable amount of material produced by small ensembles of predominantly African American musicians that emerged before the music industry adopted the more familiar designation rhythm and blues for a specific portion of black popular music production. (The introduction of the latter term is attributed to Billboard magazine around 1949, and some say it was coined by the legendary record producer Jerry Wexler [1917–2008], then an employee of the publication.) While most of the musicians associated with jump blues possessed long and productive careers, the heyday of the phenomenon remains the 1940s. The convergence of a set of factors led to its emergence: the impact of a war economy; the emergence of an array of independent record companies; and the determination to concoct an uptempo, high-energy, audience-friendly form of expression that could allay the fears of global conflict and attract couples to populate the dance floor. The advent of World War II indisputably brought about global turmoil, yet at the same time it triggered a transformation of both the performance and the promotion of African American popular music. For one thing, the very size of musical congregations became reduced. The rising cost and increasing scarcity of fuel led not only to the curtailment of existing tour schedules but also made the continuation of longstanding big bands more or less untenable. Ensembles consequently became leaner and their compositional palette less elaborate. Energy and excitement had to be maintained without depending on such an array of instrumentalists or the technical finesse of fine-tuned arrangements. Multichaired sections of
Blues | 145 sidemen gave way to the self-contained combo. Soloists became even more a focal point of attention for audiences, as they called on techniques that could automatically engage a crowd. One of these formats associated with jump blues was the honkin’ sax: performers on the instrument employed repetitive riffs or explored extreme ends of the acoustic spectrum to induce an ambience of frenzied abandon. The lyrics that accompanied these performances rarely exhibited the melancholy or poetic expressiveness sometimes associated with blues as a format. Instead, they were light-hearted, often intentionally juvenile; less an expression of the woes of the human condition than an exhortation to let the good times roll. The audiences drawn to jump blues were predominantly urban and, in many cases, found among the influx of migrants from rural portions of the nation brought about by high-paying jobs in military-affiliated industries. They congregated in venues found in racially segregated areas, such as Los Angeles’s Central Avenue. As the armed conflict drew to a close, entrepreneurs in the music industry recognized the commercial possibilities in this material, more or less overlooked by the major labels of the day. Numerous independent record companies were launched and their catalogs dominated by jump blues artists. These firms proliferated across the nation: King (Cincinnati), Modern and Specialty (Los Angeles), Chess (Chicago), and Herald and Atlantic (New York). Most were owned by white businessmen who recognized a good thing, but a few were controlled by African Americans: Duke/Peacock (Dallas) and Bronze (Los Angeles). Not many survived the decade, and ironically success could prove to be their fatal downfall: called on to manufacture sufficient copies of a hit tune to meet the public’s interest, they sometimes lacked the necessary capital and collapsed more or less overnight. Some credit the origins of the form to the heated-up grooves of Lionel Hampton’s (1909–2002) chart-topping instrumental ‘‘Flying Home’’ (1942) that featured a frenetic solo by Illinois Jacquet (1922–2004). Certainly, the vocalist-bandleader who provided a benchmark for the style and even crossed over repeatedly to occupy the pop record charts was Louis Jordan (1908–1975). Songs such as ‘‘Five Guys Named Moe’’ (1943), ‘‘G. I. Jive’’ (1944), and ‘‘Caldonia’’ (1945) sold in the millions. Jordan’s material also was covered extensively by other, often white, musicians. He even had a presence on the screen, although in films produced specifically for the black theater circuit. Other black bandleaders followed in his wake, such as Joe Liggins (1915–1987) with ‘‘The Honeydripper’’ (1944), Roy Milton (1907–1983) with ‘‘R. M. Blues’’ (1945), and Tiny Bradshaw (1905–1958) with ‘‘The Train Kept a-Rollin’’’ (1951). The era even saw the unusual white front man who directed multiracial ensembles, such as Johnny Otis (1921– ), whose ‘‘Harlem Nocturne’’ (1945) initiated a career that has stretched over several decades. Some instrumentalists attached to the format achieved solo careers, particularly the honkin’ specialists like Big Jay McNeely (1927– ) best known for ‘‘Deacon’s Hop’’ (1949) or Paul Williams, whose ‘‘The Hucklebuck’’ (1949) gave him his professional moniker. Women as well occupied the limelight, often accompanying themselves on piano like Nell Lutcher (1912–2007) and Hadda Brooks (1916–2002). Male vocalists were among the genre’s most successful
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participants, including Wynonie Harris (1915–1969) whose ‘‘Good Rockin’ Tonight’’ (1948) was penned by the equally popular Roy Brown (1925–1981) of ‘‘Rockin’ at Midnight’’ (1949). By and large, jump blues acknowledged its roots in blues, swing, and boogiewoogie by remaining an acoustic format. One of the distinguishing features that separates it from rhythm and blues is the technological transformation brought about by amplified instruments as well as the even more rapid-fire tempos that seemed somehow consonant with the electrical augmentation. Also, the young white working-class musicians that would inaugurate rock ’n’ roll admired these predecessors and often emulated their styles. On more than one occasion, they even cut new versions of established repertoire: Elvis (1935–1977) reprised Harris’s ‘‘Good Rockin’ Tonight’’ (1955) and Johnny Burnette (1934–1964) and the Rock and Roll Trio did the same with Bradshaw’s ‘‘Train Kept a-Rollin’’’ (1956). At the same time, the ascendance of rhythm and blues and the eventual domination of rock ’n’ roll would minimize the role and eventually almost altogether obliterate the careers of these artists. What once came across as an exhilarating clarion call of audacity now seemed old-fashioned and out of step. For a brief moment, however, attention was once again drawn to the repertoire, when in 1970 Johnny Otis, himself at the time experiencing a career reprieve, resurrected the presence and acknowledged the achievements of his peers, including Roy Milton and Roy Brown, at the Monterey Jazz Festival. A splendid live recording illustrates how untrammeled they were by time and the fickle character of fame, although, subsequently, the limelight continued to evade them even if accolades like induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame or receipt of a Pioneer Award from the Rhythm and Blues Foundation made up for years of neglect. Jump blues may be a relic, remembered best for its influence on its successors rather than the caliber of its own achievements as one of the seminal forms of African American popular music. Further Reading Dawson, Jim. Nervous, Man, Nervous: Big Jay McNeely and the Rise of the Honkin’ Tenor Sax. NH: Big Nickel Publishing, 1994. Dawson, Jim, and Steve Propes. What Was the First Rock ’n’ Roll Record? New York: Faber and Faber, 1992. Gillett, Charlie. The Sound of the City: The Rise of Rock and Roll. 2nd ed. New York: Da Capo Press, 1996. Murray, Albert. Stomping the Blues. New York: Da Capo Press, 1989 (1976). Shaw, Arnold. Honkers and Shouters: The Golden Years of Rhythm and Blues. New York: Crowell-Collier Press, 1978. Smith, R. J. The Great Black Way: L.A. in the 1940s and the Lost African American Renaissance. New York: Public Affairs Press, 2006.
Further Listening Blues Masters the Essential Blues Collection Volume 5: Jump Blues Classics. Rhino R2 71125, 1992.
Blues | 147 Blues Masters the Essential Blues Collection Volume 14: More Jump Blues. Rhino R2 71133, 1993. Central Avenue Sounds Jazz in Los Angeles (1921–1956). Rhino R2 75872, 1999. The Johnny Otis Show Live At Monterey! Sony B00000283G, 1993. David Sanjek
West-Coast Blues The west-coast blues developed as a distinct style of blues during the 1940s in Los Angeles. From there it spread up the west Coast through a circuit of nightclub districts that were established in African American communities from San Diego, California, to Portland, Oregon. To a greater extent than other regional styles of the blues, west-coast blues was one of the major influences on the development of rhythm and blues as a distinct style. A massive movement of African Americans out of the South during World War II, seeking employment in wartime industries and a more tolerant social environment, precipitated the development of a west-coast blues scene. The routes of migration of African Americans out of the South followed the main railroad lines. From the Southwestern states (Texas, Arkansas, Louisiana, and Oklahoma), the main railroad lines led through Texas to Los Angeles. The majority of African American immigrants to the West Coast came from these states, and they brought with them their preferred musical styles, including the Texas blues. A jazz scene had existed in Los Angeles since the early 1900s and, with the influx of blues artists, blues and jazz began to mix in the nightclubs on Central Avenue. The blending of jazz and blues increased as jump blues—up-tempo jazz-inflected blues with shoutstyle vocals—emerged as a national musical style during the 1940s. Jump blues, which adapted a big band (or swing) sound to a smaller ensemble, heavily influenced the development of west-coast blues, particularly the work of Texas blues artist ‘‘T-Bone’’ Walker who relocated to Los Angeles in the early 1940s. Aaron Thibeaux ‘‘T-Bone’’ Walker (1910–1975) began his musical career in Texas as a guitarist and singer in the Texas country blues style. During the 1930s, he performed on electric guitar with territory bands playing swing throughout the Southwest. In 1935, Walker relocated to Los Angeles and, by the early 1940s, had developed a jazzy, fluid style of playing the electric guitar that featured big band style accompaniment in small group settings. The commercial success Walker had with recordings in the 1940s encouraged many African American musicians from the Southwest to relocate to California. Walker’s singing and playing style was an important influence on Urban blues performers, particularly in California and Texas, but also nationally. B. B. King, the most prominent performer of the urban blues performers, names Walker as his primary influence. T-Bone Walker was also famous for his wild performance style, often playing his guitar behind his head or back, thrusting it through his legs and ending his shows by falling into a split while playing his guitar. Another style that emerged from the intermingling of blues and jazz in Los Angeles during the 1940s was a ballad style of piano blues (also known as club
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blues and cocktail blues), which drew on Texas blues, boogie-woogie, and big band swing. This style was developed by a number of pianists who had relocated to Los Angeles, including Cecil Gant of Tennessee (1913–1951), who had the first national hit in this style, and Texans Ivory Joe Hunter (1914–1974) and Charles Brown (1922–1999). Charles Brown, the most influential figure in the development of this musical style, worked as pianist and vocalist for Johnny Moore’s Three Blazers during the 1940s. The relaxed vocal style of jazz artist Nat King Cole, whose trio was popular in Los Angeles nightclubs, was a major influence on Brown who became the best-known practitioner of the ballad style piano blues. His recording ‘‘Driftin’ Blues’’ sold close to a million copies in 1946. Numerous performers— including Cecil Gant, Percy Mayfield, Amos Milburn, Floyd Dixon, and Ray Charles—who would make significant contributions to the development of R & B—were strongly influenced by Brown’s vocal and piano styles. Los Angeles–based songwriters were instrumental in introducing changes in the blues song form that were part of the development of rhythm and blues (R & B). Most early R & B songs used the blues song form with its AAB lyrical structures. This form was extended in the early 1950s by the addition of a bridge section. Los Angeles–based songwriter and performer, Percy Mayfield (1920– 1984) was a pivotal figure in popularizing this song structure. His ‘‘Please Send Me Someone to Love’’—also recorded by many other R & B artists—used this song structure and was one of the most influential R & B songs of the early 1950s. Mayfield’s use of gospel themes in his songwriting also had a significant impact on other R & B songwriters and performers. Although more associated with other parts of the country, some Los Angeles– based artists were experimenting with a harder blues style that soon would be included under the label R & B. Some Los Angeles–based artists, such as Johnny Otis and Roy Milton, were important innovators of this hard-edged style. R & B combos that performed in this harder style also put a high premium on showmanship, featuring synchronized moves and frantic stage routines. This style of performance, though not new among blues artists, would cause a major sensation in the mid-1950s as R & B became popular with young white listeners and a new offshoot of R & B, rock ’n’ roll, became a national sensation. The other major blues center on the West Coast was the Oakland/Richmond area of Northern California. The area was home base for Lowell Fulson (1921– 1999), who moved from Oklahoma to Northern California in the early 1940s. Like T-Bone Walker, he was a significant influence on the development of the modern urban blues style of artists, such as B. B. King, Little Milton, and others. In Northern California, more rural styles of the blues were a more prominent part of musical life than they were in Los Angeles. This seems to have been due to a variety of reasons, including the background of the people who migrated there, the less urban nature of the area, the lack of a significant jazz scene, and the fact that the single record producer who recorded the blues in the area was a Texan who preferred Texas country blues. As in Los Angeles, some of the blues that came out of Oakland/Richmond during the late 1940s moved toward what
Blues | 149 later would be labeled a rock ’n’ roll style. Most prominent among such artists was bandleader Jimmy McCracklin (1921– ). By the 1960s, the blues was in serious decline throughout the country as it lost favor in the black community and was replaced by other musical styles, such as rhythm and blues, soul, and funk. Some California blues artists left the business; others tried to adapt to the current styles. The blues scene in Los Angeles largely died out. In the Bay Area, a few clubs survived and, in the 1970s, they began to attract an increasing number of white listeners. A few artists from the 1940s remained active, such as Jimmy McCracklin and Johnny Otis, and a second generation of artists came on the scene, many who had paid their dues playing with the older blues artists. The most prominent of the second generation of west-coast blues artists were Bay Area guitarist and singer Joe Louis Walker (1949– ) and Robert Cray (born in Virginia in 1953), who were the most influential blues artist to emerge during the 1980s. See also
Los Angeles, California, and the West Coast. Further Reading
Bryant, Clora, Buddy Collette, and William Green, eds. Central Avenue Sounds: Jazz in Los Angeles. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1998. Hildebrand, Lee. ‘‘Oakland Blues. Part 1: Essay.’’ In California Soul: Music of African Americans in the West, edited by DjeDje, Jacqueline Cogdell, and Eddie S. Meadows, 104–111. Berkeley, Los Angeles, and London: University of California Press, 1998. Otis, Johnny. Upside Your Head! Rhythm & Blues on Central Avenue. Hanover, NH: University Press of New England, 1993. Shaw, Arnold. Honkers and Shouters: The Golden Years of Rhythm and Blues. New York: Macmillan, 1978.
Further Listening Brown, Charles. Driftin Blues: The Best of Charles Brown. Collectibles 5631, 1995. Cray, Robert. Strong Persuader. Mercury 830568-2, 1986. Fulson, Lowell. Everyday I Have the Blues. Night Train 7007, 1984. Fulson, Lowell. My First Recordings. Arhoolie CD443, 1975. McCracklin, Jimmy. The Walk: Jimmy McCracklin at His Best. Razor and Tie 2124, 1997. Mayfield, Percy. The Poet of the Blues. Specialty 7001, 1992. Oakland Blues. Arhoolie, 2008. Otis, Johnny. Johnny Otis Rhythm & Blues Caravan: The Complete Savoy Recordings. Savoy Jazz 17509, 1999. Walker, Joe Louis. Cold is the Night. Hightone HCD-8006, 1990. Walker, T-Bone. The Complete Imperial Recordings. EMI America E2-96738, 1991. Jeffrey Callen
Blues Revival The blues revival label applied to blues music in the 1960s, a period much more complex and multifaceted than the term would suggest, the roots of which date
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back to the 1920s, and the influences of which are still felt in the 21st century. Propelled by the popularity of R & B and rock ’n’ roll in the 1940s and 1950s and by the broader folk music movement, the era was also driven by a trans-Atlantic musical exchange between European and American musicians, collectors, and scholars and a long-time interest in jazz by European and American enthusiasts and writers.
American Festivals The highly influential Carnegie Hall From Spirituals to Swing concerts produced by John Hammond in 1938 and 1939 exposed the blues, boogie-woogie, gospel music of Big Bill Broonzy, Pete Johnson, Meade Lux Lewis, Albert Ammons, Mahalia Jackson, and others to the American public, sparking the commercial boogie-woogie craze, fueling the folk music revival, and priming young whites to embrace R & B. Starting in 1954 and 1959, respectively, the annual Newport Jazz and Folk Festivals also showcased blues talent, expanding the audience for blues. One of the first festivals focused specifically around blues music, the 1960 St. Louis Blues Festival, was organized by and for blacks as was the Washington, D.C., blues festival which began in 1970 with the goals of bringing blues music back to the black community and providing support for black blues musicians. The success of the first national-level blues festival in Ann Arbor in 1969 led to similar festivals in Berkeley, California; Memphis, Tennessee; Chicago, Illinois; Beloit Wisconsin; and many other cities.
European Tours Black American artists touring Europe introduced European—particularly British— musicians and audiences to various styles of blues as well as folk music and jazz. Singer-guitarists Huddie ‘‘Lead Belly’’ Ledbetter in 1949, Josh White in 1950, and Lonnie Johnson in 1952 opened the door for William ‘‘Big Bill’’ Broonzy, who made several trips to Europe between 1951 and 1957 and was the most influential and popular of these early visitors. In 1958, following close on Broonzy’s heals, guitar-harmonica duo Brownie McGhee and Sonny Terry revived their folk blues sound for European audiences. That same year, Muddy Waters and Otis Spann took their urban Chicago blues to Europe, followed by one-man-band Jesse Fuller, pianists ‘‘Champion’’ Jack Dupree and Speckled Red (also known as Rufus Perryman), Memphis Slim (also known as Peter Chapman), Eureal ‘‘Little Brother’’ Montgomery, and Roosevelt Sykes, and blues shouters Joe Turner, Jimmy Rushing, and Jimmy Witherspoon. The brainchild of German jazz critic, Joachim-Ernst Berendt, the legendary American Folk Blues Festival (AFBF) and its multiperformer shows toured Europe annually from 1962 to 1970. Instrumental to the success and impact of the AFBF tours, Chicago bassist and prolific songwriter-producer Willie Dixon recruited a diverse group of performers representing various styles and generations.
(Re)Discovery and Revival Southern field trips in search of rural blues date back to the late 1920s and early 1930s when record company talent scouts like Ralph Peer tried to duplicate the
Blues | 151 commercial success of vaudeville blues records. Beginning in the late 1930s with funding from the Library of Congress, folklorists John and Alan Lomax traveled the South documenting African American music and recording black musicians performing blues and other folk music. A tradition by now, in the 1950s and 1960s, white aficionados, record collectors, and scholars—many coming from Europe—journeyed west, east, north, and south seeking out ‘‘living legends’’ and bringing out of obscurity black folk blues musicians, some of whom had earlier recording careers, and others who were being recognized for the first time. Collectors went in search of the artists they heard on old 78 records—older rural blues musicians, many with only local reputations and regional record sales back in their day, and many inactive when ‘‘rediscovered.’’ Most achieved more recognition in this era than they had earlier. Revived artists include Francis ‘‘Scrapper’’ Blackwell (1958), Walter ‘‘Furry’’ Lewis, Sam ‘‘Lightnin’’’ Hopkins (1959), ‘‘Sleepy’’ John Estes, Yank Rachel (1962), Mississippi John Hurt (1963), Bukka White (1963), Eddie ‘‘Son’’ House, Nehemiah ‘‘Skip’’ James (1964), and Arthur ‘‘Big Boy’’ Crudup (1967). Newly ‘‘discovered’’ and recorded artists included Robert Pete Williams (1959), Fred McDowell (1959), Mance Lipscomb (1960), and John Jackson (1965). The reissuing of old recordings, which had been going on in a limited way since the 1940s, increased exponentially in the 1960s with numerous small labels springing up all across Europe and the United States.
Scholarship and Journalism Before the 1960s, most of the scholarship and journalism on the blues came from European and American jazz specialists and aficionados, largely white and male. In the 1960s, with the rediscovery and revival of folk blues, a field of blues scholarship and journalism emerged separate from jazz, also dominated by British and white American writers. The first journal in English devoted specifically to blues, Blues Unlimited, began publication out of the United Kingdom in 1963. Australia, Holland, Sweden, New Zealand, and Austria quickly followed suit, and in 1970, the first American blues journal, Living Blues, emerged out of Chicago. Focused on early rural blues, white blues scholars such as Paul Oliver and Samuel Charters viewed the blues as a dying tradition that needed to be preserved and documented. Generally speaking, white revivalists and scholars considered early rural blues to be the ‘‘authentic’’ blues. Rural, ‘‘rough-hewn,’’ acoustic guitar-dominated, and sung by old black men born into poverty in the South became the defining features of ‘‘real’’ blues. For most black scholars and musicians, however, the blues continued to exist across a broad continuum that included jazz, gospel, and soul. In the 1960s, black critics-scholars and artist-activists such as Leroi Jones (also known as Amiri Baraka), Nikki Giovanni, and Phyl Garland paid homage to musicians from Bessie Smith to John Coltrane, invoking ‘‘the blues aesthetic’’ and consciously incorporating blues-like structures, language, themes, and perspectives into their prose and poetry.
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Folk Blues and Blues Rock Inspired by blues-influenced folk artists like Bob Dylan, following in the footsteps of Woody Guthrie, Pete Seeger, Lead Belly, and Josh White, a substantial number of predominantly young, white, middle-class, and male blues enthusiasts began studying with the ‘‘masters,’’ collecting and transcribing old recordings, and recreating in performance and on record traditional folk blues songs and styles. Similar to white rock ’n’ roll artists in the 1950s (albeit for different reasons), the goal of many of the white folk blues artists was to duplicate every detail of the records of the early masters, who themselves likely would not have performed any song the same way twice. It was the British audiences, however, who first responded en masse to American blues, and British musicians who first incorporated the influence of black American blues artists into their own music. Unlike many white American ‘‘folkies,’’ young Europeans listened to and appreciated a wide variety of styles and genres of African American music. In the early 1960s, while American collectors, artists, and scholars fixated on the folk blues of a bygone era, young British musicians and audiences so thoroughly embraced the urban blues they heard in the first AFBF tours that Howlin’ Wolf’s ‘‘Smokestack Lightnin,’ ’’ Jimmy Reed’s ‘‘Shame Shame Shame,’’ John Lee Hooker’s ‘‘Dimples,’’ and Sonny Boy Williamson’s ‘‘Down and out Blues’’ all reached the British pop charts in 1964. In 1963, the Beatles became the first Europeans to take American-influenced R &B and rock ’n’ roll back to America in the form of highly original music and a distinctive style that was enthusiastically received. They inspired Bob Dylan to ‘‘go electric,’’ which he first did at the Newport Folk Festival in 1965, upsetting folks who equated electricity with pop commercialism and vapid lyrics. Riding the wave of the Beatles’ success in America, British blues rockers like Eric Clapton and John Mayall brought urban Chicago blues to the attention of white America through their performances and recordings with idols Muddy Waters and John Lee Hooker. In the latter half of the 1960s, American blues rock groups like Canned Heat also performed and recorded with John Lee Hooker, Muddy Waters, and Memphis Slim. In contrast to the folk blues imitators, white blues-influenced folk rock bands like the Band created highly original songs and arrangements that also paid homage to various traditions. Jimi Hendrix with his blues-drenched original music was one of the most influential and enduring artists of the era. Bassist Chas Chandler, ‘‘discovered’’ Hendrix in a New York nightclub in 1966. Recognizing the import of Hendrix’s music, Chandler brought him to London where he quickly rose to fame. Hendrix was not ‘‘discovered’’ by white America until he came back to the United States and played Monterey in June 1967. At the same time, many blacks felt Hendrix had sold out because he embraced psychedelic rock and the frivolous excesses of the hippies.
Soul Blues To suggest, as many writers have, that the audience for the blues moved from working-class blacks to young middle-class whites in the 1960s grossly
Blues | 153 oversimplifies the dynamics of the era. Blacks did not abandon the blues, but they did update it—as they always have done—to fit the times. Also, with the growth of the black middle class, a stylistic split emerged along class lines. And there was relatively little interest in the revived folk blues artists among the blacks who originally had supported them ‘‘back in the day’’ because they had ‘‘been there done that’’ and now were drawn to the exciting new dance music of Aretha Franklin, Nina Simone, Sam Cooke, and especially James Brown that resonated anger, pride, and cultural unity. Still, there was (and still is) a dedicated though less ‘‘visible’’ audience of primarily working-class, middle-age blacks in both cities and rural areas who regularly listen(ed), dance(d) to, and perform(ed) contemporary traditional blues. B. B. King had been performing for 20 years to enthusiastic black audiences when in 1966 he was ‘‘discovered’’ and brought into the mainstream where he remains the most visible and well-known blues musician in the 21st century. Jimmy Reed’s accessible yet gritty urban slide blues had widespread appeal and influence in the early 1960s up until his premature death in 1963. Etta James and Little Milton were top hit makers for Chess throughout the 1960s and have maintained their broad appeal into the 21st century. The immensely popular Ike and Tina Turner recorded several albums of traditional blues during the 1960s (along with rock covers designed to cross over), and Turner’s gutsy gritty singing, anchored in the blues, inspired subsequent generations of (black) blues women. Because the music of these artists had been influenced by soul music, however, white revivalists and scholars labeled it soul blues to keep it separate from ‘‘traditional’’ blues. Even in the 21st century, the Blues Music Awards have three designations—traditional blues, contemporary blues, and soul blues. See also Basie, Count; Coltrane, John; Handy, W. C.; Hooker, John Lee; Johnson, Robert; King, B. B.; Ledbetter, Huddie; Memphis Minnie; Rainey, Ma; Smith, Bessie; Smith, Mamie; Wallace, Sippie Waters, Ethel; Waters, Muddy; Wolf, Howlin’. Further Reading Groom, Bob. The Blues Revival. London: Studio Vista, 1971. Narvaez, Peter. ‘‘Living Blues Journal: The Paradoxical Aesthetics of the Blues Revival.’’ In Transforming Tradition: Folk Music Revivals Examined, edited by Neil V. Rosenberg, 242–257. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1993. O’Neal, Jim. ‘‘I Once Was Lost But Now I’m Found: The Blues Revival of the 1960s.’’ In Nothing but the Blues: The Music and the Musicians, edited by Lawrence Cohn, 347–387. New York: Abbeville Press, 1993. Titon, Jeff Todd. ‘‘Reconstructing The Blues: Reflections on the 1960s Blues Revival.’’ In Transforming Tradition: Folk Music Revivals Examined, edited by Neil V. Rosenberg, 220–239. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1993. Weissman, Dick, ed. ‘‘The Blues Revival: 1960–1980.’’ In Blues: the Basics, 100–129. New York: Routledge, 2004.
Further Listening Blues Masters, Volume 7: Blues Revival. Rhino R2 71128, 1993.
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Further Viewing The American Folk Blues Festival, 1962–1969, Volumes 1–3. Produced by David Peck and Jon Kanis. Reelin’ in the years Productions/Hip-O Records B0000750-09 [vol. 1], B0000751-09 [vol. 2], 2003; B0000752-09 [vol. 3], 2004. American Folk-Blues Festival: The British Tours 1963–1966. Hip-O Records HIPDVD72058, 2007. The Band: the Last Waltz. Produced by Martin Scorsese. United Artists, 1978. Red, White & Blues. Produced by Mike Figgis. Sony Music Entertainment, 2003. Maria V. Johnson
Blues Revival See
Blues.
Boogie-Woogie Although its roots may stretch back as far as the late 1800s, boogie-woogie came to fruition in the second quarter of the 20th century through performances by pianists in honkytonks and during rent parties. The genre developed out of a particularly pianistic approach to the blues that emphasized the percussive qualities of the instrument, the exhibitionistic performing abilities of its proponents, and some surprising harmonic and rhythmic effects. Unlike other contemporaneous types of blues, boogie-woogie exuded a raucous ebullience. The most characteristic feature of a boogie-woogie approach is the independence of the two hands; the left hand tends to outline a chord through some kind of repetitive figure, while the right hand plays chordal figures, trills, or other patterns in a contrasting rhythm. This gives rise to the striking cross rhythms that are typical of the style. The first use of the term ‘‘boogie-woogie’’ to describe such music appears to have been the 1928 Vocalion recording, ‘‘Pinetop’s Boogie-woogie’’ by Clarence ‘‘Pinetop’’ Smith. Boogie-woogie attained its greatest prominence in the late 1930s and 1940s through the promotional efforts of John Hammond and the virtuosic performances of Albert Ammons, Meade ‘‘Lux’’ Lewis, and Pete Johnson. By the 1950s, however, boogie-woogie as an independent genre fell into decline and its most characteristic elements were absorbed into early rock ’n’ roll and the Chicago blues. By the turn of the 20th century, the logging industry had become a prominent source of work for blacks living in the South. The logging camps consisted of several shacks that converted into boxcars for easy transportation. In each camp, a shack was set aside to house entertainment, including gambling, drinking, music, and dancing. Such shacks were called ‘‘barrelhouses.’’ Itinerant musicians, many of them self-taught, performed the piano in these barrelhouses to accompany dancing. Similar establishments could be found in the juke joints of the nearby turpentine camps and mill towns. It was in this environment—with its proximity to the railroad, its demand for joyous entertainment, and the constant need for suitable if not highly trained pianists—that the boogie-woogie style emerged. Not surprisingly, the approach these pianists took to the blues
Boogie-Woogie | 155 reflected the social function their music served. The thumping and steady rhythms of the left hand maintained a constant pulse suitable for dancing, whereas the fast-paced tempi and exuberant performing styles (often laced with imitations of trains) pierced through the ruckus of the crowds gathered in the barrelhouses. The pianists called out to the dancers to guide their movements— a practice that is in evidence on the early recordings of the genre by performers such as Clarence Smith or Romeo Nelson. Indeed, in Smith’s spoken recitation during his 1928 recording, he used the term boogie-woogie to refer to both the tune he is playing and the dance that the tune supports. Innumerable left-hand patterns were used to outline the blues progressions. The two most prominent were the ‘‘doubling’’ of the bass (in which the performer alternated between the coupling of the root and fifth of a chord and the coupling of the root with a sixth above—for example, C and G as a dyad alternate with C and A), and a walking bass figure (a pattern that plays the notes of the chord as an arpeggio, often with an added sixth—for example, C-E-G-A-B-flat). Walking basses supposedly arose just before the turn of the century in performances by ragtime pianists; the first published example is a 1909 composition by John William ‘‘Blind’’ Boone entitled ‘‘Blind Boone’s Southern Rag Medley No. Two: Strains from the Flat Branch.’’ These patterns offered a simple alternative to the difficult stride basses that later ragtime pianists developed and quickly were learned by the unschooled pianists of the barrelhouses. The right hand of the barrelhouse pianists tended to focus on repeating chordal patterns, single note passages (often in triplet eighths), passages in parallel thirds, sixths, and octaves, and a variety of riffs. Each chorus typically introduced a new pattern. Later pianists (particularly Lewis, Ammons, and Johnson) concentrated on the cohesion of their compositions by introducing recurring motives and right-hand figures with a stronger melodic sense. These pianists also emphasized the independence of the hands and introduced a surprising amount of dissonance by playing clusters of adjacent notes and by using simultaneities more for their timbral effect than their harmonic content. Unfortunately, the earliest recordings of the boogie-woogie style date from the late 1920s. Therefore, it is impossible to assess precisely how the first blooming of the style sounded. While the recordings of Clarence ‘‘Pinetop’’ Smith and Charles ‘‘Cow Cow’’ Davenport may have carried forward elements of the older style, these men were already immersed in the more urbanized approach to boogie-woogie that could be heard in bars and rent parties throughout cities such as Chicago, Kansas City, and St. Louis. Smith, Davenport, Jimmy Yancey, and Hersal Thomas (all based in Chicago) became important fixtures on the T.O.B.A. (Theater Owners’ Booking Association) circuit, and their work in theaters and as accompanists imbued their performances with greater sophistication and polish than would have been heard in the barrelhouses. Urban rent parties became an increasingly prominent venue for boogie-woogie performances in these cities. To cover the rent, some tenants would throw parties with liquor, entertainment, and a small entrance fee. Because the piano took up relatively little room and the boogie-woogie style was designed to cut
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through the noise of a crowd, boogie-woogie pianists were an ideal source of entertainment at rent parties. Many such parties included ‘‘cutting sessions,’’ during which boogie-woogie pianists informally would compete in virtuosic displays for the approbation of the audience (as well as bragging rights). Boogie-woogie owes its period of greatest prominence (and perhaps even its commercial decline) to the efforts of John Hammond. In the mid-1930s, Hammond became enamored of a relatively rare Paramount recording by Meade ‘‘Lux’’ Lewis called ‘‘Honky Tonk Train Blues.’’ Impressed with Lewis’s virtuosity, Hammond began a prolonged search for the pianist, finally discovering him washing cars for a living in Chicago. With Hammond’s assistance, Lewis rerecorded the composition along with three others for England’s Parlophone (no American recording company would accept the risk). The recordings gained immediate notice and soon were issued in the United States. Lewis’s minor celebrity was not yet sufficient to sustain a performing career. Hammond’s next move changed that situation temporarily. On December 23, 1938, Hammond held a concert featuring important African American musical artists called ‘‘From Spirituals to Swing.’’ Hammond hoped to realize two major goals through this project. First, Hammond, with the sponsorship of the American Marxist publication The New Masses, sought to demonstrate that authentic African American music was superior to the derivative popularized versions of it promulgated by certain white musicians. Indeed, booking Carnegie Hall for the performance was largely a symbolic gesture through which Hammond hoped to demonstrate that this music was on par with other serious music and deserved to be listened to with a level of attention commensurate with its quality. Second, Hammond recently had bought interest in the newly opened Cafe Society in Greenwich Village, and he found himself in charge of booking the musical entertainment. Cafe Society was the first fully integrated nightclub in the United States and quickly became the favored venue of New York’s leftist intellectuals and artists. The owner of Cafe Society, Barney Josephson (a Latvian-American shoe salesman from Trenton, New Jersey), envisioned it as a venue where whites and blacks worked together on a fully integrated bandstand while entertaining a fully integrated audience. The liberal atmosphere of the locale was emphasized by doormen dressed in ragged suits that idly watched as patrons opened the doors for themselves, murals painted by leftist figures such as Ad Reinhardt, and its slogan: ‘‘the Wrong Place for the Right People.’’ Part of the impetus behind the Carnegie Hall concert was to promote the kind of music Hammond wanted to feature at the nightclub. The first half of ‘‘From Spirituals to Swing’’ culminated in a ‘‘cutting session’’ enacted on stage by the three great boogie-woogie pianists of that generation, soon to be known as the Boogie-Woogie Trio: Lewis, Ammons, and Johnson. The audience was in awe of their performance. This appearance (along with several further performances at Cafe Society) sparked the boogie-woogie craze that lasted from 1938 to about the middle of the following decade. During this time, performances and recordings by these three pianists were in high demand. Furthermore, the excitement surrounding this music gave rise to numerous imitators.
Booker T. and the MGs | 157 Nearly all jazz orchestras began to include a few ‘‘boogie-woogie numbers’’ in their repertoire (Benny Goodman even hired Mary Lou Williams, the composer and arranger for the Twelve Clouds of Joy, to write a boogie-woogie composition for his use). Numerous ersatz boogie tunes also gained popularity, including the hugely successful wartime tune, sung by the Andrew Sisters, ‘‘Boogie-Woogie Bugle Boy (of Company B).’’ The song was written by Don Raye and Hughie Prince and introduced by the Andrews Sisters in 1941. The three members of the Boogie-Woogie Trio found it increasingly difficult to book performances by the late 1940s. Ammons, for instance, tried to perform more jazz standards in his sets, but all three pianists were viewed as proponents of an outmoded musical craze. They each drifted back into obscurity. Meanwhile, the techniques of boogie-woogie (particularly the propulsive but relatively simple bass figures) were absorbed into R & B and, eventually, into early rock ’n’ roll. See also Blues; Jazz; Rock ’n’ Roll; Theater Owners’ Booking Association (T.O.B.A.); Williams, Mary Lou. Further Reading Driggs, Frank, and Chuck Haddix. Kansas City Jazz: From Ragtime to Bebop—A History. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005. Harrison, Max. ‘‘Boogie-woogie.’’ In Jazz: New Perspectives on the History of Jazz by Twelve of the World’s Foremost Jazz Critics and Scholars, edited by Nat Hentoff and Albert McCarthy, 107–135. New York: Rinehart and Company, 1959. Page, Christopher I. Boogie Woogie Stomp: Albert Ammons and His Music. Cleveland: Northeast Ohio Jazz Society, 1997. Silvester, Peter. A Left Hand Like God: A Study of Boogie-Woogie. London: Quartet Books, 1988. Chadwick Jenkins
Booker T. and the MGs Booker T. and the MGs, a pioneering Southern soul instrumental group, began their career as the house band at Stax-Volt Records in Memphis, Tennessee, in 1962. The group collaborated with and backed such artists as Otis Redding, Sam and Dave, and Wilson Pickett and appeared on more than 600 Stax-Volt recordings through 1968. Members include organist Booker T. Jones (1944– ), guitarist Steve ‘‘The Colonel’’ Cropper (1941– ), drummer Al Jackson (1935–1975), and bassist Donald ‘‘Duck’’ Dunn (1941– ). Lewis Steinberg (1933– ) was the group’s bassist until stepping down in 1965). Booker T. and the MGs (the MG stands for ‘‘Memphis Group’’) broke ground as a racially integrated group; their trademark ‘‘Memphis sound’’ infused country, rock ’n’ roll, and blues influences with funk and soul. In addition to their work as a backing band, they were a successful group in their own right, recording 10 albums and 14 instrumental hits, including their most well-known soul classic, ‘‘Green Onions’’ (1962). The song, a 12-bar blues anthem popular with both black and white audiences, reached number one on
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Billboard’s rhythm and blues chart and number three on the pop charts. ‘‘Green Onions’’ currently is number 181 on Rolling Stone’s list of the top 500 songs of all time. The recognizable hit can be heard extensively on radio, film, and television, including the films Get Shorty, The Sandlot, and Chicken Run. Other important recordings include the singles ‘‘Hip Hug-Her’’ (1967), ‘‘Soul Limbo’’ (1968), and ‘‘Melting Pot’’ (1971). In 1968, with the sale of Stax Records, the band disintegrated into a more casual entity. In 1975, Jackson was fatally shot by intruders upon returning home from the Joe Frazier–Muhammad Ali fight. The remaining members continued on with a variety of collaborative and independent work. Cropper and Dunn were members of the Blues Brothers band that was started by John Belushi and Dan Aykroyd and portrayed themselves in the 1980 film, The Blues Brothers, bringing Booker T.’s classic songs to a new generation. Booker T. and the MGs was the house band for Bob Dylan’s all-star, 30-year anniversary show in 1992 and they backed Neil Young on his 1993 tour. They released their first album in 20 years, That’s the Way It Should Be, in 1994, and in 2004, they were the house band for Eric Clapton’s Crossroads Guitar Festival. The music of Booker T. and the MGs continues to influence contemporary music. They were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame (1992) and the Musician’s Hall of Fame (2008). Steve Cropper was inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame in 2005, and in 2008, both Steve Cropper and Donald Dunn toured with Australia’s multiplatinum artist, Guy Sebastian. Booker T. Jones released a solo album, Potato Hole, in 2009. Fans can visit the Stax Museum of American Soul Music in Memphis, Tennessee, where Booker T. Jones’s organ from ‘‘Green Onions’’ is on display. See also
Memphis, Tennessee; Soul Music. Further Reading
Bowman, Robert M. J. Soulsville, U.S.A.: The Story of Stax Records. New York: Schirmer Trade Books, 2003. Hayes, Isaac, and Joseph Adolphe. ‘‘Booker T. and the MGs.’’ Rolling Stone, April 21, 2005.
Further Listening Green Onions and Other Hits. Flashback R2 79976, 2000. Stax 50th Anniversary Celebration. Concord Music STX2-30203-2, 2008. Kim Kennedy White
Boyer, Horace Clarence (1935–2009) College professor Horace Clarence Boyer was born on July 28, 1935, in Winter Park, Florida. He obtained his musical education at Bethune-Cookman College in Daytona Beach, Florida (bachelor’s degree, 1957), and at the Eastman School
Brass Bands | 159 of Music in Rochester, New York (master’s degree, 1964; doctorate, 1973). His teaching career included tenures in the public schools and Brevard Community College of Cocoa, Florida (1957–1963, 1965–1969); at Albany State College in Georgia (1964–1965); Florida Technological University in Orlando (1972– 1973); and at the University of Massachusetts in Amherst (1973–1999). As a youth he and his brother James toured as a gospel duo with Alex Bradford, Mahalia Jackson, and Rosetta Tharpe. He also toured with his brother independently in the Famous Boyer Brothers duo. His master’s thesis was a study of gospel music, and his doctoral dissertation was an investigation of black church music. He toured widely with the gospel choirs he organized at the institutions where he taught. He also toured as a lecturer, giving special emphasis to the subject of gospel music, conducted choral workshops, and published articles in such professional journals as The Music Journal and The Black Perspective in Music as well as Black World and First World. He was active as an organist-choirmaster during his service in the U.S. Armed Forces (1958–1960) and later in a church at Macedon, New York (1969–1972). During the years 1973–1977 he was director of the Voices of New Africa House Workshop Choir. He recorded gospel-music albums, including Mine Eyes Have Seen the Glory (1973). His honors included Ford Foundation Fellowships (1969–1972). During the years 1985–1987, he served as curator of musical instruments at the National Museum of American History, Smithsonian Institution. His numerous awards include an honorary doctorate from the University of Colorado (1996) and the Lifetime Achievement Award from the Society for American Music (2009). A prolific scholar, he authored numerous articles on gospel music as well as an authoritative book on the subject, and appeared as a commentator in the films Too Close to Heaven and Flight to Freedom. He died on July 21, 2009, in Amherst, Massachusetts. Further Reading Davis, John P., ed. The American Negro Reference Book. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: PrenticeHall, 1966. Eileen Southern
Boys’ Choir Movement, The See
Educators, Schools, Colleges, and Universities.
Brass Bands While there are brass bands all over the world, in New Orleans musicians are known for creating a unique brass band tradition. The New Orleans brass band has cornets (or trumpets), trombones, a sousaphone or tuba, a snare drum, and a bass drum with a cymbal. In the early 1900s, clarinets and alto or tenor saxophones
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were added. While the instruments in the New Orleans bands are not different from those in other brass bands, the music they make is. That music is, not surprisingly, the combination of a variety of influences and is the result of the city’s rich history. While most scholars trace the beginnings of the New Orleans brass-band tradition to the 1880s, there are certain indications that it began much earlier. Inspired by Turkish bands, European brass bands originated in the late 1700s and were military bands. The emperor Napoleon was much taken with this new form of music and promoted brass bands throughout his colonies, including Louisiana. In the early 19th century, there was an enormous influx of both enslaved and free people from Cuba and Saint Domingue who brought their Afro-Caribbean music with them. The major ingredients for the style were in place: the standard brass band; African, European, and Afro-Caribbean musical forms; black musicians; and a diverse audience willing to listen to them. It is this time period that historian Curtis D. Jerde points to as the beginning of black band music. By the 1840s, a band in New Orleans was advertising its services as a brass band, a military band, and a dance band. Emancipation and Jim Crow laws both acted to spur the development of the brass band tradition. As a result of the broader impact of segregation and enforced Jim crow laws, the black community created social-aid societies and other organizations to provide for the needs of black citizens, and at many of their annual socials and signature events, music was a prominent fixture. The funeral march of the New Orleans brass band is slow, dirge-like, and solemn on the walk to the graveyard. On the return from the graveyard, the music is fast, uplifting, and joyful. Showing elements from both African and AfroCaribbean folk traditions, this is a celebration of the soul’s entrance into heaven. Funerals were not the sum of the New Orleans brass band, however. The other events where the brass bands played (for example, Mardi Gras, picnics, political rallies, dances) also helped create the tradition. The variety of both venues and audiences demanded that a certain musical complexity would develop. In his essay ‘‘The Clave of Jazz,’’ Christopher Washburne wrote, ‘‘Because of the multiethnic population of New Orleans, stylistic flexibility was required. . . . Musicians needed to play music which would appeal to the tastes of African American, European American, Creole, French, English and Spanish audiences.’’ The backgrounds of the band members themselves added to the mix. One member of a New Orleans brass band might well have been a trained musician from the gens de couleur (free persons of color) who had been taught the European tradition of quadrilles and concert music. Another might be a former slave who brought knowledge of improvisation, African percussion, spirituals, and work songs. The 1880s heralded the brass band explosion in New Orleans, and the famed bands that began in that era included the Excelsior Brass Band (1880–1931), the Onward Brass Band (1885–1930), and the Reliance Brass Band (ca. 1892– 1918). They defined what is now recognized as the brass-band tradition, and their music became a cornerstone in the development of jazz. Among the many legendary jazz musicians who received their early training in a brass band are King Oliver and Louis Armstrong, who were both members of the Onward
Brown, James | 161 Brass Band. Now regaining popularity, modern brass bands include the Young Tuxedo Brass Band and the Dirty Dozen Brass Band. Most recently, the Rebirth Brass Band and the Soul Rebels Brass Band have combined the brass-band tradition with rap and hip hop. See also
Military Bands; New Orleans, Louisiana. Further Reading
Jerde, Curtis D. ‘‘Black Music in New Orleans: A Historical Overview,’’ Black Music Research Journal 10, no. 1 (spring 1990): 18–24. Klitz, Brian. ‘‘Blacks and Pre-jazz Instrumental Music in America,’’ International Review of the Aesthetics and Sociology of Music 20, no. 1 (June 1989): 43–60. Knowles, Richard H. Fallen Heroes: A History of New Orleans Brass Bands. New Orleans: Jazzology Press, 1996. Schafer, William J. Brass Bands and New Orleans Jazz. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1977. Washburne, Christopher. ‘‘The Clave of Jazz: A Caribbean Contribution to the Rhythmic Foundation of African-American Music.’’ Black Music Research Journal 17, no. 1 (spring 1997): 59–80. Hilary Mac Austin
Brown, James (1933–2006) R & B and soul artist James Brown is remembered for his distinctive voice, funky band arrangements, and electrifying stage presence. His career began in the mid1950s as singer with the Famous Flames and hit singles, such as ‘‘Please, Please, Please’’ and ‘‘Try Me.’’ He began to achieve iconic status after his landmark album, Live at the Apollo (1963). This album marked Brown’s growing penchant for tight and sparsely orchestrated grooves, which featured signature play between his vocal jabs and the ensemble. This call-and-response element along with other timbres and collective ensemble treatments that evoke a strong vernacular presence virtually eschewed the harmonic and formal conventions of popular music during that time. Brown continued to explore the more unconventional route in song composition and production through the 1960s and early 1970s, sometimes aurally transmitting the details of his songs to band members. Brown’s political activism was overtly stated in his hit ‘‘Say It Loud, I’m Black and I’m Proud’’ which became an anthem of awareness and affirmation for many African Americans during the late 1960s and the turn of the following decade. His political positions did not preclude his production of funky dance hits, which were accompanied by hit singles, such as ‘‘Mother Popcorn’’ (1969), ‘‘I Got The Feelin’’’ (1968), and ‘‘Super Bad’’ (1970). His string of chart-topping hits ended in the mid-1970s with ‘‘Get Up Offa That Thing.’’ Brown was reintroduced to the mainstream and to a new generation of listeners by way of his appearance in the film, Blues Brothers. That reemergence during the 1980s reached its pinnacle with two hit singles
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James Brown, the ‘‘Godfather of Soul,’’ greets fans during a ceremony honoring him outside the famed Apollo Theater in the Harlem neighborhood of New York in 1994. (AP/Wide World Photos)
‘‘Living in America’’ and ‘‘I’m Real.’’ Known by other monikers such as the ‘‘Godfather of Soul’’ and ‘‘The Hardest Working Man in Show Business,’’ Brown’s influence is realized in contemporary popular music by way of hip hop samples and the groove-based forms of house and go-go music. See also
Soul Music. Further Reading
Tucker, Bruce. James Brown: The Godfather of Soul. London: Sidgwick and Jackson, 1987.
Further Listening Brown, James. The Best of James Brown. Polydor l314 547 719-2. Compilation, 1999. Brown, James. Live at the Apollo. Universal B0001715-02, 2004. Reissue. Horace J. Maxile, Jr.
Brown, Oscar, Jr. (1926–2005) Entertainer and composer Oscar Brown was born October 10, 1926, in Chicago, Illinois. He began his professional career as a child actor and entered music relatively late, although he wrote songs and poetry from childhood on. In 1952
Brown, William Albert | 163 his song ‘‘Brown Baby,’’ attracted wide notice when it was sung by Mahalia Jackson. His performance of the song on the demonstration record called attention to his singing ability and launched him into a career as an entertainer. He toured widely on the nightclub circuit and appeared on television and radio programs. In 1962 he was host for a television series ‘‘Jazz Scene USA’’ and in 1980 for the series ‘‘From Jumpstreet: A Story of Black Music.’’ He also produced television specials. During the 1960s–1970s he gave more attention to writing music, although continuing his activity as an entertainer. The musicals he wrote and produced, some in collaboration with others, included Kicks and Company (1961), Joy (1970), the opera Slave Song (with Alonzo Levister, 1972), and In Da Beginning (1977), among other productions. He received awards from the theater industry. In 1972 he was artist-in-residence at Howard University in Washington, D.C. He hosted From Jump Street: The Story of Black Music for PBS in the 1980s; a documentary of his life, The Story of Oscar Brown Jr., aired on PBS in 2007. He died in May 2005 in Chicago, Illinois. Further Reading Brown, Oscar. What It Is: Poems and Opinions of Oscar Brown, Jr. 1st ed. Chicago: Oyster Knife Publishing, 2005. ‘‘CBMR Summer Performance Events: Multimedia Festival the Spoken Word in Black Music Cultures from Griots to Mcs, A Tribute to Oscar Brown, Jr.’’ CBMR Digest 20, no. 2 (2007): 13. Cohen, A. ‘‘Oscar Brown Jr.: 1926–2005.’’ Downbeat, 2005, 20. Eileen Southern
Brown, William Albert (1938–2004) Concert and opera singer William Albert Brown was born March 29, 1938, in Jackson, Mississippi. He obtained his musical education at Jackson State University in Mississippi (bachelor’s degree in music education, 1959), where he studied with Robert Henry; at Indiana University in Bloomington (master’s degree, 1962), where he studied with Charles Keillman and Paul Mattheu; at Peabody Conservatory in Baltimore, Maryland (1966–1968), where he studied with Carolyn Long. He also studied with Alice Duschak. In 1961 he made his debut as a concert tenor in Handel’s Judas Maccabeus with the Fort Wayne [Michigan] Symphony Orchestra; in 1967 he made his New York debut with the Little Orchestra Society’s concert performance of Busoni’s Turandot. In 1962 he made his operatic debut with the North Virginia Opera Company, singing the role of Rodolfo in Puccini’s La Boheme. In 1968 he made his debut with the New York City Opera in Weisgall’s Nine Rivers from Jordan. During the years 1970–1971 he toured with the Goldovsky Grand Opera Theater. He also toured widely as a concert singer, appearing with major symphony orchestras of the United States and abroad, and performed with opera companies and on television programs,
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including the world premiere of John LaMontaine’s opera Shephardes Plave performed by the Washington Opera. His best-known operatic performances were as Feste in David Amram’s Twelfth Night, Nero in Monteverdi’s Incoronazione di Poppea, and Nate in William Grant Still’s Highway I, U.S.A. He made his recording debut in 1973 and thereafter recorded regularly; his best-known recorded performances were of Olly Wilson’s ‘‘Sometime’’ and arias from operas by Still and Samuel Coleridge Taylor. As a concert artist he attracted wide attention for his all black-composer programs. His teaching career included tenures as an Affiliate Artist at Augustana College in Rock Island, Illinois; at Eckerd College in St. Petersburg, Florida; and as professor at the University of North Florida in Jacksonville (1972–2004). He received awards from the recording industry. He also received the Distinguished Professor Award from the University of North Florida in 1993. He continued to perform with various symphonies and opera companies throughout the United States and abroad until late 2002. His papers are held at the Center for Black Music Research (Columbia College Chicago). Brown died on October 20, 2004. Eileen Southern
C
Caesar, Shirley (1939– ) A gospel singer, Shirley Caesar is hailed as the ‘‘Queen of Gospel Music’’ and considered to be the most famous gospel singer since Mahalia Jackson. She had an early introduction to gospel music by way of her father who was a lead singer in a quartet. She was performing by age 12 as ‘‘Baby Shirley Caesar’’ and in 1958 became a member of the legendary group, the Caravans. Perhaps the most popular all-female gospel-singing group of the 1950s, the Caravans boasted a number of great singers such as Inez Andrews, Dorothy Norwood, and Albertina Walker. Caesar left the Caravans in 1966 to pursue her preaching ministry and a career as a solo artist. She then produced albums with the Hob and Roadshow labels, which produced hits such as ‘‘Faded Rose.’’ Over her career, Caesar has recorded more than 40 albums and received a host of industry and organizational awards, including 12 Grammy Awards and induction into the Gospel Music Hall of Fame. Along with her strong alto voice that is equally at home with soft or fullthroated passages, she is revered for being one of the best storytellers in the history of gospel music. Whether in a sermonette that serves as prelude or a spirited ad lib over a closing vamp, Caesar’s ability to connect with audiences through stories and personal testimonies contribute to her being one of the all-time greats in gospel music. Many of her recordings feature traditional gospel styles, forms, and instrumentations, but she has collaborated with contemporary gospel artists, such as Tonex, Tremaine Hawkins, and Kim Burrell. Caesar’s more popular songs and sermonettes include classics such as ‘‘Hold My Mule,’’ ‘‘I Remember Mama,’’ ‘‘Jesus, I Love Calling Your Name,’’ and ‘‘He’s Working It Out for You.’’ See also
Gospel Music. Further Reading
Darden, Robert. People Get Ready: A New History of Black Gospel Music. New York: Contiuum Books, 2004.
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Pastor Shirley Caesar performs at BET’s (Black Entertainment Television) Eighth Annual Celebration of Gospel concert. (AP/Wide World Photos)
Helibut, Tony. The Gospel Sound: Good News and Bad Times. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1971.
Further Listening Hymns. Word/Epic EK 85864, 2001. Shirley Caesar Live: He Will Come. Word/Epic EK 67301, 1995. Horace J. Maxile, Jr.
Calloway, Cab (1907–1994) Jazz bandleader and singer Cabell (‘‘Cab’’) Calloway was born December 25, 1907, in Rochester, New York. He came from a musical family: his mother was a church organist and his brother Elmer and sister Blanche became professional musicians. When he was six, his family moved to Baltimore, Maryland, where he studied with Llewelyn Wilson at the high school. He also studied voice privately with Wilson and with Ruth Macabee. He sang in a church choir at an early age. He also began singing in local nightclubs during his high school years and played drums in a local group. His early style development was influenced by
Calloway, Cab | 167 William (‘‘Chick’’) Webb, who performed in Baltimore during Calloway’s formative years. In 1927 he began singing professionally, joining the musical revue Plantation Days, in which his sister Blanche was performing. When the show closed in Chicago, Illinois, he remained in the city; he attended Crane College for a short while and began singing in local nightclubs. By 1929 he had formed his own band, the Alabamians, which toured for a period, then went to New York, where it made its debut at the Savoy Ballroom in the Harlem community. The group was disbanded, however, within two weeks after its opening, and Calloway toured with the Hot Chocolates musical in a singing role. He was then invited to lead the Missourians, a group originally from Kansas City, Missouri, but then playing in New York. In the spring of 1930 his band went into the celebrated Cotton Club as a replacement for Edward (‘‘Duke’’) Ellington. During his two-year association with the club, the band changed personnel, becoming in reality his band; he broadcast every night from the club. In 1931 he made his recording debut and began writing his own songs, including one that became the theme song of his band, ‘‘Minnie the Moocher.’’ Within a short time he was firmly established as a successful bandleader. He toured widely with his big bands at home and abroad, recorded extensively, and appeared in numerous films, including Ali Baba Goes to Town (1937), Dixie Jamboree (1944), and Stormy Weather (1943), among many others. In 1947 he was forced to disband his big band for economic reasons; thereafter he worked with small groups, although he occasionally led a big band for special engagements, as in 1951. In 1952 he began a new career as a singing actor; he toured with Gershwin’s folk opera Porgy and Bess (1952–1954), the Harlem Globetrotters (1965, as a halftime show), and the Broadway musical Hello, Dolly! (1967–1971). Between acting engagements he toured widely with a small group in Europe, South America, the Caribbean, and the United States. He continued to be active musically through the 1970s, singing in theaters, nightclubs, and resort areas; in the mid-1970s he toured with a show, Sounds of the Forties. Calloway was an important big band leader of the 1930s and 1940s; those who played in his groups included many who would later become celebrated, among them, Chuck Berry, Dizzy Gillespie, Danny Barker, Milton Hinton, Tyree Glenn, Jonah Jones, Benny Payne, Hilton Jefferson, Cozy Cole, Ben Webster, and others. Although not the first to use ‘‘scat singing,’’ he helped to popularize it with his ‘‘hi-de-ho.’’ In 1976 he published his autobiography with Bryant Rollins, Of Minnie the Moocher and Me. He received the National Medal of the Arts in 1993. He died November, 18, 1994. Further Reading Cab Calloway Family Web Site. www.cabcallowayllc.com (accessed October 20, 2009). Calloway, Cab, and Bryant Rollins. Of Minnie the Moocher and Me. New York: Crowell, 1976. Shipton, Alyn. Hi-De-Ho: The Life of Cab Calloway. New York: Oxford University Press, 2010. Eileen Southern
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Camp Meeting Songs Between 1780 and 1830, camp meetings flourished in the religious life of America’s frontier communities. Its participants were common people, black and white, of all Protestant denominations involved in a continuous religious service spread out over several days, often an entire week. These meetings were held in wooded areas or in large tents where participants prayed and sang the traditional religious songs of the time. A number of scholars and participants in the tradition have noted the significant contributions of African Americans to the form and functions of camp meetings, although, during the years of segregations, African Americans and whites were separated at numerous meetings. Despite the segregation, the African American presence was felt in emotive singing and dancing, and in the insistence in long repetitive choruses that modified the rhythms and metrical divisions of standard sacred song. These nuances were, of course, based in an African heritage. The impact of the vernacular influence on the sacred song and its overarching influence in religious communities caused some to attempt to mark distinctions between sacred and secular performance styles—a line that is at best a blurred one. In comparison to the popular music of black musicians in the South, contributions to camp meeting songs were just as significant because they offered a powerful vehicle for cultural identity in organized religions and denominations in the South. Furthermore, research suggests that the African American contributions to camp meeting songs signaled a reaction against conventional psalmody of the religious establishment and called for more simple and spontaneous songs that feature the form and technique of call and response. Because of this reaction and insistent performance style, camp meeting songs experienced dramatic changes: the nonreliance on hymnals perpetuated the emphasis of the oral approach to singing traditions and the continued use of simpler songs that invited more communal participation. Although there were retentions of cross-cultural influences in camp meeting songs during the early decades of the 20th century, deep cultural, social, and philosophical differences persisted between the races and those differences even reached into religious ideologies and contexts of musical influence. For example, American composer Charles Ives evokes the camp meeting in his third symphony, but like many Americans during that time, denied the weight and significance of African American music in the defining of an American musical tradition. See also Antiphony (Call and Response); Black Church Music—History; Black Church Music—Hymnists and Psalmists; Slave Music of the South; Work Songs. Further Reading Cimbala, Paul A. ‘‘Black Musicians from Slavery to Freedom: An Exploration of an African-American Folk Elite and Cultural Continuity in the Nineteenth-Century Rural South.’’ The Journal of Negro History 80 (1995): 15–29.
Carter, Betty | 169 Floyd Jr., Samuel A. The Power of Black Music: Interpreting its History from Africa to United States. New York: Oxford University Press, 1995. Genovese, Eugene. Roll Jordan Roll. New York: Random House, 1976. Levine, Lawrence, W. Black Culture and Black Consciousness Afro American Folk Thought from Slavery to Freedom. Oxford/London/New York: Oxford University Press, 1977. Southern, Eileen. The Music of Black Americans: A History. New York: W.W. Norton and Company, 1971.
Further Listening Ives, Charles. Northern Symphonies (coupled with Symphony No. 3). James B. Sinclair. Naxos 8.559087. Lorenzo Santoro
Carter, Betty (1929–1998) Jazz singer Betty Carter stands with Ella Fitzgerald as one of the greatest scat singers ever. Scholars and fellow musicians consider her to be an evolutionary marker in jazz singing, as she, more so than many of her contemporaries, applied the aesthetic and musical principles of bop and postbop jazz styles to the vocal instrument. Born Lillie Mae Jones in 1929 in Flint, Michigan, she was introduced early into professional jazz circles. As a teen, she performed with bop musicians such as Charlie Parker when they performed in Detroit and eventually landed a steady job with the Lionel Hampton band before her 20th birthday (1948). During the 1950s, Carter performed with notables such as Dizzy Gillespie, Max Roach, and Miles Davis, while maintaining a position with the Hampton band. She made her first recordings during this decade, but they were not well received. Developing a reputation as a nonconforming artist, Carter’s reputation among musicians was stellar. Her radical approach to melody and improvisation were not as marketable, however, and, thus, she was not popular with booking agents and record companies. Carter toured with Ray Charles during the 1960s, and their collaborations resulted in one of Carter’s first commercially successful recordings, Ray Charles and Betty Carter (1961). She also continued to work and record with her trio and released acclaimed albums such as Finally Betty Carter (1969). She founded her own record company in 1971, and critics believe that much of her best work shows on these albums; they include Now It’s My Turn (1976) and The Audience with Betty Carter (1979). A firm believer in apprenticeship and education through practical experience, Carter helped launch the careers of many jazz musicians through the 1970s and 1980s. Among those who have worked in her trios are pianists Mulgrew Miller, Benny Green, and Cyrus Chestnut. Her most notable albums during the 1980s and 1990s include Look What I Got (1988) and Feed the Fire (1993). She continued to tour after the release of Feed the Fire and added the Jazz Ahead program to her legacy. Jazz Ahead was an education outreach program that brought aspiring jazz musicians to New York to study for one week and always ended with a weekend of concerts. See also
Jazz.
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Jazz singer Betty Carter belts out a song at her Brooklyn, New York, home in May 1978. Carter is known as the ‘‘Godmother of Jazz.’’ (AP/Wide World Photos)
Further Reading Bauer, William R. Open the Door: The Life and Music of Betty Carter. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2002.
Further Listening Betty Carter. Verve 843 274-2, 1990. Betty Carter’s Finest Hour. Verve 314 589 778-2, 2003. Horace J. Maxile, Jr.
Charles, Ray (1930–2004) Born Ray Charles Robinson on September 23, 1930, in Albany, Georgia, his family moved to Greenville, Florida, when he was an infant. When he was three years old, he was given access to a piano in the neighborhood cafe, and he
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Legendary soul pioneer Ray Charles is shown in this March 16, 1979 photo. (AP/Wide World Photos)
taught himself to play, inspired by the proprietor, Wylie Pitman, a boogiewoogie piano player. He began going blind when he was five years old and within two years was totally blind. He obtained his musical education at the State School for the Blind in St. Augustine, Florida. He left school when his mother died, and at 15, he began his professional career. He first played piano in bars and clubs of Jacksonville, Florida, then moved to other cities in the state. When he was 18, he settled in Seattle, Washington, where he organized his own group, the McSon Trio. His early style development was influenced by Nat King Cole, both as singer and pianist, and his first group imitated the Cole and Charles Brown sound. The trio played regularly in local places and on radio and television programs. He wrote arrangements for his group and for others; in 1948, he made his first recordings, and he dropped the Robinson from his name. In 1950, he settled in Los Angeles, California. His trio had difficulty in finding engagements, and within a short period, his management sent him on tour as a single with Lowell Fulson (1950–1952). After leaving Fulson, he toured as a soloist, and he then formed a seven-piece group in 1954, for which he wrote and arranged the music as well as played piano and alto saxophone, and sang. He developed a distinctive style, combining elements of spirituals and blues in the songs he wrote. His group toured widely, particularly in the South, playing on the black theater circuit. He made his recording debut as a
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bandleader in 1954 and occasionally played for such artists as Ruth Brown. Eventually, he established himself as the leading entertainer of his time, whose versatile group could perform jazz, blues, rhythm and blues, or gospel with authority. In 1959, he attracted wide attention for his so-called secularized gospel; in 1962, he combined gospel elements with country and western music, as in the albums Modern Sounds in Country and Western Music. In 1976, he combined yet two other styles, transforming patriotic songs into gospel. He toured widely throughout the world with his show, which included a female vocal group, the Raeletts, specialty acts, and a big band (sometimes large orchestras with strings, particularly for recordings). He performed on television shows and in films or on film soundtracks, including Ballad in Blue (1964) and The Cincinnati Kid (1965). Charles exerted enormous influence on others as a bandleader, composer, and performer. He is credited with having developed the concept of soul, the merging of gospel, rhythm and blues, country music, and popular music into a musical entity Among his hits were ‘‘I Got a Woman’’ (1954); ‘‘The Right Time’’ (1956); ‘‘Georgia on My Mind’’ (1960); ‘‘Unchain My Heart’’ (1961); ‘‘Hit the Road, Jack’’ (1961); I Can’t Stop Loving You’’ (1962); ‘‘Born To Lose’’ (1962); ‘‘Busted’’ (1963); ‘‘Crying Time’’ (1965); ‘‘America the Beautiful’’ (1972), which he later rerecorded after the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks; and ‘‘Rainy Night in Georgia’’ (1972). His final album, released two months after he died, Genius Loves Company, featured duets with such singers as Willie Nelson, Norah Jones, B. B. King, Gladys Knight, and others, and won multiple Grammy Awards. He received numerous awards from the music industry. In 1978, he published his autobiography, Brother Ray, with David Ritz (which was revised and published in 2004). Among the many honors Ray Charles received in his life were 17 Grammy Awards, including the Lifetime Achievement Grammy in 1987; Kennedy Center Honors for Lifetime Achievement in 1988; the National Medal of Arts in 1993; and Rolling Stone magazine placed him at number 10 in their ‘‘100 Greatest Artists of All Time’’ in 2004 and at number two in their ‘‘100 Greatest Singers of All Time’’ in 2008. Further Reading ‘‘Biography.’’ Ray Charles Foundation. http://raycharles.com/ (accessed August 1, 2010). Ebony, October 1974. Lydon, Michael. Boogie Lightning. New York: Dial Press, 1974. Lydon, Michael. Ray Charles: Man and Music. New York: Routledge, 2004. Ritz, David, and Ray Charles. Brother Ray: Ray Charles’s Own Story. New York: Da Capo Press, 2004.
Further Listening Charles, Ray. Anthology. Rhino/Wea #75759. ASIN: B00000348K, 1988. Charles, Ray. Genius Loves Company. Concord 2248-2, 2004. Charles, Ray. The Ultimate Collection. Rhino/Wea #75644. ASIN: B00000I72B, 1999. Eileen Southern
Charleston, South Carolina, and Surrounding Areas | 173
Charleston, South Carolina, and Surrounding Areas Charleston, South Carolina, a major slave port, was in near ruin in 1862. Cotton monoculture had ended with war and military occupation. Trading chickens and vegetables along the coast from Savannah and Beaufort to Georgetown brought enterprising individuals to Charleston; others left near destitution and landlessness to seek their fortune in the city. The river routes from inland brought migrants from the Low Country of South Carolina and Georgia to the city. Those who passed through the Jenkins Orphanage (founded 1891) often made a mark in the Jazz Age.
African American Music in Charleston, South Carolina, and Surrounding Areas: 1862–1919 Education College education was largely undertaken outside the state—St. Helena Island’s first doctor graduated from Howard University in 1900—but the city had numerous schools by 1890. Education for older children was at Avery (founded in 1865), Morris Street (founded in 1867), and John Dart’s industrial school (founded in 1894). Away from the city, students attended Claflin College, in Orangeburg (founded in 1890), which offered a music program, and the Browning Home, in Camden (founded 1887 and renamed Mather Academy). Parade bands included the Chicora (1878) and Greenville’s Union Star (1891). The city’s German community employed African American bands at the annual Schutzenfest. Music was heard at picnics, in traveling shows, and always in the churches. Tuition included violin lessons (Francis Eugene Mikell, 1885–1932), the piano (William Lawrence, 1895–1981, whose father was a church organist), and informally—meaning the absence of tuition (songwriter Chris Smith, 1879–1949)—as well as from books purchased by mail. Joshua Blanton, of Vorhees Institute in Denmark (1897), was active musically and encouraged his daughter Carol (born on St. Helena Island, 1911–1974) to study the piano and composition, sending her to Spelman College in Atlanta, Georgia. Avery Institute, headed by Fisk graduate and ex–Jubilee Singer Benjamin Cox from 1914 to 1936, employed tutors J. Donovan Moore, Goldie Bolden, and James R. Logan. Moore’s tuition enabled Lawrence to play in recitals in New York and England. Bolden’s music teaching included a choir that sang the classics.
Musicians in Europe Charleston-area musicians began traveling to Europe as early as the late 19th and early 20th century. From research based on U.S. passport applications, these
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musicians have been recently identified and current research continues to learn about them, including their death dates. Some of these musicians included Thomas James who performed in Austria in 1906, and singer Henry Norris Jackson (born in Charleston, 1871) who performed in Copenhagen, Denmark, in 1899, and in Sweden and Germany in 1904. Peter Jackson (born in Charleston, 1890) was a stage artist in Norway in 1913 and Berlin in 1914, on his way to Russia. Song-and-dance acts by black men and women were popular across Europe despite the language barrier. Emma Elizabeth Harris (born in Augusta, 1875) performed in Berlin in 1903 on her way to Russia. Harry Gravely Davenport (born in Savannah, 1875) had been singing in Europe since 1895, which also took him through Berlin to Russia, in 1900. From 1890 into 1905, guitarist Joseph Carter, who also was from Savannah (ca. 1869), worked in Europe and received excellent reviews. Edward Claude Thompson (born in Beaufort, 1878) was a female impersonator who performed as Modjesko or the Creole Patti in Norway, Sweden, Russia, France, Germany, Hungary, and Austria between 1901 and 1911. Lucy Jackson from Charleston (b. 1867) left America in the Black America Company in 1896. A solo act in 1899 Berlin, she toured Poland, Finland, Austria, and Hungary from 1901 to 1905. Performing as Smith and Bella Jackson, she sang and danced with William Smith (born in Philadelphia) from Germany to Greece and Egypt in the 1910s. She performed Tyrolean yodeling songs in Germany in 1905. Joseph Beckles (born in Charleston, 1875) performed in Europe beginning in 1897 and used music in his act as the American Negro Comedian. He danced the cakewalk in Denmark and Norway in 1904, in present-day Ukraine in 1906, and in Hungary in 1907. It is difficult to know exactly what propelled these men and women to Europe. Those, like guitarist Carter, who married whites, never could return to South Carolina and Georgia. Once away from the ‘‘hellhole’’ of Charleston (as respected Fisk choir leader, Ohio-born global traveler Frederick J. Loudin described the city in 1898) many were unlikely to return.
Notable African American Musicians in South Carolina Gary Davis (born in Laurens, 1896–1972) attended the South Carolina School for the Blind. A blues and gospel singer-guitarist, Davis influenced many musicians in the 1960s. South Carolina provided almost no financial support for welfare and education of African Americans until the 1900s, and the early institutions were founded and funded by Northern philanthropy or the church, assisted by local donations. In 1891, Daniel Jenkins (born in Barnwell County, 1862–1937) established a home for orphans. The city of Charleston provided $200 in 1897—for Jenkins ran the only black orphan home available—rising to $1,000 annually from 1905. He cared for more than 500 children, with eight teachers.
Charleston, South Carolina, and Surrounding Areas | 175 The Orphan Aid Society was generally known as the Jenkins Orphanage. Like most black institutions (other than theology schools), a practical education formed a large part of his program, to ensure that the children could earn a living when they left. Music teaching was included: Logan’s carpenter brother Peter also had considerable responsibilities. Mikell taught music at the orphanage, which had girl singers and brass bands touring in the summer, seeking support outside Charleston. Jenkins took a band to England in 1895 and a girl trio to England in 1906. By 1898, Jenkins was the sole U.S. agent for band instruments made by Abraham Collins of London. As one of the only black entrepreneurs importing European musical instruments in the 1890s, his impact was tremendous not only to South Carolina, but to the musical innovation in the state. Jenkins’s institution occupied the Old Marine Hospital in central Charleston and, for wayward children, Jenkins had a reformatory farm at Ladson. Music instruction at the orphanage was formal. Orphans learned to read musical notation and to construct harmonic structure and proficiency on instrumental techniques as opposed to learning music by rote. The Jenkins alumni could all read music and play their instruments in different keys. Mikell, Logan, William Leroy Blake, and Alonzo Mills taught reading, harmony, singing, and the instruments. Concerts were presented; the bands played in the street and at picnics, and gave recitals as far as James Island. One choir was named the Suwanee River Company (ca. 1913). The bands gathered one-quarter of the funds needed to keep the operation going. Many of the youngsters were active in jazz from the 1920s. Achievements in other musical activities such as composition, band leading, and music shop keeping, all essential to the world of music-making, have been overlooked by numerous scholars over the years. Pianist Thomas Delaney (1889–1963) wrote ‘‘Jazz Me Blues’’ and other popular compositions, Alonzo Hardy (b. 1889) directed bands in New York into the 1930s, and Horace Holmes (b. 1901) studied at Morehouse in Atlanta and ran a music store in New York from the 1920s. Jenkins’s son Edmund Thornton (1894–1926) went from Avery to Morehouse where he played the violin and studied music with Kemper Harreld. He led an orphanage touring band most summers. In 1914, he went with a band to London where, billed as the ‘‘Famous Piccaninny [sic] Band,’’ they played at the Anglo-American Exposition from May to September. Edmund Jenkins then studied at the Royal Academy of Music for seven years, majoring in composition, adding oboe and bassoon to the clarinet, which he taught at the academy, as well as winning medals, prizes, and scholarships. In 1919, his ‘‘Charlestonia’’ was performed in London: one of its themes was a Charleston fisherman’s song. Charleston’s street cries were the subject of Hariette Leiding’s book in 1910, but little or nothing is known of blues and other secular singing in Charleston and the Low Country. The boys at Jenkins Orphanage came from out-of-town as well as the city, and they would have heard these cries in the streets of the city in the years before they entered the institution.
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Jenkins alumni worked for James Reese Europe’s orchestra, which was the top black band in America. Mikell was a sergeant with Europe’s Hell Fighters army band, and trombonist Amos Gilliard and drummers Stephen and Herbert Wright also were in that group, touring in France from 1917 to 1918. Europe and his band returned in triumph to New York and toured into 1919. Brothers Jacob (trombone) and Ed Patrick (cornet) who had entered the orphanage in 1908 worked with Will Marion Cook’s Southern Syncopated Orchestra in England from 1919. George Thayer (French horn) started a career in minstrel and theater shows in 1919 after touring with the orphanage band from 1913. In spite of their socieconomic situations, these musicians made tremendous contributions to the living legacy of African American music. Jeffrey Green, Rainer E. Lotz, and Jack A. McCray
African American Music in Charleston, South Carolina, and Surrounding Areas: 1919–1942 Continuing social repression and the awareness of opportunities away from South Carolina, encouraged by war, prohibition, and the growth of public dancing, led Charlestonians to leave the city, taking their music with them.
Folk Blues Singer Bertha ‘‘Chippie’’ Hill (1905–1950) was born in Charleston and moved to New York as a child, recording in Chicago with Louis Armstrong. Gary Davis moved to North Carolina, working with Blind Boy Fuller, settling in New York in 1944 and touring in Europe as a holy blues guitarist. Joshua D. ‘‘Josh’’ White (born in Greenville, 1908) learned guitar technique from the blind men and eventually would initiate a recording career in New York in 1932. Bluesman Pink Anderson (1900–1974) was born in Laurens and raised in Spartanburg. He worked in medicine shows, and began a recording career in 1928. The blues-influenced trumpet of James ‘‘Bubber’’ Miley (1903–1932) was born in Aikenand emerges as a major player in the Edward ‘‘Duke’’ Ellington orchestra from 1924 to 1929. Henry Johnson (born near Spartanburg, 1910) sang on WSPA Spartanburg and WBCU Union in the 1930s. In 1927, Julius Daniels (1901–1947), born in Denmark, was the first South Carolina bluesman to record. A disc of spirituals was made in 1929 by the South Carolina Quartette for Paramount. Numerous discs also were made by Victor/RCA in Charlotte (then Rock Hill) between 1927 and 1938, including string players and vocal quartets. Entertainer Ethel Waters employed Delaney as her manager: his ‘‘Down Home Blues’’ was a hit for her in 1921. Nicholas Ballanta-Taylor visited and published Negro Spirituals of St. Helena Island (1925). Because he came from Sierra Leone, he was aware of the linguistic and cultural links between Gullah and Sierra Leonean Africans via dance, language, and song.
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Jenkins Orphanage Alumni Orphanage-trained musicians moved away, largely to New York. The Aiken (or Aitken) brothers Augustine ‘‘Gus’’ and Eugene ‘‘Buddy’’ worked with Fletcher Henderson in 1921 and then for Charlie Johnson’s band. They recorded with Perry Bradford in 1923. Gus (b. 1902) was in Louis Armstrong’s trumpet section in the 1930s. Brothers Thomas ‘‘Tommy’’ and William ‘‘Bill’’ Benford worked in dancehalls in New York, playing drums and tuba. In 1928, they recorded with Jelly Roll Morton alongside another orphanage alumnus, trombonist Julius ‘‘Geechie’’ Fields (ca. 1903), who played in a band with them, and Savannah-born guitarist Lee Blair (1903–1966 ). Emerson Harper taught at the orphanage from 1912 to 1914, was a clarinetist in London in 1914, worked in New York, and played with LeRoy Smith’s orchestra from 1918 to 1933 and with other bands as well. Amos White (b. 1889) worked in New Orleans with Mamie Smith in 1927 and worked in California starting in 1934. Drummer Joseph ‘‘Traps’’ McIntosh’s technique was greatly admired in New York in the 1920s. Trombonists Joseph Williams and Jacob ‘‘Jake’’ Frazier recorded jazz-dance music in the 1920s. Frederick ‘‘Freddie’’ Bennett moved to New York in 1936, where he played trombone with Luis Russell. Alonzo Hardy (b. 1889) attended South Carolina State College and then directed an Elks band in New York into 1937. Herbert ‘‘Peanuts’’ Holland (1910–1979) played the trumpet in Jimmie Lunceford’s and Alphonso Trent’s bands in the 1930s. William ‘‘Willie’’ Smith (1910–1967), associated with the Orphanage, played the saxophone with Lunceford from 1929 to 1942. Cladys ‘‘Jabbo’’ Smith (1908–1991) worked with Charlie Johnson from 1925, recording with Ellington and Thomas ‘‘Fats’’ Waller, and his own Rhythm Aces in Chicago (1929). His brilliant trumpet playing supported the record company’s belief that he might challenge Armstrong. He was with Claude Hopkins playing the trumpet 1936 to 1938, and recorded four of his own compositions for Decca in 1938. St. Julian Bennett Dash (born in Charleston, 1916–1974) was educated at Avery, moved to New York, and in 1938 joined Erskine Hawkins often playing the Savoy in Harlem. A saxophonist, he composed one of the classic swing-era tunes, ‘‘Tuxedo Junction’’ (1939). William ‘‘Cat’’ Anderson (born in Greenville, 1916–1981) joined Dash in the Erskine Hawkins Orchestra in 1942. Away from recording centers, Jenkins’ alumni taught, toured, and played. Savannah had trumpeters Eunice Brigham and Robert Hunter who played and taught in the city; Elmer Whitlock (trumpet) toured with Armstrong in 1933; Sylvester Briscoe (trombone and tuba) and Ermitt V. Perry (trumpet) toured in Florida in the late 1920s. Rohmie Jones taught Bennie Morton in New York in the early 1920s. Charles Anderson (trumpet) and William ‘‘Geechie’’ Robinson (trombone) worked in Texas in the 1930s. Brigham’s trumpet pupils included Smith and Anderson; the latter formed orphanage alumni into the Carolina Cottonpickers, recording in 1937. The group included Aaron Harvey, Albert Martin, Walter Bash, Booker T. Starks (saxes), Julius Watson (trombone), Eugene Earle (tuba and trombone), Joseph M. Williams, Thaddeus Seabrook, and John Henry Williams (trumpets), and Otis Walker (drums).
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Orphanage tutors also trained independently. Notable pupil Frederick ‘‘Freddie’’ Greene (or Green) (1911–1987) had the guitar chair in the Count Basie orchestra from 1937. Mikell had moved to New Jersey. He taught, composed, and conducted in New York until his death in 1932. In 1928, Fox filmed the band outside the Marine Hospital building. The sound is ideal for a street band, bound to attract attention from the curious. Revealing the high standards of tuition, the musicians hold their instruments and play with embouchures in the correct manner. Such skills enabled alumni to work the long hours of dance-jazz bands in the 1920s and 1930s. None of the youngsters tap their feet—a common, noisy, and intrusive element among badly and self-taught instrumentalists.
Musicians in Europe Continuing his studies at the Royal Academy of Music, London, into 1921, Edmund Jenkins was a contact for visiting Americans, including Will Marion Cook and his Southern Syncopated Orchestra. Jenkins formed a dance band that recorded in 1921. His clarinet and alto-sax reveal jazz qualities lacking in his British companions. In London, he met Florence Mills; pianist-composer James P. Johnson, whose ‘‘Charleston’’ of 1923 was the dance sensation of the 1920s; and Will Vodery—all major figures in black music. A frustrating musical season in the United States during 1923 to 1924 led Jenkins to settle in Paris where he died in 1926. Will Lawrence accompanied tenor Roland Hayes on a European tour in 1923, for spiritual recital presentations were in fashion (a heritage often assumed to have been initiated by Paul Robeson). Hayes also presented European art songs and lieder, as well as songs from Africa; Lawrence’s arrangements were important in their success. The Blackbirds of 1926 performed song and dance shows in Paris and London, where they gave more than 200 performances, ending in May 1927. The show then toured Britain. Bill Benford was in the orchestra. The 1934–1935 show included dancer Clayton ‘‘Peg Leg’’ Bates (1907–1998). In 1929, the play Porgy went to London, with Jenkins personnel as the band and as actors. Alonzo Mills, Sr. and Jr. were in that group, as were Seabrook, Joseph Smalls, and Charlie Jackson. This novel-turned-play was to become Gershwin’s Porgy and Bess. The probable connection, in mid-1920s Paris, between Gershwin and Edmund Jenkins remains unresearched. Tommy Benford was in Europe in the 1930s, recording with Coleman Hawkins and Benny Carter. Nina Mae McKinney (born near Charlotte, 1912–1967) sang in England, and worked with Robeson in a movie in the 1930s.
Art Song Recitals The Morris Brown Baptist Church continued music presentations with tenor Sydney Woodward in 1922 and Marian Anderson in 1929. Carol Blanton toured
Charleston, South Carolina, and Surrounding Areas | 179 and taught outside South Carolina. Parlor pianists, singers, and violinists played for friends and at gatherings, performing Eurocentric arrangements of spirituals and folk songs from published collections by Samuel Coleridge-Taylor, James Weldon Johnson, and others. Jeffrey Green and Rainer E. Lotz
African American Music in Charleston, South Carolina, and Surrounding Areas: 1942–1968 Trumpeter Wilbur Carter left the Jenkins Orphanage in Charleston in 1941, seeking his fortune after a stint of more than 10 years in the institution, a worldrenowned jazz cradle. Carter, a cripple, and his sister, Elizabeth, were sent to Jenkins in the 1920s where they both learned music. By 1942, Wilbur Carter had settled in Schenectady, New York, to use what he had learned in Charleston—how to play jazz trumpet—to make a living. Carter did well, playing for a time with the famed Carolina Cottonpickers and establishing himself as a popular musician in Schenectady, a city he had visited with a Jenkins band in the 1930s. The Cottonpickers was a territorial band, a band that stayed on the road covering the entire United States, including the West Coast. It was formed in the 1940s and traveled through the 1950s, playing cities such as Los Angeles, New Orleans, Jacksonville, New York City, and Chicago. The band grew out of a Jenkins Orphanage touring band, which decided to stay on the road after some financial success. Trumpeter William ‘‘Cat’’ Anderson trained at Jenkins and was a Cottonpicker, as was St. Julian Bennett Dash, Charleston native and eventual lead tenor saxophonist with the famed Erskine Hawkins Orchestra. An important Charleston pianist, Clifton Smalls, also was a Cottonpicker. Smalls was musical director for singer Billy Eckstine, pianist for 10 years with Sy Oliver at New York City’s Rainbow Room, and musical director for William ‘‘Smokey’’ Robinson. He worked with famed bandleader Gerald Wilson, singer Brook Benton, and vocalist Dinah Washington. Some may remember his giving a cameo performance as a piano player in the movie Cotton Club starring Richard Gere. As Carter was leaving Charleston a couple of years into World War II, the area began to awaken from a slumber started after the Civil War. The advertising campaign promoting ‘‘Old Historic Charleston’’ began in the 1920s and had taken hold by the 1930s, bringing an increasingly steady flow of tourists and new residents to the area. Blacks were still reeling from the Great Depression, but a generation of African American jazz musicians began to come of age during the late 1940s and early 1950s, continuing a musical tradition started in the 19th century and concretized with the birth of the Jenkins Orphanage in 1891. By then, players such as Joey Morant, Oscar Rivers, Lonnie Hamilton III, St. Julian German, George Kenny, Bob Ephiram, and Raymond Rhett had been
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passed the Charleston jazz torch to bring it into the modern era. They took musical instruction at Charleston County public schools through their connections— direct and indirect—with the Jenkins Orphanage. Many of the musicians were taught music in public schools by teachers associated with Jenkins such as Holland ‘‘Toby’’ Daniels, a longtime instructor and administrator at Jenkins. He taught at Burke High School in Charleston and retired as a public school principal. Morant and others from this time got early lessons from Fletcher Linton who started a marching band and giving private lessons at Archer Elementary School in the 1940s. He went on to do the same thing at Buist Elementary School in the 1950s, where he was principal. Linton was a jazz player, working in many of the dance bands in Charleston at the time. He was a native of Cheraw, South Carolina, where he learned to play the trumpet with his boyhood pal John Burks Gillespie. Linton’s bother Charlie Linton was a well known jazz singer who worked with Chick Webb’s band. According to many accounts, Charlie Linton introduced Webb to Ella Fitzgerald in the 1930s when he sang with Webb. Leonard ‘‘Swing’’ Chisolm was a student of Fletcher Linton’s at Buist in the mid-1950s, who went on to great recognition around the southeastern United States as a tenor saxophone player. Many journeyman musicians from Charleston who were living and working in New York City during this period, such as trombonist Julius ‘‘Bankhead’’ Watson, populated pit bands at large theaters and Broadway shows for years. Mostly because of the teachings at Jenkins Orphanage and instruction by teachers who learned there, Charleston musicians were legendary for their ability to sight-read and play any kind of music. Hamilton, who credits Jenkins Orphanage with his fundamental music instruction, tells the story this way: ‘‘We were so good, if a fly landed on the music, we would play that as a note, too!’’ Many of these former students were section leaders and played first chair on their instruments not only because of their ability to swing but also because they were extremely proficient technically. By the 1950s, the smaller ensemble returned to the fore in jazz and Charleston bands flourished. William Louis Gilliard and his Royal Sultans, the Metronome All-Stars, the Carolina Stompers, the Night Hawks Orchestra, and the Royal Entertainers were among the top bands in the third quarter of the 20th century. As colorful as band names were during this time, they had a lot to build on from what came before. For instance, a 1924 band named Saxton Wilson’s Cruel Five (apparently a smaller ensemble drawn from the 1921 Professor William Saxton’s Orchestra) played a type of music described as ‘‘jazz, razmatazz, and rajazz.’’ Charleston bands were in step with the times in terms of slang, too. Gilliard worked a dance whose ticket had written on it ‘‘GET HIP! GET WISE!’’ then underneath ‘‘Say Diddy Bops Stick to the Jive,’’ then the name of the event ‘‘A Rockin and Rollin Dance.’’ This event was held at the Hotel James on Spring Street near the Ashley River. It was a hotel for blacks during segregation. It was where most black celebrities stayed while in Charleston. James Hotel’s Azalea Ball Room, where the dances, concerts, and receptions were held, had a bandstand on the mezzanine level, a musical terrace. Other
Charleston, South Carolina, and Surrounding Areas | 181 well-known venues for black music in the Charleston area included the 52–20 Club in Summerville, a small town north of Charleston; Grant Hall and the RVA Club (later The Village) in the Neck Area (between Charleston and North Charleston); Zanzibar, Harlem Club, and Bacardi’s Rose Room in North Charleston; Riverside Beach Park, a beach front pavilion, and White’s Paradise, at Remley’s Point east of Charleston; and downtown Charleston’s Harleston Hall, Lincoln Theater, Dash Hall, Moulin Rouge, Charleston County Hall, Dart Hall (also known as Dart’s Dancing Casino), and Colonial Cabin; Cadillac Club; Kozy Korner; and Ponderosa, Lincoln Theater, and the D.P.O. Hall. Black music was featured at many outdoor venues for picnics as well as harbor and river cruises. These musicians also represented another important aspect of players who came out of the Charleston area. Almost all of them were educators and they, like many before them, excelled at endeavors other than music. It explains why some Charleston jazz musicians did not attain celebrity. They knew how to do other things. As an example, Watson was a printer, a skill he learned at Jenkins Orphanage. Tommy Benford, who many critics and historians believe is one of the best jazz drummers ever, also did administrative work at the New York City Merrill Lynch office. Hamilton went on to chair Charleston County Council. The county’s main administrative building is named after him. He was a career educator, in the classroom and in administration, as well as a professional musician. Other music educators included saxophonist and pianist Rivers, multi-instrumentalist Kenny, trombonist Rhett, and trumpeters Ephiram and Morant. This period grew and nourished Charleston’s modern jazz scene. Although television had gone much further since it came on the scene in the 1950s toward keeping people at home for entertainment instead of going out to theaters and nightclubs, folks in Charleston still flocked to venues for live music, not to mention other social events, such as wedding receptions, anniversaries, and house parties, all of which still had live music. By this time, some of the younger musicians who had been taught and mentored by the likes of Hodges, Hamilton, and Kenny were relocating. New York City still beckoned, as it did 50 years earlier, and Atlanta, Georgia, had emerged as an attraction for Charleston jazz musicians. Hodges moved there to teach and play in the clubs, as did saxophonists Raymond Alston, Richard Smalls, and Leonard Chisolm. For a time, the Charleston sound dominated Atlanta’s famed Hunter Street venues, Paschal Brothers Hotel and Don Clendenon’s. In the 1950s, many Charlestonians made their mark in military bands and at South Carolina State College, now South Carolina State University in Orangeburg, South Carolina. In fact, musicians had been going to State since the early days of the Jenkins Orphanage when the Rev. Daniel Joseph Jenkins had a connection to the institution as well as to other historically black colleges and universities. John Williams, an Orangeburg native, State graduate, and baritone saxophone player in the Count Basie Orchestra since 1973, was a schoolmate of many of the musicians from Charleston. As heard in a Jenkins Orphanage Band documentary produced by South Carolina Educational Television, Williams sings the
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praises of musicians from Charleston. He played in a jazz band at State called the Collegians, which was led by Kenny. The bands played on in Charleston as they got smaller in the 1960s. The civil rights movement and the black nationalist movement changed Charleston, as they did the rest of the nation. Laws, customs, and policies began to change, setting the stage for the changing face of jazz music in the cradle of American slavery. Jack A. McCray
African American Music in Charleston, South Carolina, and Surrounding Areas: 1968–Present Drummer Alphonse Mouzon left Charleston, South Carolina, in 1967 to pursue a career in medicine after graduating from Bonds-Wilson High School and learning music from Lonnie Hamilton III, a prominent player and educator who comes out of the famed Jenkins Orphanage music tradition. Mouzon quickly turned to music to make a living and found success in the eclectic music scene of the 1970s. He played with the early Weather Report and is considered by many a founding father of fusion. The music program at Jenkins was approaching its end since the 1950s and was effectively gone, a least on campus, by the time Mouzon went out to seek his fortune. The end of a 75-year run of producing technically proficient, intuitive musicians on its grounds was at hand. William Leroy Blake, legendary instructor and bandleader since 1920 at Jenkins, had passed away. But his work with those musicians he taught ended up making a major impact on American culture. Mouzon represents a modern version of the ‘‘go North young man’’ theory historically held by Southerners as the road to self-improvement. Virtually all the African American jazz musicians before him had to leave Charleston to make more than a modest living at performance and to have opportunities at such work as film scoring, touring, and recording. By the time Mouzon came along, Charleston musicians had been going North for three-quarters of a century. Also by the time Mouzon left, the jazz scene in Charleston was showing signs of changing. De facto racial integration in education and public accommodations had started bringing about a major shift in how the music was taught and how it was consumed. School marching bands had begun to experiment with popular music, breaking the bounds of traditional martial music. An integrated clientele frequented bars, restaurants, and nightclubs, whose scene had begun to change. Black musicians played once all-white venues after joining integrated bands. Clubs on the Navy and Air Force bases in Charleston were popular. The presence of sailors and airmen from the bases nourished the local jazz scene. Military band musicians tended to be well trained, versatile, and proficient, and because they had come from all over, they were not as deterred from race mixing as some from historically segregated areas. Among native Charleston players, white musicians who formerly played beach music now played rhythm and blues with black musicians and vice versa. For
Charleston, South Carolina, and Surrounding Areas | 183 instance, whites started coming around to once all-black venues, such as The Village on Ashley Avenue in downtown Charleston. Although the big bands were just about gone, the local jazz players still played mostly for dancing. They were as good as anybody else at the high-energy bop sounds, but they incorporated them into dance music, continuing to swing as local bands had been since the beginning. One of Charleston’s most significant contributors to popular music was James Jamerson, a jazz bass player who was a founding member of the seminal house band for Motown Records, the Funk Brothers. He was born on Edisto Island, a Gullah sea island off Charleston, and raised in downtown Charleston. He moved to Detroit to finish high school, which led to his innovative career, changing the way the modern bass was played. The 1980s saw the crystallization of a modern live jazz scene in Charleston, a scene more concert and festival oriented than dance oriented. The music was beginning to be presented for its own sake. The dances had not stopped, but one could go into a place to sit and just listen. From the 1960s, Myskyns, a private membership club on South Market Street, provided local access to regional and national acts at affordable prices. It had a courtyard out back where guests and musicians could hang out together between sets and after performances. It was diverse with regard to race, gender, class, and age. Interracial dating, not yet common in Charleston, was open at Myskyns. Hamilton opened a jazz nightclub on North Market Street in the 1970s that featured his band, Lonnie Hamilton and the Diplomats. It was successful, but it did not survive the subsequent development boom on Market Street, Charleston’s tourist epicenter, so the club moved down the street to the second floor of the famed Henry’s Restaurant. By the 1990s, it was gone. The Spoleto Festival USA arrived from Italy in Charleston in 1977, bringing a jazz series with it that gave Charlestonians much more access to national and international modern players. The big bands had always come to Charleston but not much else since bop came to the fore. A multitude of jazz events (indoor and outdoor) were now available in the spring. One of the Spoleto jazz series anchor venues is the College of Charleston Cistern, an idyllic, oak tree-laden green in the middle of the historic campus. For years, the series, led since 1980 by Michael Grofsorean, held popular jazz picnics at the area’s historic gardens and plantations. In 1980, Charleston’s longest running jazz series, Jazz Afterhours, emerged in the Piccolo Spoleto Festival, a locally produced, comprehensive, regional festival offered at the same time as Spoleto Festival USA. It has been one of the most popular and successful jazz music events in the Southeast. It was independently produced for the festival by the Group for Integrated Studies (GIS) under its banner ‘‘Return to the Source,’’ also the name of GIS’s house band led by trumpeter and keyboardist Bob Ephiram. Its theme was ‘‘360 degrees of Black Music.’’ The series featured hard bop, bebop, gospel, Southern blues fusion (blues-based rock ’n’ roll), blues, live jazz cruises along the Cooper River, big band, and the first live
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Jamaican reggae ever in Charleston by the Boston-based Black Eagles. Much of the standing-room-only series was broadcast live by WSCI-FM radio, the local station of the South Carolina Educational Radio Network. Lonnie Hamilton was commissioned by GIS to compose a song in honor of the debut of the series and the jazz tradition in Charleston. The result was ‘‘Little Spoleto.’’ Hamilton and his band opened the South Market Street series with a tribute to Fletcher Linton and Toby Daniels, two legendary Charleston educators and jazzmen. The MOJA Arts Festival, a black arts festival, appeared in 1984, producing local, regional, and national acts. The national headliner in its first year was trumpeter Donald Byrd, a pioneer jazz trumpeter and black art collector. Another act in the festival’s first year was a tribute to the Jenkins Orphanage bands by an ensemble made up of former Jenkins teachers and players. Over their early years, the festivals only grew in popularity for live jazz, while the local jazz clubs faded. Rock ’n’ roll took over the live music scene. In the early 1980s, Reno Sweeney’s opened on John Street, right around the Charleston Music Hall’s current location in the upper King Street area of historic downtown Charleston. Gone now, it was devoted to mostly local talent. The Touch of Class on Meeting Street had a run from the mid-1980s to the 1990s. It was owned by Ernest Pinckney, brother-in-law to Mouzon. The late Jack White, an important jazz fan, advocate, and promoter up and down the East Coast, brought many acts to the club along with Pinckney. It featured mainstay acts like Hank Crawford, Red Prysock, Brother Jack McDuff, and a local favorite, Rivers and Company, a jazz ensemble led by husband-and-wife team Oscar and the late Fabian Rivers. In the 1990s, restaurants began to be the main jazz venues. Around the same time, the Charleston Jazz Festival tried to blend local, regional, and national acts over the course of several days, but it did not survive. By 1992, the Chef and Clef, a three-story North Market Street eatery with jazz on the first floor and blues on the third, offered music seven nights a week, rare at the time anywhere in the United States. It became a stop for musicians touring the East Coast. It served as a venue for up-and-coming locals, including College of Charleston students. The restaurant-club ran for many years, and during some of that time was the home of the Piccolo Spoleto Jazz Afterhours Series. Another important Charleston percussionist is Quentin Baxter, first-call drummer for artists, such as singer Rene Marie and pianist Monty Alexander. Baxter emerged in the mid-1990s as a tour de force on the local jazz scene. He represented the next phase in the evolution of African American jazz musicians from Charleston. Unlike fellow drummer Mouzon, Baxter has made a successful living touring the world while based in Charleston and playing in his hometown regularly. Since the 1960s, a jazz industry has emerged in Charleston, with an ever-widening talent pool. The city has enough venues to sustain regular work. Research has started that documents and promotes the improvisational music aspect of the city’s rich musical legacy.
Chenier, Clifton | 185 Further Reading Bastin, Bruce. Red River Blues: the Blues Tradition in the Southeast. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1986. Chandler, Karen A., and McCray, Jack, eds. Charleston Jazz Initiative: Return to the Source: Charleston: a Cradle of Jazz. Charleston, SC: College of Charleston, 2006. Chilton, John. A Jazz Nursery: The Story of the Jenkins’ Orphanage Bands. London: Bloomsbury Bookshop, 1980. Elmore, Charles J. All That Savannah Jazz. Savannah, GA: Savannah State University, 1999. Fields, Mamie Garvin, and Karen Fields. Lemon Swamp and Other Places. A Carolina Memoir. New York: Free Press, 1983. Green, Jeffrey P. Edmund Thornton Jenkins: The Life and Times of an American Black Composer, 1894–1926. Westport, CT: Greenwood, 1982. Tindall, George Brown. South Carolina Negroes, 1877–1900. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1966.
Further Listening Got the Saint Louis Blues: Classical Music in the Jazz Age. Clarion CD CLR907CD, 2004. Jabbo Smith and His Rhythm Aces. Retrieval CD Challenge Records/Retrieval CD RTR 79013, 1996.
Further Viewing Dakers, Beryl, dir. The Jenkins Orphanage Band. Columbia: South Carolina Educational Television, 1991. Jack A. McCray
Chenier, Clifton (1925–1987) Clifton Chenier is known as the ‘‘King of Zydeco,’’ a type of dance music that incorporates the accordion and is a blues-based variant of Louisiana Cajun music. Zydeco music brings together many different types of rhythms and a variety of nontraditional musical instruments, such as the washboard and spoons. Although Chenier did not invent the zydeco style, he singlehandedly gave it shape and defined the form as it is known in the 21st century. Chenier’s special musical ingredient was the use of stylistic elements from many forms of African American popular music such as blues, rock ’n’ roll, and rhythm and blues. Chenier was from a family of musicians that included his father John, who played the accordion and fiddle, and his uncle Maurice, who played the guitar. Chenier was highly influenced by the recordings of Amedee Ardoin, the first black Creole musician to play blues on an accordion, known in Louisiana for his performances of a kind of dance band music that was called French lala and that incorporated the accordion, a triangle, a washboard, and a fiddle. The dance choreography
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was based on a two-step pattern and waltzes derived from Cajun music. When Ardoin invented a livelier style, Chenier became enthusiastic about learning how to perform the style on the accordion. By the age of 17, Chenier was performing gigs in Lake Charles, Louisiana. By the early 1950s, he formed the Hot Sizzlers, his first electric band, and with them he recorded ‘‘Louisiana Stomp.’’ Chenier’s first national attention came in 1955 when he recorded ‘‘Ay Tete Fille (Hey Little Girl),’’ a cover of a Professor Longhair tune, and the album Zydeco Blues & Boogie, produced by Bumps Blackwell of Specialty Records in Hollywood, who was best known for his work with Little Richard. Chenier relocated to Houston’s Frenchtown quarter, and with the aid of blues musician Lightnin’ Hopkins, he was signed to record on the Arhoolie label. On this label, his recordings include Out West (1974), which features blues musician Elvin Bishop. During his career, Chenier spent a vast amount of time touring through parts of the South, performing at dances, picnics, and nightclubs. In 1969 he made a European tour as part of the American Folk Blues Festival. Throughout the 1970s, Chenier continued to tour local and international circuits with his Red Hot Louisiana Band. In the 1980s, Chenier reached the peak of his career with the album I’m Here (1982), which won a Grammy Award in 1983, making him the first Creole to receive such an award on national television. In 1984, Chenier was honored with a performance at the White House. He died in 1987, and his son C. J. Chenier has taken over leadership of the Red Hot Louisiana Band. See also
Zydeco, Buckwheat; Zydeco Music. Further Reading
Erlewine, Michael. All Music Guide to the Blues. San Francisco: Miller Freeman Books, 1996. Larkin, Colin. The Virgin Encyclopedia of the Blues. London: Virgin Books, 1998. Clarence Bernard Henry
Chicago Blues See
Blues.
Chicago, Illinois Beginnings and Popular Music of the 1920s By 1919, the Great Migration, which brought as many as 65,000 Southern blacks to Chicago in less than a decade, was winding down. The 1919 race riots were caused not so much by traditional racial conflict as by the recognition that the new African American population concentrated on the South Side of the city was rapidly becoming an economic and political force to be reckoned with.
Chicago, Illinois | 187 This influx of people from outside the urban culture of Chicago brought with it its own customs and interests, with music being a vital component. Musicians in the black community of Chicago had relocated there from many locations, but the faction that had moved up from New Orleans was particularly influential. New Orleans musicians such as Manuel Perez and Lorenzo Tio, Jr. were playing there as early as 1915, with the defining moment being the arrival of Joe ‘‘King’’ Oliver in 1918. While Oliver dominated the African American musical scene in the city for the next decade or so, his greatest contribution was in convincing fellow cornetist Louis Armstrong to join his group at the Lincoln Gardens in 1922. This began Armstrong’s period of influence on musicians, which ultimately carried him to New York and primacy in the Jazz world. African American popular music in 1920s Chicago was centered on four types of venues: theaters, ballrooms, cafes (which usually featured a floorshow in addition to dancing), and after-hours clubs. Theaters featured ensembles of up to 30 musicians playing overtures, featured numbers, and popular tunes in addition to accompanying vaudeville acts and films. Ballrooms had smaller groups of 10 to 12, emphasizing brass, saxophone, and rhythm sections playing primarily fast, syncopated music. Cafes had similar groups that also played for chorus lines, dancers, and vocalists and featured popular music and blues. They often were ‘‘black and tan’’ establishments, which catered to both black and white audiences. The after-hours clubs tended toward less organized and more improvisatory music (mainly popular and blues). Of the theater groups, those led by Erskine Tate at the Vendome (1919– 1928), and Dave Peyton at the Grand (mid-1920s–1928) and the Regal (1928 through the mid-1930s) were the most prominent. These groups often would feature one or two jazz players (Armstrong with Tate and Oliver with Peyton, for instance) during preludes and intermissions. Ballrooms such as the Dreamland (featuring Charles ‘‘Doc’’ Cook from 1922–1928 and Clifford King from 1928–1929) and the Savoy (with Carroll Dickerson from 1927–1929) attracted both black and white clientele. Cafes tended to be less stable environments, although an exception was the Sunset, which featured Dickerson from 1922–1924 and again from 1926–1927 and then Boyd Atkins in 1928–1930 and Tiny Parham in 1930. These groups were much more dependent on individual appeal and, as such, tended to change personnel and leadership more often. The after-hours clubs were epitomized by the Nest (later the Apex Club)—a supper club that featured New Orleans clarinetist Jimmie Noone who led a small group following the end of his night’s work playing with Cook at the Dreamland. Most performance venues using African American groups were located on the South Side—the so-called Black Belt. A few locations in other parts of the city used black groups as well, most notably the Moulin Rouge (featuring Eddie South) in the Loop and Burt Kelly’s Stables in Towertown, which presented traditional New Orleans groups that at different times featured Oliver, cornetist Freddie Keppard, and clarinetist Johnny Dodds. Dodds and his brother, drummer Baby Dodds, were at Kelly’s from the mid-1920s until it closed in 1932.
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Importance of the Musician’s Union—Publishing and Recording The establishment of Chicago Local 208 of the American Federation of Musicians in 1902 represented the first all-black local in the United States. Sometimes acting in conjunction with the white local (Local 10), this branch of the union was a powerful force in the musical life of the city. Throughout the 1920s, membership in the union was required of virtually all the musicians active in the theaters, ballrooms, cafes, and even the after-hours places, with a union card being an essential networking tool. Two related business elements of importance to black Chicago musicians of the time were publishing and recording. The main publishing company for the city’s African American composers was the Melrose Brothers—Lester and Walter. Expanding from their record-selling business, the brothers began copyrighting and publishing New Orleans pianist and composer Jelly Roll Morton’s tunes and arrangements in 1923. The work of Doc Cook, Tiny Parham, and Joe Jordan also was used by the Melrose Brothers, who at the same time became involved in producing recordings. The Race Record industry had taken a giant leap in 1920 with the success of New York singer Mamie Smith’s recording of ‘‘Crazy Blues.’’ This had opened the doors for black performers to be recorded by the major and minor companies throughout the country. In the 1920s, the main recording companies Victor and Columbia both had Chicago studios, but it was primarily smaller studios like Paramount, Gennett, and Okeh that concentrated on the popular music of the South Side. Oliver, Morton, and Armstrong were all successful recording artists well known for their records by the end of the decade.
Music in the 1930s Numerous South Side venues featuring music in the 1920s were connected in one way or another with organized crime, overseen by Al Capone. Generally, the musicians profited by the stability (and protection) given to these establishments by Capone’s network. With the repeal of Prohibition in 1933 on the heels of the Depression, gangland control of the entertainment industry weakened and many clubs went out of business. During the 1930s, establishments such as the Grand Terrace operated as ballrooms as well as putting on floor shows. The band of Earl Hines dominated the Chicago scene from 1929–1940. New York bands occasionally appeared at the Grand Terrace while Hines toured, notably for most of 1936, when Fletcher Henderson’s band was in residence. After Henderson returned to New York, his star trumpet player Roy Eldridge remained to lead a group at the Three Deuces. The trend during this period was more toward neighborhood bars and restaurants featuring smaller groups. The music that became popular in the African American community in Chicago in the 1930s has no single identifying term—‘‘party blues,’’ ‘‘jump blues,’’ and ‘‘rhythm and blues’’ have all been applied to describe it. In general, it was a bluesbased music utilizing jazz band instrumentation and elements of both New Orleans
Chicago, Illinois | 189 jazz and swing. Bands such as the Harlem Hamfats emphasized looser, Dixieland aspects, while recorded performances by Big Bill Broonzy, Washboard Sam, and Jimmy Gordon relied more on background riffs and boogie-woogie effects more common with the big band style. The roots of all these performers were in the country blues of the 1920s. Solo blues players, such as Blind Lemon Jefferson and performers of ‘‘Hokum’’ music (which emphasized Southern stereotypes and humorous sexual imagery), including Tampa Red and Georgia Tom, had recorded frequently in Chicago in the 1920s, but they seldom performed in public settings. In general, these musicians (as well as blues singers like those mentioned above) were self-taught and not musically literate, which occasionally prevented them from membership in Local 208 and severely limited their employment opportunities. This style and repertoire grew largely out of rent parties and occasional gigs in dives and cellars. Nevertheless, their huge recorded legacy profoundly influenced the next generation of blues artists. In particular, the recordings of Washboard Sam and Broonzy (who each made more than 100 sides during this period) were vital in shaping the rhythm and blues style of the 1940s and beyond.
Influence of the Church and European Concert Music In common with so much other African American music, the influence of the church was important in Chicago. Transplanted blacks brought their faith and religious expression with them in the Great Migration and numerous church communities took root in the 1920s and 1930s. The Pilgrim Baptist Church on the South Side was home to Thomas A. Dorsey, the ‘‘Father of Gospel Music’’ from 1932. After a decade spent playing and recording blues (as Ma Rainey’s musical director and as ‘‘Georgia Tom’’), Dorsey dedicated himself to religion and the invention of what he called ‘‘gospel’’ music—religious music derived from spirituals and Protestant hymns but utilizing a more contemporary rhythm and blues–based harmony. It was from this church with the assistance of one of his discoveries, parishioner Mahalia Jackson (1911–1972), that Dorsey’s music developed during the 1930s. African Americans in Chicago were active promoting European music as well. The South Side Opera Company was formed in the 1920s and directed by James Mundy. The National Association of Negro Musicians (NANM) was founded in 1919 in Chicago to advance the cause of concert music and preserve the identity of traditional music (such as spirituals) from the corrupting influence of popular music. Important composers active in Chicago during this period included Florence Price and William Dawson. Music education also became in important cause in the black community. Noted composer and educator Major N. Clark Smith became the director of music at Wendell Phillips High School in 1924 and was responsible (along with his assistant and successor, Walter Dyett) for training many noted musicians, including Milt Hinton, Quinn Wilson, Lionel Hampton, and Ray Nance. See also Black-Owned Music Publishing Companies; Dorsey, Thomas A.; Jackson, Mahalia; Morton, Jelly Roll; New Orleans, Louisiana; Oliver, King.
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Further Reading Grossman, James. Land of Hope: Chicago, Black Southerners and the Great Migration. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1989. Kenney, William Howland. Chicago Jazz: A Cultural History, 1904–1930. New York: Oxford University Press, 1993. Shaw, Arnold. Honkers and Shouters: The Golden Years of Rhythm and Blues. New York: Collier Books, 1978. Travis, Dempsey. An Autobiography of Black Jazz. Chicago: Urban Research Institute, Inc., 1983. John L. Clark, Jr.
African American Music in Chicago, Illinois: 1942–1968 During much of Chicago’s musical history in the period encompassing the war years to the late 1960s, the city remained the conduit for migrants and their resultant culture. Gospel, blues, jazz, and art music continued to flourish, but the changing social environment of the postwar years sparked the development of new genres of music. Much of the city’s importance as a musical center evolved around its burgeoning recording industry, which reflected the growing influence of small independent labels in defining popular music trends in the years following World War II. Many of the recordings produced in Chicago were significant compositions that provided the soundtrack to the civil rights movement. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. delivered a powerful and important speech on July 10, 1966, at a rally in Soldier Field. This rally served as a part of an organized King campaign to end slums within the city. Songs such as ‘‘A Change Gone Come’’ and ‘‘Precious Lord Take My Hand’’ gave the black community hope during these uneasy times. The city served as home to the hit-making Chess Records. Chess was significant in recording and popularizing urban and electric blues that developed in Chicago’s postwar club scene. Chess not only became home to the best musicians that the city had to offer, but also came to epitomize the Chicago blues style with its recordings of Muddy Waters, Little Walter, Howlin’ Wolf, and others. The label was founded by brothers Leonard and Phil Chess, who after working in many different entities in the city’s music scene took over the Aristocrat label, which had largely recorded pop and jazz, in 1950. They changed the name to Chess and began to record the musicians who migrated to the city each month. The label quickly developed an identifiable ‘‘house’’ sound that developed through a combination of creating a tape delay that created an echo on the records and a house band that consisted of harmonica player Little Walter, bassist Willie Dixon, guitarist Jimmy Rogers, and some obscure musicians. Dixon would serve as one of the label’s chief songwriters penning songs for Little Walter, Muddy Waters, Howlin’ Wolf, and others. In the early 1950s the label expanded its roster to include artists performing in the R & B style popular at the time. By the mid-1950s, their roster came to include Chuck Berry and Bo Diddley, two musicians who would be significant in
Chicago, Illinois | 191 defining early rock ’n’ roll. The continuous expansion of the label’s offerings coincided with the changing musical taste of Americans. In the 1960s when the blues was less popular with American audience, Chess found success with soul audiences with Etta James and the soul and jazz recordings of pianist Ramsey Lewis. It did not forego its roots with Chicago blues, however, and performers like Howlin’ Wolf and Koko Taylor continued to record successfully. But the late 1960s would mark the end of the ‘‘golden age’’ of Chess. When Leonard died in 1969, the label was sold to GRT, which moved it to New York and placed it under the control of Leonard’s son Marshall. In time, both Marshall and Phil Chess would leave the company and the label eventually ceased operations. Its extensive back catalog was purchased by All Platinum Records, which began reissuing the catalog in the early 1980s. The NAMN, which was founded in 1919, and the Association for the Advancement of Creative Musician (AACM), which was founded in 1965 in Chicago, both provided African Americans with vital support toward advancing their music and creativity. NANM created an essential structure of providing scholarships to talented musicians such as William L. Dawson, Florence B. Price, Margaret Bonds, Warren George Wilson, and Marian Anderson. All of these pioneers within the associations’ history became critical figures within the culture of black music. NANM’s significance is not only in the awarding of scholarships but also in the dominant substance it fostered within Chicago’s black music culture. AACM began its crusade in the early 1960s to generate and spark ‘‘Great Black Music.’’ ‘‘Great Black Music’’ was a term the organization coined and used to describe its illustrious direction in black music culture. Public concerts, the development of new musical talent, and scholarship opportunities were key areas of AACM. Still situated on the South Side of Chicago, AACM served as a pillar in musical service for the black population during the civil rights movement. Both associations are still active and vital in the 21st century. Although founded in Gary, Indiana, Vee-Jay Records eventually moved its offices to the windy city where it too recorded blues, R & B, and rock ’n’ roll. The label became home to blues artist John Lee Hooker, Jimmy Reed, and Memphis Slim and R & B artist Jerry Butler, Gene Chandler, and the Pips. The label also recorded jazz and gospel during the 1960s, but for the most part, focused on rock ’n’ roll and R & B during the early 1960s. During the late 1960s, the company experienced financial problems and was forced into bankruptcy in 1966. Chicago developed a certain magnetic sound called Chicago blues and Chicagostyle jazz that is emulated around the world. Many of the great blues and jazz musicians migrated from the South, thus making their home Chicago, Illinois. The Southern migration was a direct effect of the below-standard living conditions that existed in the South. Blacks felt the need to move North in hopes of a better opportunity for jobs, housing, and a more prosperous cultural environment. This valuable migration lead the way for great artists such as Muddy Waters (1915–1983), Samuel ‘‘Magic Sam’’ Maghett (1937–1969), Memphis Slim (1915–1988), Memphis Minnie (1897–1973), Junior Wells (1934–1998), Albert ‘‘Sunnyland Slim’’ Luandrew (1906–1995), Buddy Guy (1936– ), and Willie Dixon (1915–1992).
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Chicago jazz artists such as Johnny Griffin (1928–2008), Ramsey Lewis, Jr. (1935– ), and Herbie Hancock (1940– ) gave breath to a new genre of jazz music. During the late 1950s and early 1960s, some of the rhythm and blues and soul music in Chicago served as the soundtrack to the civil rights movement. Prominent artists during this time period were the Dells, Syl Johnson (1936– ), Sam Cooke (1931–1964), the Impressions, Tyrone Davis (1938–2005), Curtis Mayfield (1942–1999), the Flamingos, and Major Lance. This period, and the music derived from it, served as a social-conscience movement among African Americans in the inner city of Chicago. Gospel was a significant factor in creating the music and sound of black Chicago. During this period, there were many influential gospel artists such as Albertina Walker (1929– ), Thomas Dorsey (1899–1993), Roberta Martin (1907–1969), the Soul Stirrers, and James Cleveland (1931–1991). Many of Chicago’s prominent soul singers had found their roots and beginnings in the church. Artists such as Sam Cooke, Mavis Staples (1939– ), and Curtis Mayfield were born out of Chicago’s premier gospel scene. The migration of the 1920s, 1930s, and 1940s brought about a Southern infusion of values, beliefs, and traditions in the Midwest epicenter. Chicago churches were influenced by Southern traditions, thus leading to a strong and spirited influence on some of the great gospel and soul singers during this era.
Chicago Blues Chicago blues benefited from a strong migration of musicians from the South. Many of the Southern blues artists came to Chicago after the war to rebuild and find a new home for their sound. Many great blues clubs existed during the period from 1940 to 1960. Two of the most popular clubs for blues artists were Theresa’s and Rosa’s. Many influential artists created an electrifying sound that created a unique sound of blues. Some of the musicians in this era include Muddy Waters, Magic Sam, Howlin’ Wolf, Junior Wells, Sunnyland Slim, Earl Hooker, Memphis Slim, Little Bill Gaither, Big Bill Boonzy, Memphis Minnie, Willie Dixon, and Hounddog Taylor. Muddy Waters, called the ‘‘Father of Chicago Blues,’’ recorded many hits under the Chess Record imprint. Waters’s discography is one of the largest in Chicago blues history. His most notable hit, ‘‘Rolling Stone’’ was used by the famous band the Rolling Stones and served as the basis for their band’s name. Waters has countless numbers of albums, awards, and honors. Howlin’ Wolf was an exceptional singer, guitarist, and pianist. He was a favorite in Chicago’s blues scene. His first record was produced in 1950 when he began to record with Chess Records. Some of his hits included ‘‘How Many More Years,’’ ‘‘Moanin’ at Midnight,’’ and ‘‘Smoke Stack Lightning.’’ Willie Dixon served as a bridge between blues and rock ’n’ roll. He was known for being a great guitarist, singer, and arranger. Some of his hits were ‘‘Hoochie Coochie Man,’’ ‘‘Evil,’’ and ‘‘Little Red Rooster.’’ All of these songs were written and recorded for Chess Records during the strongest years of their existence.
Chicago, Illinois | 193 Koko Taylor, Buddy Guy, and Little Walter also made their presence during the 1950s. Taylor began recording and singing professionally in the 1950s. Her breakthrough came in 1964 with writer Willie Dixon of Chess Records. She released Dixon’s classic hit ‘‘Wang Dang Doddle’’ and claimed her stake as a great blues vocalist. Buddy Guy’s career began after his migration from Baton Rouge in the late 1950s. He later signed to Chess Records. Guy’s most notable contributions during this period remain in his collaborations with Muddy Waters, Koko Taylor, Little Walter, and Junior Wells. Guy was successful in mastering electrifying guitar performances. His major success came to light in the 1970s and 1980s.
Chicago-Style Jazz Chicago, in the period that encompassed World War II and the civil rights movement, continued to be one of the most important centers of jazz in the United States. Significant jazz clubs include Club Delisa, the Cotton Club, Andy’s, Jazz Showcase, and the Green Mill. These clubs served as the breeding ground for some of the best and most talented jazz musicians in the world. Some of the great jazz artists from this era were Johnny Griffin, Ramsey Lewis, Jr., Herbie Hancock, Isaac ‘‘Redd’’ Holt, and bassist Eldee Young. Ramsey Lewis, Jr. was one of the most influential jazz artist out of Chicago. His first venture was with a jazz group called the Ramsey Lewis Trio. Isaac ‘‘Redd’’ Holt, Eldee Young, and Lewis together released their first album in 1956 entitled Ramsey Lewis and the Gentlemen of Swing. Lewis has been coined one of the nation’s most influential and successful jazz artists and pianists. From 1960 to 1976, Lewis garnered many chart-topping hits, Grammy Awards, and gold records. Herbie Hancock was considered a child prodigy performing Mozart’s Piano Concerto in D Major with the Chicago Symphony at 11 years old. Herbie Hancock started his jazz career from a classical music background. His passion was primarily based in jazz music and later expanding into electronic instruments. Later, he developed a unique style of jazz blending funk, rock, and soul, thus creating his own sound. Hancock has many awards and honors, and continues to create music well into the early 21st century.
Rhythm and Blues Rhythm and blues, commonly referred to as R & B, made a significant impact on the social-conscience environment in Chicago. Some of the prominent R & B singers during this era were descendants of the gospel and blues scene in Chicago. Most artists found their roots in either gospel or blues but crossed over to soul singing around the late 1950s to early 1960s. Vocal groups were also a major part of Chicago’s R & B foundation. Some of the influential artists from this era were the Dells, the El Dorados, the Impressions, Major Lance, Syl Johnson, Etta James (1938– ), Sam Cooke, Tyrone Davis, and the Flamingos. The Dells, signed first to Vee-Jay Records and later to Chess Records, are most notable for doo-wop style R & B, sultry ballads, and contemporary R & B. Some
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of their hits include ‘‘Oh What a Night’’ and ‘‘Stay in My Corner.’’ Their careers span into the late 20th century and early 21st century. Another strong group out of this era was the Impressions. The Impressions moved to Chicago in the early 1950s, reorganized the group, and added one of the most prolific writers and singers of Chicago’s history, Curtis Mayfield. By the mid 1960s, the Impressions had a string of top 10 hits and were a prominent R & B force, often compared to the Temptations. Mayfield penned ‘‘People Get Ready’’ and ‘‘Keep on Pushing,’’ both of which served as anthems for African Americans during the 1960s. Soul singers were a key factor in the sound of black Chicago. Artists such as Syl Johnson, Sam Cooke, and Etta James made records with a foundation in blues and gospel. Syl Johnson played with artists such as Howlin’ Wolf, Junior Wells, and Magic Slim. He made his first hit R & B record in the late 1950s called ‘‘Sock It To Me.’’ Later, he wrote records such as ‘‘Freedom’’ and ‘‘Is It Because I’m Black,’’ which served as a social anthem for racial divide during that era. Johnson is heavily sampled by hip hop artists and remains one of the great R & B singers out of Chicago, Illinois. Another soul singer with spirited lyrics was the great Sam Cooke. Sam Cooke, one of the members of the Soul Stirrers, a gospel group that later divided, built his career as one of the best R & B crooners of the 20th century. In 1957, Keen Records released his first hit song entitled, ‘‘You Send Me,’’ which spent weeks on Billboard’s charts. Cooke is known for such hits as ‘‘A Change is Gonna Come’’ and ‘‘Chain Gang.’’ Cooke’s music fostered sultry vocals over popular-sounding instrumentals, making him most known for creating the most popular songs of the 20th century. Although Etta James was not born in Chicago, she was one of the most influential R & B singers recording for Chess Records. Chess Records was the home for Etta James during the 1960s. She is most known for her timeless hit ‘‘At Last,’’ which has been used in commercials, movies, and soundtracks. James gave soulful and jazzy delivery to all of her songs and had the most successful years of her career in Chicago with Chess Records.
Gospel After the postwar period, gospel played a significant role in Chicago. Some of the other lead vocalist in this era included Mahalia Jackson (1911–1972), Albertina Walker, James Cleveland, Roberta Martin (1907–1969), Sallie Martin, the Soul Stirrers, and Staple Singers. Mahalia Jackson reigns as the ‘‘Queen of Gospel Music.’’ From the early 1940s to the late 1960s, Jackson became known for her signature songs, such as ‘‘Move On Up a Little Higher’’ and ‘‘Let the Power of the Holy Ghost Fall on Me.’’ She was one of the first gospel singers to perform at Carnegie Hall. Jackson, died at the age of 60 with several awards and honors. Chicago was also known for its gospel quartets. Some of the most influential groups were the Soul Stirrers and the Staple Singers. Sam Cooke led the group to its most successful musical run. His sultry style and voice was different for the gospel environment, but the Soul Stirrers’ followers were much in awe of Cooke’s delivery.
Chicago, Illinois | 195 Roberta Martin is the creator of modern style gospel piano. She composed more than 70 songs and arranged and published 280 gospel songs. Her contribution to gospel music in Chicago was her distinctive piano sound. Her group’s power and substance within the gospel community lead the way for many gospel groups during that period. She was unique to the church scene due to her integration of men and women within her gospel chorus. Martin’s flair and appeal was effective because of her combination of emotion and style on gospel records. This period benefited from the Chicago Renaissance movement similar to that of the Harlem Renaissance. The cultural explosion sparked a movement within the city to include art, music, and an affluent middle class. Chicago became known as the home of Chicago-style blues and jazz. During this era, the great musicians from the South migrated to and made their home on the city’s South Side, thus creating the Chicago sound. Blues began to change form by way of new audiences within the city, which led to a musical migration toward soul music for black communities. As the 1960s ended, rhythm and blues, rap, and other forms of musical styles began to gain popularity in Chicago. See also Blues; Black Church Music—Hymnists and Psalmists; Black-Owned Music Publishing Companies; Black-Owned Record Labels; Jazz. Further Reading Association for Advancement of Creative Musicians. http://aacmchicago.org/ (accessed 2009). Barlow, William. ‘‘Taylor, Koko.’’ In Black Women in America: Music, edited by Darlene Clark Hine. Encyclopedia of Black Women in America. New York: Facts On File, Inc., 1997. Facts On File, Inc. ‘‘African-American History Online.’’ www.fofweb.com/ activelink2.asp (accessed 2000). Boyer, Clarence Horace. ‘‘Martin, Roberta E.’’ In Black Women in America: Music, edited by Darlene Clark Hine. Encyclopedia of Black Women in America. New York: Facts On File, Inc., 1997. Facts On File, Inc. ‘‘African-American History Online.’’ www.fofweb.com/activelink2.asp (accessed 2009). Hoffman, Frank. ‘‘Dixon, Willie.’’ In Rhythm and Blues, Rap, and Hip-Hop, American Popular Music. New York: Facts On File, Inc., 2006. Facts On File, Inc. ‘‘AfricanAmerican History Online.’’ www.fofweb.com/activelink2.asp (accessed 2009). National Association of Negro Musicians. www.nanm.org/ (accessed 2009). Smith, Robert C. ‘‘Music in African-American culture.’’ In Encyclopedia of AfricanAmerican Politics. New York: Facts On File, Inc., 2003. Facts On File, Inc. ‘‘AfricanAmerican History Online.’’ www.fofweb.com/activelink2.asp (accessed 2009). Weissman, Dick. ‘‘Chicago and Blues Music.’’ In Blues: American Popular Music. New York: Facts On File, Inc., 2005. Facts On File, Inc. ‘‘African-American History Online.’’ www.fofweb.com/activelink2.asp (accessed 2009). West, Sandra L. ‘‘Chicago Renaissance.’’ In Encyclopedia of the Harlem Renaissance, edited by Aberjhani and Sandra L. West. New York: Facts On File, Inc., 2003. Facts On File, Inc. ‘‘African-American History Online.’’ www.fofweb.com/activelink2.asp? ItemID¼WE01&iPin¼ EHR0067&SingleRecord¼True (accessed July 31, 2009).
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Further Listening Cooke, Sam. The Best of Sam Cooke. RCA, 1962. The Dells. The Dells Greatest Hits. Chess Records, 1970. The Dells. Oh What a Night. Vee-Jay, 1957. James, Etta. At Last. Chess/Argo, 1961. Lewis, Ramsey. The In Crowd. Chess, 1965. Lewis, Ramsey. Ramsey Lewis and the Gentlemen of Swing. Argo, 1956. Hancock, Herbie. My Point of View. Blue Note, 1963. Hancock, Herbie. Takin Off. Blue Note, 1962. Howlin’ Wolf. Moanin’ in the Moonlight. Chess, 1959. Johnson, Syl. Come on Sock it to Me. Twilight, 1967. Martin, Roberta. The Best of Roberta Martin Singers. Savoy Records, 1978. The Soul Stirrers. Jesus Gave Me Water. Specialty Records, 1956. Staple Singers. Swing Low Sweet Chariot. Vee-Jay, 1961. Staple Singers. Uncloudy. Vee-Jay, 1959. Waters, Muddy. The Best of Muddy Waters. Chess, 1958.
Further Viewing Nathan, David, prod. Moving On Up: Recordings from the Civil Rights Era. Hollywood, CA: The Right Stuff, 1993. Syleecia N. Thompson
African American Music in Chicago, Illinois: 1968–Present Over the last 30 years in the city of Chicago, the population has become more middle classed, the culture has richened, and the sound of music has been quite innovative. Pioneers, such as Curtis Mayfield, Buddy Guy, Koko Taylor, R. Kelly, and Twista, have shaped the sound of the last three decades. The foundation of black music in Chicago is most often categorized by its insurmountable influence on black culture throughout the civil rights movement and well into the 1980s and 1990s. The period, carried by soul music, paved the way for fresh, rich, and undeniable sounds in blues, rhythm and blues, rap, and house music. The city’s offerings of gospel, blues, jazz, and rhythm and blues paved the way for some of the most notable and influential figures in modern music history. Rhythm and blues singers such as Donny Hathaway (1945–1979), Curtis Mayfield (1942–1999), Mavis Staples (1939– ), Lou Rawls (1933–2006), R. Kelly (1969– ), and the Chi-lites were major influences on the sound of Chicago. During the 1970s and into the 21st century, Chicago is best known for the creation of house and stepping music. Rap and hip hop music exploded during this time frame, giving way to artists such as Twista (1973– ), Common (1972– ), Kanye West (1977– ), and Da Brat (1974– ). Chicago serves as the home for some of the music industry’s greatest emcees. African American music in Chicago made significant contributions to the music industry through the advent of house and stepping music. Popularity in
Chicago, Illinois | 197 these unique types of music sparked a booming nightlife in clubs such as the Warehouse and The Cotton Club. As the black population grew, the culture of the people expanded its presence within the communities. House and stepping music are pillars within the black urban and social life.
Chicago Blues Blues in the early 1970s and 1980s took on a different sound. Artists such as Buddy Guy (1936– ), Koko Taylor (1928–2009), Willie Clayton (1955– ), and Little Milton (1937–2005) were the important figures during this era. Buddy Guy reigns as a prominent figure out of Chicago. Guy is most known for his electrifying stage performances and varying styles of blues. Guy’s career flourished in the 1980s and 1990s and he is one of the most influential blues artists out of Chicago. Guy’s magnetic sound and sultry style of blues serves as a blueprint for the blues of Chicago in the 1980s and going forward. Guy remains active on the blues scene with his legendary club Legends. The historical blues bar and lounge Legends is home to some of the most innovative local and national blues artists of the century. Another important artist of this era is Koko Taylor. Taylor gained her success starting in the late 1960s and into the 21st century. Her most notable hit, ‘‘Wang Dang Doodle’’ sold more than 1 million copies. Her career flourished in the 1970s when she signed with Alligator Records in 1975. Taylor has received many honors and awards. Willie Clayton, another influential artist out of this era, is most known for his R & B style of blues as a result of his two R & B chart topping hits. ‘‘Tell Me’’ and ‘‘What a Way to Put It’’ were Clayton’s most successful recordings.
Gospel Gospel music remained a prominent force in Chicago from 1970 through the 2000s. Albertina Walker and James Cleveland continued to record and served as key figures for gospel music. Albertina Walker received much of her success in the early 1970s. She recorded her first project ‘‘Put A Little Love In Your Heart’’ in 1975. Albertina discovered the legendary Caravans, which helped drive the successful careers of Pastor Shirley Caesar, Inez Andrews, Delores Washington, and Rev. James Cleveland. She earned her many accolades with the success of the Caravans. Their imprint on Chicago’s gospel scene earned her the honor of serving as a household name in the community. Gospel music was quite important to Chicago during this period. Black communities used the church as a safe haven from the changing times in the 1970s and 1980s. James Cleveland was the first gospel artist to receive a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. He won various awards and honors throughout his career. Cleveland served as one of Walker’s composers and as a pianist on many of her recordings. Newer gospel artists in this era include Donald Lawrence, Michelle Williams, Smokie Norful, Terry Moore, Darius Brooks, Ricky Dillard, and Dwayne Woods. Ricky Dillard became part of the newer generation of gospel. In
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1984, Dillard joined the Brunson’s Thompson Community Singers. Although gospel music was his passion, Dillard hung out with Frankie Knuckles, a premier house DJ in Chicago, which gave him a breadth of knowledge in several genres of music. He recorded several dance tracks. By the mid-1990s, Dillard was singing and performing gospel with the group the New Generation. Church choirs are a major part of Chicago’s gospel culture. Some of the more prominent church choirs are Lonnie Hunter and the Voices of St. Mark and Shekinah Glory. All of these artists and musicians benefit from international success.
Rhythm and Blues Rhythm and blues was a strong part of the sound of black Chicago. From 1968 and into the 21st century, R & B music in Chicago has been a powerful force in the music industry. Many artists spawned successful musical careers out of the city of Chicago. Artists such as Donny Hathaway, Chaka Khan, the Chi-lites, Curtis Mayfield, Lou Rawls, the Emotions, Mavis Staples, Otis Clay, Tyrone Davis, and Jody Watley were some of Chicago’s most talented stars. Newcomers in this era such as R. Kelly, Jody Watley, Dave Hollister, Lalah Hathaway, Syleena Johnson, Public Announcement, and Carl Thomas have paved the way into the 21st century. The late 1960s through the early 1990s Chicago benefited from some of the most important musicians in this nation’s history. One of the most prolific and talented writers of this era was Curtis Mayfield. A former member of the soul super-group the Impressions, Mayfield began his solo career in 1970s. Mayfield penned hits for some of the industry’s best and brightest stars, such as Aretha Franklin, Gladys Knight and the Pips, Chaka Khan, and Mavis Staples. Mayfield personified 1970s soul music. Mayfield became known for producing undeniable soundtracks for black films in the 1970s, which included Super Fly (1971), Claudine (1974), and Sparkle (1976). With his soundtrack, Superfly depicted the films’ rough, rugged, and controversial tales. Influenced by gospel, Mayfield was able to infuse his magnetic vocal, writing, and producing skills in several genres during this time period. Mayfield is known for his funk style of R & B. Mayfield also led a movement of social-conscious music, catapulting him into an American icon. Producing, writing, and composing soundtracks for some of R & B’s brightest stars serve as his legacy as his music is sampled, performed, and honored in the 21st century. Mayfield worked with Mavis Staples on several musical projects. Mavis Staples began her career with her siblings in the early 1950s headed by their father, Pop Staples. Staples’s sound was different and unique, which made her stand out in the group. The Staple Singers led by Mavis also served the gospel scene in a magnetic way. Their sound was unique and the group’s appeal gave birth to a sound of its own. Although the Staple Singers were a household name in the gospel industry, Mavis Staples, the lead singer, made a big impact beyond the gospel world. Her first solo debuts was in 1969. Throughout the 1970s and 1980s, Staples delivered such hits as ‘‘Oh What a Feeling,’’ ‘‘Love Gone Bad,’’ and ‘‘The Voice.’’ Staples worked
Chicago, Illinois | 199 with fellow Chicagoan, Donny Hathaway. Hathaway started his career as a songwriter, producer, and session musician. In the early 1970s, he embarked on his own musical journey producing great albums. His self-titled album, Donny Hathaway, was his most successful album and placed him among a short list of great writers and singers in the world of R & B. Chaka Khan is another high-powered female singer out of Chicago’s South Side. Khan has received numerous awards and honors over her 30-year career. Khan has one of the most distinctive voices in R & B. Her early years were with the successful R & B and funk group Rufus. Khan’s solo career blossomed in the late 1970s after recording her hit disco song ‘‘I’m Every Woman’’ (1978). Some of her other hits include ‘‘I Feel for You’’ (1984), and ‘‘Through the Fire’’ (1985). Most recently, Khan added actress to her resume by starring in the hit Broadway play The Color Purple as she took on the role of Sophia. The Chi-lites and the Emotions were two of Chicago’s most popular singing groups. The Chilites consisted of an electrifying four-part harmony. Formed in the late 1960s, the Chi-lites paved the way for many R & B and soul hits. Some of their hits include ‘‘Have You Seen Her?’’ (1972), ‘‘Oh Girl’’ (1972), and ‘‘Lonely Man’’ (1972). The Chi-lites still tour and perform around the world in the 21st century. The Emotions were a powerful female trio formed in the 1970s. Some of their biggest hits came by way of their affiliation with Earth, Wind & Fire’s Maurice White, who penned the number one hit single ‘‘Best of My Love’’ (1977). Lou Rawls has enjoyed a prominent career selling millions of albums and receiving numerous awards. Lou Rawls gained considerable crossover appeal through some of his sultry and smooth ballads. Born in Chicago, Illinois, raised by his gospel-singing grandmother, Rawls is considered to have one of the silkiest voices in 21st-century music. Rawls biggest hit, ‘‘You’ll Never Find Another Love Like Mine,’’ acquired him a number one single on the Billboard charts. Rawls is best known for his charity work the Lou Rawls Parade of Stars Telethon. This event benefits the United Negro College Fund and has been in existence for more than 20 years. During the mid-1990s, Chicago’s music scene spawned a new talent of R & B entertainers. They include R. Kelly, Lalah Hathaway, Jody Watley, Public Announcement, Syleena Johnson, Dave Hollister, and Carl Thomas. Jody Watley and Lalah Hathaway were two premier artists whose sounds were distinct and exclusive of any other female during the mid-1980s. Jody Watley was born and raised in Chicago, Illinois. In the mid-1970s, she received her big break on Soul Train and later with the hit group Shalamar. Watley’s solo career took off in the mid 1980s, and she became one of the most successful female artists of all time. Watley’s hits include ‘‘Looking for a New Love,’’ ‘‘Some Kind of Lover,’’ and ‘‘Don’t You Want Me.’’ These songs were mainstream hits and turned Watley’s career into a crossover success. During the 1990s, a new sound of R & B hailed out of Chicago. A mixture of the new jack swing era combined with soul and hip hop brought about a talented group called Public Announcement. Lead by R. Kelly, Public Announcement sold more than 1 million copies on its first project. Kelly left the group in
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the mid-90s to start his solo career, which continues to flourish in the 21st century. R. Kelly has sold more than 40 million albums worldwide and received several dozen awards and nominations. He is best known for his hit song, ‘‘I Believe I Can Fly (1996),’’ which is based off the soundtrack from the movie Space Jam (1996). This song catapulted him into instant mainstream success. Kelly’s career crosses over two decades and includes several number one hit songs. Kelly has been named by many as the ‘‘King of R & B.’’ R. Kelly is known for writing for many artists. He has written for Michael Jackson, Celine Dion, Mary J. Blige, and many other artists in the music industry. He wrote and produced the hit song ‘‘I’m Your Woman’’ for fellow Chicagoan Syleena Johnson, which reached the top 10 on the Billboard’s R & B chart. Syleena Johnson, singer and songwriter, has been called ‘‘R & B’s Best Kept Secret’’ because of her critically acclaimed discography. Johnson, daughter of blues and soul singer, Syl Johnson, signed to Jive Records in 1998. Her first album, Chapter 1: Love, Pain & Forgiveness debuted at number one on Billboard’s Heatseekers chart in 2001. Since that time, Johnson has released Chapter 2: The Voice (2002) and Chapter 3: The Flesh (2005). Johnson has worked with fellow Chicagoans Kanye West, Common, Twista, Do or Die, and Shawnna. Dave Hollister, originally of the group Blackstreet, began his solo career in the late 1990s with such hits as ‘‘One Woman Man’’ and ‘‘It’s Alright.’’ His vocal delivery has reminiscences of gospel-infused sounds. Hollister has recorded R & B and most recently a gospel album. Hollister gained attention in the hip hop arena with his successful collaboration with Tupac on the hit song ‘‘Brenda’s Got a Baby.’’ Carl Thomas is best known for his classic and critically acclaimed album, Emotional. Thomas signed a solo deal with Bad Boy Records in the late 1990s. Thomas continues to make great music in the 21st century.
Rap Music and Hip Hop Chicago’s urban culture produced some of the greatest rappers from the South Side and West Side of the city. Rap music started to gain exposure in Chicago in the late 1980s with a form of rap called hip house. This combined house music with rap. Fast Eddie and Sundance produced a hit song ‘‘Get Up On It’’ in the late 1980s. This style of rap-infused house music faded quickly. The city’s rap sound is unique and gives way for a sound described as rapid rapping or double time. This style of rap became the typical format for young urban rappers. It defined the city’s rap style in the 1990s. Several key rap figures hail from the city. Chicago rap pioneers include Twista, Common, Psycho Drama, Do or Die, Crucial Conflict, Da Brat, Shawnna, Kanye West, Lupe Fiasco, and Yung Berg. In the early 1990s, rap music developed into a unique style of sound. Artists such as Twista, Do or Die, and Da Brat delivered quick and rapid lyrics, thus making a fast style of rapping, described as double time, a Chicago characteristic. Twista was the instrumental figure in the explosion of this rap style. In 1992, Twista held the title of the fastest emcee in the world noted in the
Chicago, Illinois | 201 Guinness Book of World Records. Twista has worked with other Chicago rappers such as Do or Die, Crucial Conflict, and Psycho Drama. Twista received a big break in 2005 with his chart-topping hit ‘‘Slow Jams,’’ which featured Jamie Foxx and Kanye West. Kanye West is another shining hip hop star out of the city of Chicago. He moved to Chicago at the age of three with his biggest supporter, his mother, Dr. Donda West. West has acquired such hits as ‘‘All Falls Down’’ and ‘‘Golddigger.’’ He is most known for his distinct style of rap that generates controversy over his lyrical content. West has worked with other Chicagoans, such as Lupe Fiasco, Malik Yusef, Syleena Johnson, and Common. Chicago rap has many different styles of emcees. Common is one of Chicago’s rap artists who delivers a unique style of rap. Common maintained a significant underground following well into the 1990s. His first critically acclaimed album Like Water for Chocolate (2000) placed him among some of the elite musicians in his field. Da Brat was one of the first female rappers to receive mainstream success. She was crowned the first female rapper to go platinum after her hit album Funkdafied (1994). Da Brat has received several awards and nominations and is a dominant force among female emcees. Shawnna, another important female rapper out of Chicago, has acquired great success. She has a quick fiery style of rap conscience and has been known for her sexual lyrical content. Her biggest success came with signing as the first artist under Ludacris’s Disturbing Tha Peace record label. Stand Up was a great collaboration with Ludacris and catapulted Shawnna to the next level in her career in 2003. Shawnna’s father is blues great Buddy Guy. Do or Die gained success with their hit single ‘‘Po Pimp,’’ which featured fellow Chicagoan Twista. They have sold millions of albums and, along with Crucial Conflict, another Chicago rap group, have created a new style of rap. Rappers from Chicago are unique in several ways, combining rapid-style rapping from artists like Twista, Crucial Conflict, Shawnna, and Do or Die with an elusive and lyric-conscience approach from Lupe Fiasco, Kanye West, and Common. Lupe Fiasco, Yung Berg, and Malik Yusef are the newest rappers to make significant moves out of Chicago.
House Music House music originated in Chicago, Illinois. House music penned its name from the famous club, the Warehouse, which was home to many DJ greats such as Farley ‘‘Jack Master’’ Funk, Steve ‘‘Silk’’ Hurley, Ron Hardy, Frankie Knuckles, and Pharris Thomas. House music has its origin in disco and became one of the fastest-growing musical genres in Chicago. In the 21st century, house music is revered as a unifying music. House was an innovative detour from the disco era, but Chicago DJ’s added new sounds and beats to create a unique form of music. Farley, a house music pioneer, is most notable for producing such house hits as ‘‘Love Can’t Turn Around’’ and ‘‘Jack the Bass.’’ Farley was a member of a DJ crew called the Hot Mix 5, which appeared frequently on the popular radio station WMBX. Another notable figure in house music was Steve ‘‘Silk’’ Hurley. Hurley created a different style of mixing. He used scratching and cutting. These
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techniques often were used by hip hop DJs. Hurley’s hit roster includes ‘‘Jack Your Body’’ and ‘‘Love Can’t Turn Around’’ (a new version of Farley’s hit). Although Frankie Knuckles was born in New York City, he came to Chicago in the early 1980s to bring life to the sound of house music. Knuckles was invited to play at the Warehouse and often is hailed as the main inspiration behind Chicago house music. Some of the newer house DJs include Pharris Thomas, Boolu Master, Andre Hatchett, and Kenny Jammin’ Jason. House music also includes various styles of sound such as jukin’, jack music, and footwork music.
Chicago Stepping In the late 1970s, Chicago gave form to a new dance craze called stepping. This form of dance was a combination of various styles of dances such as the bop, jitterbug, and the walk. Stepping music became a popular form of music in the 1980s, thus developing a unique style of dance and music in Chicago’s African American communities. Stepping music became internationally known with R. Kelly’s hit song ‘‘Step in the Name of Love,’’ which attained worldwide recognition. Stepping music is a combination of R & B, disco, and soul. Stepping music embodies a culture of dance, dress, and lifestyle and serves as one of Chicago’s unique forms of music and expression. The city’s culture in music is defined by many genres. Blues, jazz, rhythm and blues, rap, house, and steppin’ all play an integral role in shaping the sound. From the blues great Buddy Guy to the rap pioneer Twista, Chicago’s musical heritage is marked by the rising and affluent urban and middle class. From street corners to nightclubs, the talent within the communities defines the fabric of the people within those communities. Nightclubs such as Legends, The Cotton Club, and the Subterrainium still exist into the 21st century. See also Armstrong, Louis; Black-Owned Record Labels; Blues; Cleveland, James; Cooke, Sam; Dixon, Willie; Dorsey, Thomas A.; Hampton, Lionel; Hancock, Herbie; Henderson, Fletcher; Hines, Earl (Fatha); Hooker, John Lee; House Music; Jackson, Mahalia; Jazz; Mayfield, Curtis; Memphis Minnie; Morton, Jelly Roll; Oliver, King; Rainey, Ma; Smith, Mamie; Taylor, Koko; Waters, Muddy; West, Kanye; Wolf, Howlin’. Further Reading Barlow, William. ‘‘Taylor, Koko.’’ In Black Women in America: Music, edited by Darlene Clark Hine. Encyclopedia of Black Women in America. New York: Facts On File, Inc., 1997. Facts On File, Inc. ‘‘African-American History Online.’’ www.fofweb.com/ activelink2.asp (accessed 2009). Holmes, Thom. ‘‘Hancock, Herbie.’’ In Jazz: American Popular Music. New York: Facts On File, Inc., 2006. Facts On File, Inc. ‘‘African-American History Online.’’ www. fofweb.com/activelink2.asp (accessed 2009). Smith, Robert C. ‘‘Music in African-American Culture.’’ In Encyclopedia of AfricanAmerican Politics. New York: Facts On File, Inc., 2003. Facts On File, Inc. ‘‘AfricanAmerican History Online.’’ www.fofweb.com/activelink2.asp (accessed 2009).
Chicago, Illinois | 203 Weissman, Dick. ‘‘Chicago and Blues Music.’’ In Blues: American Popular Music. New York: Facts On File, Inc., 2005. Facts On File, Inc. ‘‘African-American History Online.’’ www.fofweb.com/activelink2.asp (accessed 2009). West, Sandra L. ‘‘Chicago Renaissance.’’ In Encyclopedia of the Harlem Renaissance, edited by Aberjhani and Sandra L. West. New York: Facts On File, Inc., 2003. Facts On File, Inc. ‘‘African-American History Online.’’ www.fofweb.com/activelink2.asp (accessed 2009).
Further Listening Chaka Khan. The Platinum Collection. Warner Bros., 2006. Chi-Lites. The Chi-Lites Greatest Hits. Brunswick, 1972. Common. Be. Geffen Records, 2005. Common. Like Water for Chocolate. MCA Records, 2000. Crucial Conflict. The Final Tic. Universal, 1996. Da Brat. Funkdafied. So So Def, 1994. Guy, Buddy. 20th Century Masters: The Millennium: The Best of Buddy Guy. MCA, 2001. Hathaway, Lalah. Lalah Hathaway. Virgin Records, 1990. Johnson, Syleena. Chapter 1: Love, Pain & Forgiveness. Jive Records, 2001. Johnson, Syleena. Chapter 2: The Voice. Jive Records, 2002. Johnson, Syleena. Chapter 3: The Flesh. Jive Records, 2005. Johnson, Syleena. Chapter 4: Labor Pains. Aneelys Records, 2009. Mayfield, Curtis. Curtis. Curtom, 1970. Mayfield, Curtis. Roots. Curtom, 1971. Mayfield, Curtis. Super Fly. Curtom, 1972. Mayfield, Curtis. The Very Best of Curtis Mayfield. Curtom, 1997. Norful, Smokie. I Need You Now. EMI, 2003. Rawls, Lou. Natural Man. MGM, 1971. R. Kelly. 12 Play. Jive Records, 1993. R. Kelly. Chocolate Factory. Jive Records, 2003. R. Kelly. Happy People/U Saved Me. Jive Records, 2004. R. Kelly. R. Kelly. Jive Records, 1995. R. Kelly. TP-2.com. Jive Records, 2000. Staples, Mavis. Mavis Staples. Volt, 1969. Staples, Mavis. Oh What a Feeling. Warner, 1979. Staples, Mavis. Only for the Lonely. Stax, 1970. Staples, Mavis. A Piece of the Action. Curtom, 1977. Twista. Adrenaline Rush. Atlantic Records, 1997. Twista. Kamikaze. Atlantic Records, 2004. Walker, Albertina. The Best of the Caravans: Two Record Set. Savoy Records, 1977. Walker, Albertina. The Dynamic Voice of Albertina Walker ‘‘The Lord’s Prayer’’. Hob Records, 1976. Watley, Jody. Jody Watley. MCA, 1987. Watley, Jody. Larger than Life. MCA, 1989. West, Kanye. 808’s Heartbreak. Roc-A-Fella Records/Def Jam, 2008. West, Kanye. The College Dropout. Roc-A-Fella Records/Def Jam, 2004. West, Kanye. Graduation. Roc-A-Fella Records/Def Jam, 2007. West, Kanye. Late Registration. Roc-A-Fella Records/Def Jam, 2005.
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Further Viewing Cleveland, James. Gospel. Golden Door Productions, 1983. Hollister, Dave. Chicago 85: The Movie. Dream Works, 2000. Syleecia N. Thompson
Chicago Renaissance See
Renaissance, Chicago: 1935–1950.
Church Music See Black Church Music—History; Black Church Music—Hymnists and Psalmists.
Civil Rights Movement Music The civil rights movement generally is defined in the context of the activism against segregation that encompassed the years 1954–1975. Although scholars debate both years and terminology, the one thing that is agreed upon is the role that music played in representing, defining, and motivating movement activities. The freedom song or civil rights song took on several connotations and functions during this period. Initially, singing was not a major facet of the early years of the movement, especially the years between 1954 and 1960. This is not to say that singing did not precede mass meetings and other activities, but rather to iterate that singing was not considered a tool of resistance in these early years of activity. But as movement activities escalated, the use of music as a form of nonviolent but provocative protest became the norm. The major turning point regarding the use of music in the movement was the 1961 Albany movement in Albany, Georgia, and the rise of the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee (SNCC). Founded in 1960, SNCC became the student-based arm of the Southern movement against segregation. It also served as the focal point of an advance network of movement activity that boldly challenged segregation beyond the marches that defined movement activity of the 1950s. SNCC launched a number of sit-ins throughout the South that desegregated lunch counters and other businesses. They sponsored the Freedom Rides, which sought to desegregate the interstate transit system. Most important, SNCC redefined the public use of music and made the freedom song an important tool of the movement. The freedom song or civil rights song generally was simple in its construction, initially adapted from spirituals, hymns, and gospel songs, and consisted of texts that progressed from freedom in a more abstract form to specific activities used to achieve it. Familiar songs taken from the black church, such as ‘‘I Ain’t Gonna Let Nobody Turn Me Around,’’ ‘‘Wade in the Water,’’ or ‘‘We Shall Not Be Moved’’ had their texts modified to fit movement activities. One of the best-known examples of this is the song ‘‘We Shall Overcome,’’ which was based on a hymn written by Rev. Charles Albert Tindley (1851–1933) at the turn of the
Civil Rights Movement Music | 205 20th century. Where Tindley wrote in 1905 ‘‘I will overcome someday,’’ in the name of solidarity it evolved into ‘‘We shall overcome.’’ ‘‘Shall’’ probably replaced ‘‘will’’ to avoid alliteration and for ease of diction. This song became the anthem of the movement and, in time, it became associated with Martin Luther King, Jr. These songs also conveyed tactics and key values of the movement and, as song leader and activist Bernice Johnson Reagon recounted later, music became ‘‘one of the best records . . . of the transformation of consciousness in the ordinary people, the masses, who took part in the movement.’’ As the 1960s progressed, however, the freedom song began to develop into other forms conveying specific perspectives. By 1963 two broadly conceived categories defined the idiom of the freedom song. They were the songs adapted from spirituals or gospel songs that were used as a part of movement activities and professionally composed topical songs that commented on protest events from a sideline perspective. This latter category developed first in the folk community through such artists as Pete Seeger, Bob Dylan, and Joan Baez. Not only were these artists significant in voicing the struggle for freedom in the South, but they also provided performance opportunities for the singing ensembles that began to develop out of organizations associated with the movement. One of the first examples of such ensembles was the SNCC Freedom Singers, which was organized in 1962 by Cordell Reagon. The Freedom Singers were significant in carrying the story of the student movement to the North and to nonblack audiences. The activities of the Freedom Singers as well as other groups such as the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) Singers furthered the scope and form of the freedom song. In the mid-1960s, however, singer and pianist Nina Simone began writing and performing songs that could be viewed as extensions of the work of the above-mentioned folk artists. Simone, whose musical style defies category, was significant in voicing the changing rhetoric of the movement especially as resistance became more violent and bloody. In 1964, Simone, spurred by television reports of the bombing of the 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham and the deaths of four little girls, wrote ‘‘Mississippi Goddamn.’’ Although banned from radio and protested by Southern distributors, the song became one of Simone’s most explicit articulations of the anger steeping within the movement and the black community by this time. Simone would continue writing and performing songs that spoke to the movement, including ‘‘Ol’ Jim Crow,’’ ‘‘Mr. Backlash Blues,’’ and ‘‘I Wish I Knew How It Would Feel To Be Free.’’ Simone’s songs and performance marked a considerable shift in black popular music’s relationship with the movement and also in the rhetoric of the movement, which by 1966 was moving more to the militancy of black nationalism. One of the important aspects of this widening divide between King and the student-led SNCC was the changing role of music in the movement. Julius Lester, a member of SNCC declared in 1965 that the movement was shifting away from ‘‘singing freedom songs . . . and combating bullets and billy clubs with love. . . . The people are too busy getting ready to fight to bother with singing anymore.’’ For the leaders of SNCC and other student-led groups, Simone became the
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‘‘true singer’’ of the civil rights movement and the articulator of the new rhetoric of resistance. But she would not be the only performer to give voice to these ideals. Curtis Mayfield and his ‘‘message songs’’ became central in articulating the movement’s move to Chicago and the ‘‘End of the Slums’’ movement. Mayfield’s songs as recorded by the Impressions, fused biblical messages of hope and transcendence with gospel-influenced vocals and rhythm and blues nuances and instrumentation. With songs like ‘‘Keep On Pushing’’ (1964), ‘‘People Get Ready’’ (1965), and ‘‘We’re a Winner’’ (1968), Mayfield voiced the struggle for civil rights in a language that was embraced by wider and diverse audiences. Most important, both Simone and Mayfield foreshadowed the nationalistic language of black popular music during the late 1960s. By 1968, it was clear that black popular music, especially soul music, had shaken its aversion to overt political statements. Where Simone and Mayfield were exceptions to this rule in the early 1960s, by 1968 a number of artists were redefining and expanding the notions of the freedom song. Some of the most well-known examples of this are James Brown’s ‘‘Say It Loud (I’m Black and I’m Proud)’’ and Aretha Franklin’s version of Otis Redding’s ‘‘Respect,’’ which became an unofficial anthem of the Black Power movement, and Sly and the Family Stone’s ‘‘Don’t Call me Nigger, Whitey’’ and ‘‘Stand!’’ Although a number of record labels and artists were noted for their inclusion of black nationalist themes, Stax Records was the leader in articulating these notions and representing these themes in its business practices. The recording company initiated community-centered programming. The most notable example is the Wattstax concert and such artists as the Staple Singers and Isaac Hayes who promoted black economic empowerment and pride in one’s history and self through songs like ‘‘Respect Yourself’’ (1971), and ‘‘I’ll Take You There’’ (1972). Motown also contributed to this narrative of social consciousness and black empowerment with Marvin Gaye’s landmark album What’s Goin’ On (1971) as well as Stevie Wonder’s Livin’ For The City (1973) and You Haven’t Done Nothing (1974). By the mid-1970s, however, the social consciousness of early 1970s soul and funk gave way to the cultural and social themes of disco. But soul, funk, and folk music were not the only genres to align themselves to the rhetoric of the civil rights and Black Power movements. A number of jazz musicians used their music to advance the tenets of the movement. But the relationship between jazz and the advancement of the black community dates back to the 1940s when Billie Holiday recorded the controversial song, ‘‘Strange Fruit,’’ a song detailing lynchings in the South. Among the musicians who supported the civil rights movements through their participation in movement activities or the adaption of the movement’s rhetoric in their music were saxophonist and composer Archie Shepp (1937– ) who is referred to by some jazz scholars as one of the most ardent and articulate supporters of the Black Power movement. His 1965 album Fire Music was one of the first manifestations of Afrocentricity and political sentiment in his music. The title was adapted from African musical practices and the album featured an elegy written to honor activist Malcolm X called ‘‘Malcolm, Malcolm Semper Malcolm.’’ Subsequent albums like The Magic of
Classical Music | 207 Ju-Ju (1967), Attica Blues (1972), and The Cry of My People (1972) continued to advance either a growing connection between African traditions and jazz or a close relationship between jazz and civil rights. Composer and drummer Max Roach also cemented the connection between jazz and political rhetoric when in 1960 he produced his suite ‘‘We Insist! Freedom Now.’’ The composition featured lyrics written by Oscar Brown, Jr. and vocal performance by Abbey Lincoln. The work was written in commemoration of the 100th anniversary of Abraham Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation. Roach would continue to use his music as a means of commenting on the African American experience despite being blacklisted by the recording industry for a period in the 1960s. The relationship between black music and activism would never replicate the intersection seen in the 1960s, but various genres and artists attempted throughout the late 20th and early 21st centuries to articulate the struggle for personal freedom and empowerment. See also
Protest Songs; Reagon, Bernice Johnson; Simone, Nina. Further Reading
Kernodle, Tammy L. ‘‘ ‘I Wish I Knew How It Would Feel to be Free’: Nina Simone and the Redefining of the Freedom Song of the 1960s.’’ Journal of the Society of American Music 2, no. 3 (August 2008): 295–317. Martin, Bradford D. ‘‘Freedom Singers of the Civil Rights Movement: Delivering a Message on the Front Lines.’’ In The Theater Is in the Street: Politics and Public Performance in the Sixties America. Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 2004. Reagon, Bernice Johnson. ‘‘Let the Church Sing Freedom.’’ Black Music Research Journal 7 (1987): 105–118. Salaam, Kalamu ya. The Magic of Juju: An Appreciation of the Black Arts Movement. Chicago: Third World Press, 2007. Sanger, Kerran J. ‘‘When the Spirit Says Sing’’: The Role of Freedom Songs in the Civil Rights Movement. New York: Garland Publishing, 1995.
Further Listening Mayfield, Curtis. Curtis Mayfield: The Anthology 1961–1977. MCA, 1992. Simone, Nina. The Very Best of Nina Simone: Sugar in My Bowl, 1967–1972. RCA Victor, 1998. Voices of the Civil Rights Movement: Black American Freedom Songs, 1960–1966. Smithsonian, 1980. Tammy L. Kernodle
Classic Blues See
Blues.
Classical Music See Concert Music—Composers and Repertoire; Concert Music—Conductors and Performers; Opera.
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Cleveland, James (1932–1991) A gospel performer and composer, James Cleveland continued the tradition of Thomas Dorsey as organizer of conventions and bodies devoted to gospel singing. He founded the Gospel Music Workshop of America in 1967, and it continues to be among the leading organizations devoted to the genre, producing notables such as John P. Kee and Kirk Franklin. His contributions as editor to Songs of Zion (1981) were significant to black hymnody. It contains Cleveland’s arrangements of hymns, spirituals, and gospel songs as well as arrangements and compositions by gospel greats such as Andrae Crouch and Margaret Plesant Douroux. It also contains his essay, entitled ‘‘Keys to Musical Interpretation, Performance, and Meaningful Worship,’’ which provides a comprehensive guide to effective gospel vocal and instrumental performance. His more popular songs include ‘‘Lord Do It for Me,’’ ‘‘I’ve Been in the Storm Too Long,’’ and ‘‘Where Is Your Faith in God.’’ Cleveland’s arrangements of hymns garnered as much fame as his compositions. His interpretation of ‘‘Peace, Be Still’’ is still being performed by church choirs in the 21st century. A multiple Grammy Award winner, Cleveland is celebrated for his signature raspy voice, complex choral arrangements, and virtuosic choirs. His star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame is the first dedicated to a gospel artist. See also Black Church Music—History; Black Church Music—Hymnists and Psalmists; Gospel Music. Further Reading Cleveland, J. Jefferson, and Verolga Nix, eds. Songs of Zion. Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1981. Darden, Robert. People Get Ready! A New History of Gospel Music. New York: Continuum International Publishing Group, 2004. Gospel Music Workshop of America, Inc. www.gmwanational.net (accessed 2009).
Further Listening Cleveland, James. James Cleveland and The Angelic Choir Vol. 3: Peace Be Still. Savoy Records, 1962. Reissued by Savoy SCD14076. Horace J. Maxile, Jr.
Clinton, George (1940– ) Front man, singer, songwriter, and producer, George Clinton is one of the driving forces behind the development and popularization of funk music. Born in Kannapolis, North Carolina, and raised in Plainfield, New Jersey, Clinton’s first foray into music was as the founder and front man for a doo-wop group, the Parliaments, which he started in the late 1950s. The Parliaments were signed to the Revilot label and had one R & B hit, 1967’s ‘‘(I Wanna) Testify.’’ When the Parliaments had legal trouble with Revilot, Clinton dropped the name and began recording as Funkadelic, listing Clinton as the producer and the backup band as the only
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Musician George Clinton arrives for the Fifth Annual Billboard R & B Hip Hop Awards in Atlanta in 2005. (AP/Wide World Photos)
members. When he won back the right to the Parliaments name, he also began recording with a large collective of musicians as Parliament. Throughout the 1970s, he recorded with both Parliament and Funkadelic, with Parliament signed to Casa Blanca Records, and Funkadelic on Westbound and later Warner Bros. The work and rosters of the two bands often are referred to simply as P-Funk. In the 1980s, he began a solo career, although he often recorded with members from the P-Funk roster, due in large part to legal and copyright issues that stemmed from Polygram’s acquisition of Casa Blanca and the complex issues over royalties and copyrights that arose from the large and shifting membership in the two bands. Clinton was the architect of the 1970s funk revolution. The music of Parliament and Funkadelic combined R & B with jazz and psychedelic rock influences and turned soul into funk. The characteristic sound had horn runs, synthesizers, and a throbbing bass line, particularly that of bassist William ‘‘Bootsy’’ Collins (1951– ), who also has a thriving funk solo career, sometimes using Clinton as the producer for his albums. Clinton combined social commentary and wit with danceable grooves and theatrical live shows to produce concept albums and to dominate the
210 | Cole, Nat King
black music scene in the 1970s. Parliament and Funkadelic had dozens of R & B chart hits and three platinum albums: Parliament’s 1976 Mothership Connection and 1977 Funkentelechy vs. the Placebo Effect and Funkadelic’s 1978 One Nation Under a Groove. Clinton’s innovative conceptual approach created concept albums, such as Mothership Connection, which presented the story of a group of black aliens who had colonized the Earth and later would return to liberate their people. He also performed long, intense, and spectacular live shows that involved elaborate costuming and props, including a Mothership from which members of the band emerged to play. In addition to his work with P-Funk and his solo work, Clinton has worked as a producer for latter-day funk bands like the Red Hot Chili Peppers (Freakey Styley). While funk lost some of its appeal in the 1980s, Clinton’s importance was less recognized. His status as a pioneer and father of black music was revitalized as hip hop performers heavily sampled from P-Funk’s work and Clinton began to collaborate with hip hop stars. Clinton has been sampled by and has worked with hip hop stars from Chuck D to Tupac to De La Soul to the Wu Tang Clan and many others. Only James Brown (1933–2006) is sampled more frequently. In addition to the platinum albums, Funkadelic’s 1970 Free Your Mind . . . And Your Ass Will Follow, Parliament’s 1975 Chocolate City, and Clinton’s 1982 Computer Games are important albums. In 1997, Clinton was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame along with 15 other members of Parliament and Funkadelic. See also
Afrofuturism; Funk. Jessica Parker
Cole, Nat King (1919–1965) Pianist, singer, composer, and entertainment personality, Nat King Cole was born Nathaniel Adams Coles on St. Patrick’s Day in 1919. The son of a church deacon who moonlighted as a part-time butcher and a traveling organist, Nat was one of 13 children in a crowded and financially strapped home in rural Montgomery County, Alabama. Raised in a Baptist family, Nat’s formal musical training began during his early childhood, as his mother schooled him in a variety of gospel and European classical music. These diverse styles served as Nat’s initial musical influence and worked to inform the emergent artistic sensibilities of the future legend. Showing a natural talent for the piano, Nat gave his first public performance at the age of four and regularly accompanied his family’s church choir in his preteen years. Nat’s training continued as the Coles family moved to the Bronzeville neighborhood of Chicago. Once in the North, young Nat expanded his musical repertoire, as he explored the popular sounds of blues and jazz through the works of Louis Armstrong and particularly the piano playing of Earle ‘‘Fatha’’ Hines. Inspired by these artists, the teenaged Nat embarked on his own professional musical career that began in the mid-1930s and lasted until his death in 1965. Adopting the stage name Nat Cole and later acquiring the nickname ‘‘King,’’ Cole paid his dues on the jazz circuit in the United States and abroad and effectively established his reputation as a master pianist and preeminent musical talent. After relentless touring with a number of bands, Cole was sought after for a
Coleman, Ornette | 211 number of gigs and became a perennial popular selling artist. Cole pierced the walls of superstardom, however, when he began to predominantly showcase his voice as his crooning, subtle style entered the households of millions of Americans, black and white, through radio and record. Cole’s emerging popularity from radio hits such as 1940’s ‘‘Sweet Lorraine’’ and 1943’s ‘‘Straighten Up and Fly Right’’ strengthened his mainstream appeal and allowed Cole a flourishing career throughout the 1940s and 1950s. By the 1950s, Cole’s popularity afforded him a lavish lifestyle, as Capitol Records acknowledged his success by christening their circular-shaped office building as ‘‘the house that Nat built.’’ However, Cole was a popular black icon in the midst of Jim Crow segregation, and the artist routinely found himself within the focus of politicized debate. The year 1956 was a harrowing time for Cole. Seen in part as a reaction to the landmark cases against Jim Crow segregation, including 1954’s Brown v. Board of Education, Cole was physically attacked by white supremacists that overtook the stage at an April concert in Birmingham, Alabama. As a result, Cole refused to play in the South again. Civil rights leaders such as Thurgood Marshall expressed disappointment that Cole did not vehemently denounce his attack. Cole, however, became more politically visible after the incident as he took the stage at the Republican National Convention in August. Cole was a natural choice due to his augmented celebrity as he became the first African American to be featured on his own radio and television program. The shows were quickly cancelled due to a lack of sponsorship; however, his breaking of the unofficial color boundary in television was significant for the overall cause of civil rights. Cole also expressed his support for John F. Kennedy at the Democratic National Convention of 1960 and at various functions during the campaign. With his election, Cole counseled President Kennedy on the issue of civil rights using his celebrity to popularize the cause to those in political power. Cole continued his career until his death from lung cancer on February 15, 1965. His daughter Natalie Cole, also a popular singer, released a rerecording in 1991 of Nat King Cole’s hit, ‘‘Unforgettable,’’ where her voice was mixed in with her father’s, so that they sang a duet on the album, Unforgettable . . . with Love, which won three Grammy Awards in 1991, including Best Album of the Year. Nat King Cole’s music continues to be popular in the 21st century. See also
Blues; Los Angeles, California, and the West Coast. Further Reading
Epstein, Daniel Mark. Nat King Cole. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1999. Haskins, James, and Kathleen Benson. Nat King Cole. New York: Stein and Day, 1984. Kevin Strait
Coleman, Ornette (1930– ) Beginning on alto saxophone and switching to tenor at age 16, Coleman spent several years moving between New Orleans, Los Angeles, and his hometown of
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Ornette Coleman, avant-garde jazz musician. Coleman is known and revered by musicians for challenging the limits of earlier styles and bringing new energy to improvisation. (Hulton Archive/Getty Images)
Fort Worth, Texas, playing for rhythm and blues bands. Settling in Los Angeles in the late 1950s, he worked as an elevator operator and studied music theory, developing a revolutionary approach to harmonics that drew jazz beyond the experimental chord patterns and improvisation of bebop. In 1959, he attended the School of Jazz in Lenox, Massachusetts, and released his debut album, Something Else, which ushered in the era of free jazz, a challenging and, to many, an obscure take on composition that influenced later works of Beat poets such as Ted Joans. See also
Jazz. Further Reading
Ginsberg, Allen. Spontaneous Mind: Selected Interviews 1958–1996, ed. David Carter. New York: HarperCollins, 2001. Ornette Coleman. www.ornettecoleman.com/ (accessed 2009). Wilson, Peter Niklas. Ornette Coleman: His Life and Music, trans. Robert Dobbin. Albany, CA: Berkeley Hills Books, 1999. David Arnold
Colleges and Universities See Educators, Schools, Colleges, and Universities; Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs).
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John Coltrane (photographed in 1960) possessed astonishing technical mastery, spiritual tone, lengthy improvisations, and multicultural influences that stretched the boundaries of jazz and enriched its vocabulary. (Library of Congress)
Coltrane, John (1926–1967) Jazz saxophonist and composer John Coltrane is perhaps the most influential tenor saxophonist in the history of jazz. Born John William Coltrane in Hamlet, North Carolina, he grew up playing many woodwind instruments. The saxophone became his instrument of choice during his latter teenage years and in the mid- to late 1940s he began to perform with bandleaders such as Jimmy Heath (1926– ) and Dizzy Gillespie (1917–1993). During the 1950s, Coltrane was in demand as a sideman. He held positions in ensembles led by Gillespie, Earl Bostic (1913–1965), and Johnny Hodges (1906–1970). It was during the early years of this decade that Coltrane fully devoted himself to the tenor saxophone. The midto late 1950s proved to be even more fruitful for Coltrane, as this was the period of his involvement with Miles Davis (1926–1991) and Thelonious Monk (1917– 1982). His collaborations with these two giants produced acclaimed recordings such as Round About Midnight (1955), Cookin’ (1956), Thelonious Monk with John Coltrane (1957), and Milestones (1958). He recorded as a leader and with other artists during these years. The 1960s mark his most memorable work as bandleader and composer, as he was the first artist to sign with the Impulse label (1961) and produced a prolific string of influential recordings such as Ballads (1962), A Love Supreme (1964), and Ascension (1965). Although mostly
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influential as a performer, Coltrane was also an active composer. Among his compositions that are now standards are ‘‘Impressions,’’ ‘‘Giant Steps,’’ and ‘‘Naima.’’ Coltrane’s impact on future generations of jazz performers is wide ranging: he moved the soprano saxophone from virtual obscurity to a viable instrument for contemporary jazz; he helped define the bop and hard bop eras in jazz history; he created improvisations and approaches that have been widely imitated and serve as models for creative expansion; and he produced final recordings that are considered by many to be among the first experiments in free jazz. See also
Davis, Miles; Gillespie, Dizzy; Jazz; Monk, Thelonious Sphere. Further Reading
Porter, Lewis. John Coltrane: His Life and Music. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1997. Simpkins, Cuthbert Ormond. Coltrane: A Biography. New York: Herndon House Publishers, 1975.
Further Listening Coltrane John. Giant Steps. Atlantic 1131-2, 1988. Reissue. Coltrane John. A Love Supreme. Impulse GRD-155, 1995. Reissue. Horace J. Maxile, Jr.
Concert Music—Composers and Repertoire The African American compositional presence in concert music can be dated as far back as the mid-19th century. Composers Frank Johnson, Jospeh Postlewaite, Basil Jean Bares, and Edmond Dede were active during that time and were known for their renditions of show tunes and dances. There may be some speculation as to whether or not the better parts of these composer’s output are representative of concert music, but these composers were operating in and disseminating from a written tradition. At the turn of the century, the United States witnessed a movement of musical nationalism as represented by the works of Harry Burleigh, R. Nathaniel Dett, and J. Rosamond Johnson. Works by these composers were published in the early years of the 20th century, but even before the turn of the century and just after Anton Dvorak’s seminal declaration (1893) about the folk music of African Americans being ‘‘all that is needed for a great and noble school of music,’’ instrumental works by Clarence Cameron White (‘‘Tuxedo,’’ 1895) and songs by Will Marion Cook (selected pieces from Clorindy, or The Origin of the Cakewalk, 1899) were published. Nationalist compositional themes continued through the Harlem Renaissance by way of extended symphonic works by William Grant Still, Florence Price, and William Levi Dawson and continued into the mid-20th century with chamber, solo, and choral pieces by Undine Smith Moore and Margaret Bonds. Ulysses Kay, Howard Swanson, and Julia Perry were active and widely performed during the mid-20th century, but their compositions were less driven by vernacular
Concert Music—Composers and Repertoire | 215 themes—if driven at all by them. The 1960s spawned an even wider stylistic breadth in compositional approach, new techniques, and sound sources, which were inspirations for expression and experiment. Olly Wilson, T. J. Anderson, David Baker, and Dorothy Rudd Moore used contemporary technique and fused African American elements into creative musings that were at times as political as they were poetic. The later years of the 20th century are marked by a certain renaissance of vernacular influence as subjects as diverse as gospel, hip hop, and Caribbean music are being explored simultaneously with an ever expanding sonic palate. Composers such as Adolphus Hailstork, William Banfield, Tania Leon, and Lettie Beckon Alston are evoking such themes and are continuing the rich legacy of African American composers of concert music. Further Reading Banfield, William. Musical Landscapes in Color: Conversations with Black American Composers. Lanham, MD: The Scarecrow Press, 2003. Floyd, Samuel A., Jr., ed. The International Dictionary of Black Composers. Chicago: Fitzroy Dearborn Publishers, 1999. Southern, Eileen. The Music of Black Americans. New York: W. W. Norton and Company, 1997. Horace J. Maxile, Jr.
Concert Music: 1776–1861 Only a handful of composers of African descent from this period are currently known, but in their lifetimes, their particular talents were widely recognized. Composers such as Ignatius Sancho and Joseph Boulogne were active and acclaimed in Europe during this period as well as Jose Nunes Garcia from South America. There also were composers in the United States who were acknowledged as intellects with remarkable aptitudes. Included in the African American concert music composers of the colonial period are Newport Gardner (1746–1826), Francis Johnson (1792–1844), and Justin Holland (1819–1887). Singers such as Elizabeth Taylor Greenfield joined Johnson and Holland in receiving great praise for their skill from reputable musical sources of their era. These musicians represented the triumph of talent and determination over the adversity explicit in American culture during the colonial period. Extant primary sources combine with a relatively wide array of secondary sources to provide information on Newport Gardner. A ship’s captain who had promised to give the boy access to education sold him into slavery in the colony of Rhode Island. His owner, named Caleb Gardner, changed his name from the original Occramer Merrycoo. Slavery did not block the promise of his education and, within four years of his sale in 1760 at the age of 14, he was writing anthems for the Congregational church. Although acknowledged as a professional musician, the first African American documented as such, his music career shared time with his abolitionist activities
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on behalf of the African Union Society and his duties as sexton to a white church and founder and deacon of a black church, both in Newport. He purchased his freedom in 1791 and was able to open a singing school in Newport because of money won from a lottery. Gardner and 32 members of his church set sail for Liberia in 1826. He and his best friend Salmar Nubia were elderly by this point, nearly 80 and 70 years old, respectively, but each had reached his dream of returning to Africa. Both died within six months of their arrival. Keyed bugle virtuoso Francis (‘‘Frank’’) Johnson was the first African American to have music published in the United States (A Set of Cotillions, 1818). Another important first is Johnson’s European tour of 1837—the first for any American, black or white. His abilities on the keyed bugle afforded many performance opportunities that would not have been appropriate on fiddle, another instrument on which he was known to have performed. As tastes in American music shifted toward brass bands and ensembles during the mid-19th century, Johnson was in demand as a performer and bandleader. Based in Philadelphia, he accepted engagements as far west as Missouri. He was founder and leader of a small military band and a dance orchestra. These groups were critically acclaimed from the 1820s to the 1840s, and it was known that white bands refused to march in parades with Johnson’s band. Their refusal was apparently related to racial issues, but many bands did not want to have comparisons made between themselves and the highly polished Johnson bands. The bulk of Johnson’s compositional output consists of the social dance music popular during the mid-19th century (cotillions, quadrilles, waltzes, and so on). These pieces feature idiomatic gestures and treatments of form that allowed sections to be repeated ad lib to encourage dancing. Marches, songs, and concert pieces for the keyed bugle also are in Johnson’s output. Justin Miner Holland was the only North American composer of this era to be born free. Well before the Emancipation Proclamation, his birth in Virginia was not tainted by the pressures of slavery. Despite this, he was active in the abolitionist movement, attending Negro Conventions and working with the renowned leader Frederick Douglass. He was even in charge of the abortive attempt to purchase land in Central America that would be dedicated as a homeland where African Americans could be free. Holland left the South at the age of 14, moving to Boston where he studied guitar, flute, and piano in addition to his lessons in composition and arrangement, primarily for guitar. Eleven years after his arrival in Boston, he moved to Ohio to study at Oberlin College. His career was established in Cleveland, where he published more than 350 works, including didactic materials. Fewer than 30 percent of this prodigious output survives. Both his son and daughter, however, survived to become accomplished musicians like their father. The works of Holland are primarily guitar arrangements of famous tunes of the day, such as the main theme from the William Tell overture and the extremely popular variations on Carnival of Venice. Douglas Back’s recording of this latter confirms his place in the salon music of the era that valued virtuosity framed in delightful elegance. Having learned Spanish to read the works of famous Spanish masters of the guitar, he then was said to have mastered French,
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Composer, guitarist, educator, and Cleveland notable Justin Holland. (New York Public Library)
Italian, and German. His compositions certainly reflect influences from all those cultures. Other composers active during this period were Philadelphia composers James Hemmenway (1800–1849), Henry F. Williams (1813–1903), and William Appo (ca. 1808–ca. 1877). Williams and Appo had direct ties to Frank Johnson, as Appo was a member of Johnson’s 1837 European tour band and Williams worked as an arranger for Johnson’s band after his death. Joseph William Postlewaite (ca. 1827–1889), a free African American in St. Louis, was a bandleader and composer of marches, waltzes, and other social dance pieces. Further Reading Banat, Gabriel. The Chevalier de Saint-Georges: Virtuoso of the Sword and the Bow. Hillsdale, NY: Pendragon Press, 2006. Charpie, Stephen K. ‘‘Francis (‘‘Frank’’) Johnson.’’ In The International Dictionary of Black Composers, edited by Samuel A. Floyd, Jr., 615–620. Chicago: Fitzroy Dearborn Publishers, 1999. DeLerma, Dominique-Rene. ‘‘The Life and Works of Nunes-Garcia: A Status Report.’’ The Black Perspective in Music (1986) volume 14: 93–102.
218 | Concert Music—Composers and Repertoire Olsen, Dale A. ‘‘Public Concerts in Early America.’’ Music Educators Journal 65, no. 9 (1979): 48–59. Wright, Josephine. ‘‘Art/Classical Music Chronological Overview.’’ In African American Music: An Introduction, edited by Mellonee V. Burnim and Portia K. Maultsby, 211–230. New York: Routledge, Taylor and Francis Group, 2006. Wright, Josephine, and Eileen Southern. ‘‘Newport Gardner (1746–1826).’’ The Black Perspective in Music 4, no. 2 (1976): 202–207.
Further Listening Boulogne, Joseph, and Chevalier de Saint Georges. Chevalier de Saint-Georges: Violin Concertos. Takako Nishizaki, Cologne Chamber Orchestra, Helmut M€ uller-Br€ uhl, Naxos 8555040, 2000. Garcia, Jose Mauricio Nunes, and Manoel Dias de Oliveira. The Passion of Brazilian Baroque. Associac~ao de Canto Coral and Camerata Rio de Janeiro. Henrique Morelenbaum, Jade/Milan compact disc 28708, 2005. Holland, Justin, et al. American Pioneers of the Classic Guitar. Douglas Back, guitar. Mento Music SMM 3023, 1994.
Further Viewing Le Mozart Noir. Kendall Knights, Tafelmusik Baroque Opera Orchestra. Toronto, Canada: CBC 29709DV, 2005. G. Yvonne Kendall
Concert Music: 1861–1919 The era 1861–1919 saw tremendous expansion of the possibilities for concert music among African Americans. In addition to increased performances of works of African American composers, more performers had international careers, and for the first time several schools and societies were set up for the express purpose of developing the obvious talents among African Americans. The successful musicians of this period were extremely versatile. Composers trained at home or abroad sustained professional careers, not only by the publication and public performances of their works, but also supplementing this by their own performance. Performers were either skilled on numerous instruments or extremely virtuosic on one. Many of them composed works to advance their own careers. Professional training schools also opened their doors to African American students. Some, like the New England Conservatory of Music and Oberlin College, had already established records of equal treatment. But others were dedicated specifically to minority students. Alongside this increase in education possibilities came the development of music societies dedicated to African American performances of music by European and African American composers. Concert halls formerly limited to whites also became venues for these performances. Composers of this period generally represent three categories—composers of band and other popular music, those who were primarily composers of concert music, and those performer and composers who specialized in salon music. The
Concert Music—Composers and Repertoire | 219 composers of popular music, Henry F. Williams (1813–1903) and Scott Joplin (1868–1917) were versatile as was typical of those making careers in music in the 19th century. Williams, expert on the viola, cello, trombone, trumpet, and piano, played in bands along the Eastern Seaboard. Among those with whom he worked was Frank Johnson, and he was one of only two African Americans accepted for the Peace Jubilee Concert of 1872, held in Boston. He composed and published music for civic bands, creating polkas, mazurkas, marches, quadrilles, and waltzes over a period of nearly 40 years. Eminent composer Scott Joplin (1868–1917) is best known for his ragtime music. Born into a musically talented family in East Texas, the setting of his opera Treemonisha, Joplin left home as a teenager, making his living as a pianist. At the age of 25 he performed at the Chicago World’s Fair. A year later he married, settled in Missouri, and went into business with touring partner Otis Saunders. After the phenomenal sales of his first piece of sheet music, ‘‘Maple Leaf Rag,’’ Joplin moved to St. Louis. He attempted to break into the theatrical world of opera and ballet, but the line of demarcation between popular and classical musicians was far too deep and wide to cross successfully. After the death of his wife and first child, he relocated to New York City, publishing more music, including Treemonisha. The first full staging of this work was produced by the Houston Grand Opera in 1972 with orchestration by Gunther Schuller. In 1976, he was awarded a posthumous Pulitzer Prize for his contributions to American music. The Lambert family, Creoles from New Orleans, consisted of father Charles Richard, sons Charles Lucien (ca. 1828–1896) and Sidney (ca. 1838–ca. 1900 or 1909), and grandson Lucien-Leon (1858–1954). Charles Richard conducted the Philharmonic Society, the city’s first nontheatrical orchestra. It was an interracial ensemble. A contemporary of Louis Moreau Gottschalk, Charles Lucien was a highly respected virtuoso pianist who sought escape from the racism of postcolonial New Orleans. By 1854 he was living and successfully publishing his compositions in Paris. Later he and his family moved to Brazil where he and his son Lucien-Leon performed in a concert of 31 simultaneous pianists arranged by friend Gottschalk. Like Mozart, Charles Lucien composed a set of variations on ‘‘Ah, vous dirais-je maman’’ (‘‘Twinkle Twinkle Little Star’’). Most of his works were character pieces for piano, but in 1899, he composed the opera La flamenca. Returning to France, Lucien-Leon studied with Jules Massenet and, after a brief time in the service of Dom Pedro, king of Portugal, he returned to Paris. Once there, he took advantage of the development of recording and in 1905 released his Brazilian-influenced works and compositions by Gottchalk. Sidney also studied and settled in Paris, becoming a piano teacher and professional performer. The Lambert brothers are credited as having composed more than 100 works for piano. Dances and variations are also included among the many character pieces. Edmond Dede (1827–1903) was born free in New Orleans, son of a military bandmaster. Tensions in this racially polarized city led to a temporary relocation
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to Mexico. Upon his return, Dede left for Europe to continue his studies at the Paris Conservatoire. Dede served as a theater orchestra conductor for 27 years. Over this time, he composed and performed. A versatile composer, Dede’s output includes works for orchestra, solo voice, piano, and chamber ensembles. His Quasimodo Symphony was premiered in 1865, conducted in New Orleans by Samuel Snaer (1835–1900) another African American composer. With the exception of one brief tour in the United States in 1893, Dede remained in Europe with his wife and son, choosing to avoid the racial caste system of his native New Orleans. His son later became a Scott Joplin, ‘‘King of Ragtime.’’ (New York Public Library) composer as well. Prodigy Thomas Green Wiggins Bethune (1849–1908) performed under the stage name ‘‘Blind Tom’’ for most of his performance career. A reported savant, Bethune was blind at birth and began showing promise as a musician at age four. His musical development as a child was awe-inspiring as he gave public performances before the age of 10. Bethune’s solid reputation as a pianist would soon follow in his teenage years, but his compositional and improvisational skills also garnered attention from audiences. He composed only for piano and voice, and his works included waltzes, marches, and polkas. More than 30 compositions are attributed in the International Dictionary of Black Composers, but others report that he composed more than 100 works. Harry T. Burleigh (1866–1949) is arguably the most renowned African American composer of this era. Of mixed Scottish, African, and Native American heritage, Burley was from Pennsylvania where he began singing professionally in high school at churches and synagogues. Accepted into the National Conservatory, headed by Antonin Dvorak, Burleigh introduced the great Bohemian composer to spirituals and later became his copyist. In addition to singing, he played bass and timpani in the school orchestra. Having performed at the Chicago World’s Fair, he became baritone soloist for Episcopal churches and synagogues in New York City, even—according to
Concert Music—Composers and Repertoire | 221 research by Dominique-Rene de Lerma—singing the old spiritual ‘‘Deep River’’ in Hebrew. During this time, he also toured with Sissieretta Jones’s troubadours and became active in civil rights, even working alongside W. E. B. Du Bois in benefits held at the Music School Settlement for Colored People (MSSCP). Burleigh performed in the premiere of Samuel Coleridge-Taylor’s opera Hiawatha’s Wedding Feast and began to conduct as well. In this latter role, he directed Carmen with the Drury Opera Company, an African American ensemble. Added to his work as singer and conductor, Burleigh served as vocal coach for luminaries like Enrico Caruso and Marian Anderson, and began publishing his own compositions. More than 400 art songs and choral arrangements survive him, including Jubilee Songs of the United States of America. In fact, he is credited with beginning the practice of treating the spiritual as recital material. This publication work led to employment with Ricordi, the famed Italian publishing house; charter membership in the American Society of Composers, Authors, and Publishers (ASCAP); and the Spingarn Medal from the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP). Although of mixed African and English descent, Samuel Coleridge-Taylor (1875–1912) played an important role in the development African American concert music. As a violinist trained at London’s Royal College of Music and as a highly respected composer, his touring career included the United States where he often conducted his original works. New York’s Clef Club and the MSSCP were active in promoting his works, which were well received as seen in reviews by the New York Times and other newspapers. His success in Europe and abroad influenced future generations of African American composers and helped lay the foundations for a black nationalist school of composition that was predominant during the Harlem Renaissance. Such pieces that denote a decidedly black influence in style and organization include Five Negro Melodies (for violin, cello, and piano), Twenty-four Negro Melodies (piano), and Symphonic Variations on an African Air. See also Joplin, Scott; Organizations and Associations for African American Music and Musicians. Further Reading Floyd, Samuel A., Jr., ed. The International Dictionary of Black Composers. Chicago: Fitzroy Dearborn Publishers, 1999. Grainger, Percy. ‘‘The Impress of Personality in Unwritten Music.’’ The Musical Quarterly 1 (1915): 426–427. Southall, Geneva. Blind Tom: The Black Pianist Composer (1849–1908): Continually Enslaved. Lanham, MD: Scarecrow Press, 1999. Walton, Lester, L. H. White, and A. W. K. Lucien H. White. ‘‘Black-Music Concerts in Carnegie Hall, 1912–1915.’’ The Black Perspective in Music 6, no. 1 (1978): 71–88. Wright, Josephine. ‘‘Art/Classical Music Chronological Overview.’’ In African American Music: An Introduction, edited by Mellonee V. Burnim and Portia K. Maultsby, 211–230. New York: Routledge, Taylor and Francis Group, 2006.
222 | Concert Music—Composers and Repertoire Wyatt, Lucius. ‘‘Six Composers of Nineteenth Century New Orleans,’’ Black Music Research 10, no. 1 (1990): 125–140.
Further Listening Art Songs of Harry T. Burleigh. Regina McConnel, soprano. Michael Cordovana, piano. Centaur 2252, 1996. Edmond D e d e . Hot Springs Music Festival Orchestra. Richard Rosenberg. Naxos 8.559038, 2000. John Davis Plays Blind Tom. John Davis, piano. Newport Classic 85660, 1999. Marian Anderson: Rarities, Broadcast Performances: 1943–1952. Video Artists International, 2001. Spirituals in Concert. Kathleen Battle and Jessye Norman, sopranos. James Levine. Deutsche Grammophon 4GH 429–790, 1991. Violin Concertos by Black Composers of the 18th and 19th Centuries. Rachel Barton, violin, Encore Chamber Orchestra. Daniel Hege. Cedille 90000 035, 1997. G. Yvonne Kendall
Concert Music: 1919–1942 Political leaders of the Negro Renaissance praised African American concert music as a symbol of ‘‘uplift’’ for the race. In 1919, several musicians including Nathaniel Dett (1882–1943), Clarence Cameron White (1880–1960), and Nora Holt (1885–1974) founded the National Association of Negro Musicians (NANM) in Chicago, Illinois. This was the first organization established in the interest of preservation, encouragement, and advocacy of all genres of African American music, its composers, and performers. Musical aesthetics of concert music composed during the Negro Renaissance focused on long, multisectional forms in the style of late-19th-century symphonies incorporating long melodic lines, sonata form, and chromatic harmonies. The incorporation of black musical idioms expanded these romantic compositional traditions. Renaissance leaders favored concert music over music used for entertainment purposes, including jazz and blues, although several composers used elements of these genres in their concert works. Most African American classical musicians were highly educated and studied at music schools or took private composition lessons. Some composers tempered their adherence to cultivated classical forms by way of usages of vernacular musical emblems. Racial barriers for black concert musicians and composers during the 1920s and 1930s posed some problems, especially for those seeking music publication and organizing performances of large works, such as symphonies and operas. However, this period marks the first time African Americans achieved significant recognition for their musical contributions. Symphony orchestras began programming works by African American composers, African American opera singers appeared in starring roles, and African American musicians conducted symphony and radio orchestras. Although these triumphs were exceptional, the majority of white audiences saw them as minor contributions to concert music at the time.
Concert Music—Composers and Repertoire | 223 Composers who were active during the period of 1919–1942 include notable figures such as Harry T. Burleigh (1866–1949), Robert Nathaniel Dett (1882– 1943), Florence Price (1888–1953), William Grant Still (1895–1978), and William Levi Dawson (1899–1990). In addition to their contributions to many genres, including symphonic, chamber, choral, piano, and solo instrumental music, a few of these composers contributed to the development of black art song that blossomed during this period. The church played an integral role in developing a community of African American musicians and providing a musically rich atmosphere that included many recitals of chamber music and solo instrumental performances. The church especially promoted vocal music and singers who performed spiritual arrangements and black art songs, such as Marian Anderson (1902–1993), Roland Hayes (1887–1976), and Paul Robeson (1898–1976). Composers such as Charles Ives (1874–1954), John Alden Carpenter (1876–1951), and Charles Tomlinson Griffes (1881–1920) combined elements of American folk song with the European song tradition, while their African American contemporaries forged new ground in song composition. Black art song is neither completely assimilated into white America, nor is it solely rooted in African tradition; instead, it draws on both American and African literary, musical, cultural, and social themes. Like European art song, it is deeply entrenched in the poetry; however, African and African American melodic and rhythmic emblems can serve as additional signifying features. Art songs by African American composers reached a significant peak during the Negro Renaissance because of a heightened interest in vocal concert music, poignant compositions based on black poetry, and compelling performances by recitalists such as Hayes and Robeson. The 1930s and 1940s were an especially fruitful period for pieces written by African American composers, and the art song was no exception as it gained notoriety among both white and black audiences. Composer, pianist, and conductor Robert Nathaniel Dett was the first African American to complete the five-year course and receive the bachelor’s degree in music from Oberlin Conservatory of Music (1908). Further compositional studies included tenures at Columbia University, Harvard University, the Fontainbleau, France (with Nadia Boulanger), and Eastman School of Music where he earned the master of music degree in 1932. Like Burleigh, Dett is well known for his numerous arrangements of spirituals. He also composed art songs, choral works, and piano pieces, including the suites Magnolia (1912), Enchantment (1922), and the most popular In the Bottoms (1913). The frequently performed ‘‘Dance: Juba’’ movement from In the Bottoms is propelled by Dett’s lively treatments of rhythm, which evoke the traditional Juba dance of Antebellum and colonial days. During 1924–1926, Dett was president of the NANM. He also was instrumental in fortifying the legacy of the Hampton Institute Choir. Florence Price graduated from the New England Conservatory of Music (1906) and later established a career in Chicago as an organist and teacher. She was the first black women in the United States to be recognized as a symphonic composer and wrote more than 300 pieces, including her most famous work, Symphony in E Minor (1933). Well known as a pianist and organist, Price composed numerous
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keyboard works as well as other instrumental and vocal genres. She wrote 67 art songs, many of which remain unpublished and were composed between 1934 and 1946. Price promoted a certain black nationalism through the use musical emblems such as melodies from spirituals, use of pentatonicism (five-note scales), call-and-response formal structures, African dance rhythms, and the setting of poetry by African Americans. In 1932, Price won first prize in the Wanamaker Contest Awards for her Symphony in E Minor and Sonata in E Minor for Piano. The Wanamaker competition (named after Rodman Wanamaker) was established in 1927 and awarded monetary prizes for original compositions by African American composers. One of the prize administration agencies was the NANM. Under the direction of Frederick Stock, the Chicago Symphony Orchestra performed her Symphony in E Minor in 1933, a first for an African American woman. This led to further performances of her works in the United States and Europe. William Grant Still studied at Oberlin Conservatory of Music as well as New England Conservatory and later studied composition with Edgard Varese. In 1931, he became the first African American composer to have a work performed by a major symphony orchestra (Symphony No. 1: Afro-American Symphony). Along with the use of traditional European forms, dividing the work into four movements, Still incorporated blues themes and emblems into each movement. Each movement is accompanied by epigraphs of Paul Lawrence Dunbar’s dialect poetry. The first movement contains a 12-bar blues progression interpolated with call-and-response textures and the second movement employs the thematic material from the first movement in a style reminiscent of a spiritual. ‘‘An AnteBellum Sermon’’ by Dunbar frames the third movement, which evokes the fanfare of a religious celebration and contains a countermelody resembling George Gershwin’s 1930 song ‘‘I Got Rhythm.’’ The fourth movement begins with a hymn-like tune and features unconventional harmonic treatments. Still was the first African American to conduct the Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra in 1936 and the first to conduct an orchestra in the South, the New Orleans Philharmonic, in 1955. His opera, Troubled Island, was the first opera written by an African American composer to be performed by a major opera company. The work was premiered in 1949 by New York City Opera. An eclectic composer through his later years, Still also composed for piano, solo instruments, solo voice, and various combinations of performance forces. Representative works include Three Visions (1935, piano), Suite for Violin and Piano (1943), Songs of Separation (1945), and Plain-Chant for America (1941). William Levi Dawson was a composer, arranger, and choral conductor also renowned for his spiritual arrangements. The best-known arrangements include ‘‘Ain’ a That Good News’’ (1937), ‘‘Oh, What a Beautiful City’’ (1934), and ‘‘Mary Had a Baby’’ (1947). Like Price, he won a Wanamaker prize in 1930 for his orchestra piece, ‘‘Scherzo.’’ His Negro Folk Symphony (1932) premiered in 1934 under the direction of Leopold Stokowski with the Philadelphia Symphony Orchestra and won him national acclaim. Dawson employed European symphonic forms in the symphony while including black folk melodies and idiomatic treatments of rhythm. The work’s three movements are entitled ‘‘The Bond of Africa,’’
Concert Music—Composers and Repertoire | 225 ‘‘Hope in the Night,’’ and ‘‘O Let Me Shine!’’ He revised the symphony in 1952 after his travels to Africa prompted an even greater use of African rhythms. See also Educators, Schools, Colleges, and Universities; Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs); Organizations and Associations for African American Music and Musicians; Renaissance, Chicago: 1935–1950; Renaissance, Harlem: 1917–1935. Further Reading Cuney Hare, Maude. Negro Musicians and Their Music. New York: G. K. Hall and Company, 1996. DeLerma, Dominque-Rene. Black Music in Our Culture. Kent, OH: Kent State University Press, 1970. Floyd, Samuel A. The Power of Black Music: Interpreting its History from Africa to the United States. New York: Oxford University Press, 1995. Gray, John. Blacks in Classical Music. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1988. McCorvey, Everett David. ‘‘The Art Songs of Black American Composers.’’ Master’s thesis, University of Alabama, 1989. Patterson, Willis C. ‘‘A History of the National Association of Negro Musicians (NANM): The First Quarter Century, 1919–1943.’’ PhD diss., Wayne State University, 1993. Roach, Hildred. Black American Music: Past and Present. Boston: Crescendo, 1973. Southern, Eileen. The Music of Black Americans: A History. 3rd ed. New York: W. W. Norton and Company, 1997. Bethany J. Smith
Concert Music: 1942–1968 Whether they are composers who happen to be black or blacks who write music, African Americans profoundly affect concert music’s landscapes. Some artists refuted identifiable ‘‘blackness’’ in their music; others proudly embraced the ‘‘memory’’ that links their concert music to indigenous or vernacular music (field hollers, moans, spirituals, work songs, blues, gospel, and jazz). The years 1942 to 1968 frame U.S. involvement in a world war and the civil rights movement. The Harlem Renaissance also figures prominently, as composers such as Still, Price, and Dawson continued to compose during this period. The civil rights movement and the years leading up to it figure prominently because of sociopolitical factors that may have affected the creations of musicians. During this time, however, few African Americans outside academia had their concert music performed. Exceptions include Nora Holt (1885–1974) and Howard Swanson (1907–1978). Renaissance woman Nora Douglas Holt (born Lena Douglas, 1885–1974) was the first African American to earn a master’s degree (Chicago Musical College, 1918). Of her 200-plus works, all were lost except Negro Dance, Opus 25, No. 1, for piano, which uses blues and rag-like figures. Many of her compositions were written in the early decades of the 20th century, but her influence in concert music is mostly in the field of music criticism. Holt was music critic for Amsterdam News, Chicago Defender, and New York Courier; and she published Music & Poetry magazine. Holt was a ubiquitous socialite who was named ‘‘one
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of the most married Negroes’’ (Ebony, 1949). Her platinum blonde hair and smoky voice made her a natural pianist and singer for speakeasies. Despite her lewd facade, Holt was a respected and consummate artist; co-founder of the NANM; host of New York’s WLB Concert Radio Showcase (1950–1964); and member of First World Festival of Negro Arts (Senegal, 1966). Composer and pianist Howard Swanson (1907–1978) studied at Cleveland Institute (bachelor’s degree in music) and American Academy at Fontainebleau with Nadia Boulanger. For 20 years, he used Rosenwald and Guggenheim fellowships to live abroad. On his return to the United States, Swanson subsisted on a meager inheritance and commissions. He was nationally acclaimed in 1950 when Marian Anderson sang The Negro Speaks of Rivers (Langston Hughes’s poem) at Carnegie Hall. Swanson’s Short Symphony—which features sophisticated contrapuntal treatments of ‘‘black’’ idioms—was performed 30 times in two years and won the 1952 New York Critics’ Choice Award. Other works include Night Music (1950), Music for Strings (1952), and Concerto for Orchestra (1957). During all the acclaim, Swanson was such a recluse that he removed the unit number from his apartment door. As accolades persisted, Swanson wrote even more. His settings of Langston Hughes’s poetry established Swanson as the foremost Hughes interpreter. Leontyne Price sang Swanson’s ‘‘Night Song’’ at the White House the year he died. Considered among the first of a ‘‘new generation’’ of African American composers following the accomplishments of the Harlem Renaissance composers, Ulysses Kay (1917–1995) was one of the most prominent and prolific composers of his era. He was respected by his contemporaries for works that demonstrated genuine craftsmanship and colorful orchestrations. Kay experienced the accomplishment of having a number of works recorded in his lifetime, but many remained unrecorded. Because of his national and international status, he was able hear many of his symphonic and chamber pieces performed, and he was the recipient of a number of awards and commissions. Kay studied at University of Arizona (bachelor’s degree in music), Eastman School (master of music degree), Yale, and Columbia, and in Rome. His extensive works list includes a ballet Danse Calinda (1941), Suite for Strings (1947), six operas, including Boor (1955), Juggler of Our Lady (1956), Frederick Douglass (1979–1985), and Two Dunbar Lyrics (mixed chorus, 1965). Violinist and composer Clarence Cameron White (1879–1960) studied at Oberlin and Howard University, and with Samuel Coleridge-Taylor in London. He conducted Hampton Institute’s Choir and Boston’s Victorian Chamber Orchestra, and taught at West Virginia State College and various public schools. White was a strong advocate for recording black musicians. In 1949 his opera Ouanga (‘‘Voodoo charm,’’ 1932) premiered in Chicago, and it was later performed at New York Metropolitan Opera (1956). White also wrote the music to the ballet, A Night in San Souci (1940), Kutamba Rhapsody (orchestra, 1942), Elegy (orchestra, 1954), Spiritual Suite (four clarinets, 1956) and Heritage (1960), as well as plays, vocals, and instrumental music.
Concert Music—Composers and Repertoire | 227 Composer and pianist Margaret Allison Bonds (1913–1972) was a protege of Florence Price and William Dawson who earned a master of music degree from Northwestern University (1934). She was the first African American soloist to appear with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra (1933). In 1934, Bonds was also soloist for the premiere of Florence Price’s Piano Concerto. Price conducted the Women’s Orchestra of Chicago for this premiere. Bonds wrote art songs, choral and chamber pieces, and orchestral music. Collaborations with Langston Hughes led to her black nationalist song cycle, ‘‘Three Dream Portraits’’ (1959), ‘‘Ballad of the Brown King’’ (1960), and ‘‘Shakespeare in Harlem’’ (1958). The Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra premiered her Credo (1965) a month after Bonds died. John Wesley Work III (1901–1967) studied at Fisk (bachelor’s degree), Yale (bachelor’s degree in music) and Columbia (master’s degree). Thanks to his grandfather and father, Work’s cradle was rocked by original Fisk Jubilee Singers. As a result, Work composed mostly vocal music. His work premiered internationally and includes The Singers (cantata, 1946), Golgotha (SATB, Arna Bontemps poem, 1949), and many spirituals. ‘‘Yenvalou’’ (1946) for strings is based on Haitian themes. Two articles, ‘‘Plantation Meistersingers’’ (Musical Quarterly, 1940) and ‘‘Changing Patterns in Negro Folk Songs’’ (Journal of American Folklore, 1940) led to Work’s tour de force. As an ethnomusicologist, Work completed extensive field study in the Mississippi delta (1941–1942). With two Fisk scholars and Alan Lomax, Work produced 521 manuscripts, 96 phonographs, and 5.5 minutes of film. Work transcribed 230 indigenous songs—secular and sacred— which he published as American Negro Songs and Spirituals (1960). Undine Smith Moore (1904–1989) studied at Fisk (bachelor’s degree in music) and Columbia (master of music degree) universities. This self-described ‘‘teacher who composes’’ taught at Virginia State from 1927–1972. Among her students are Dr. Billy Taylor (jazz pianist), Camilla Williams (opera singer), and Jewell Taylor Thompson (theory teacher at Hunter College). Her works list includes Valse Caprice (piano, 1930), Introduction, March and Allegro (clarinet, 1958), Lord, We Give Thanks to Thee (for Fisk Jubilee Singers, 1971), AfroAmerican Suite (flute, cello, piano), Soweto (piano trio, 1987) and the Pulitzer Prize–nominated Scenes from the life of a Martyr (narrator, chorus, soloists, orchestra, 1980)—based on Dr. King’s life. Often considered the ‘‘Dean of Black Women Composers,’’ Moore influenced a generation of composers, musicians, and music educators through her work at Virginia State University and was a leading figure among African American women composers during the mid-20th century. Irene Britton Smith (1907–1999) played violin, piano, and organ; and she earned degrees from American Conservatory (1946) and DePaul University (1956). While teaching in Chicago public schools nearly 40 years, Smith spent many summers in study at Jiulliard, Berkshire Music Center, or Fontainebleau. Smith’s solo, chamber, vocal, and instrumental compositions include Sonata for Violin and Piano (1947), Dream Cycle (Dunbar poems, 1947) and Sinfonietta (1956).
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Zenobia Powell Perry (1908–2004) held degrees from Tuskegee, University of Northern Colorado (1945), and University of Wyoming (1954)—where she studied with Darius Milhaud. She taught from 1946 to 1982, with many of those years spent at Central State University. Her compositions include a mass, opera, band, orchestra and chamber music, songs, and keyboard music. Homage (to William Dawson) is based on the spiritual, ‘‘I’ve Been ’Buked,’’ and appears in Black Women Composers: A Century of Piano Music (1893–1990) published by Hildegard Publishing Company. Rachel Eubanks (1922–2006) earned a doctor of musical arts from Pacific Western University (1980) and also studied with Nadia Boulanger. In 1951, she was the founding director of Eubanks Conservatory of Music (Los Angeles, California), which, during its most prominent days, offered associate’s through master’s degrees in performance, composition, theory, and history. Her conservatory began in modest accommodations on 47th and Figueroa Streets and eventually expanded to meet the demands of her growing number of students. A meticulous professor, Eubanks maintained a high set of standards for her students. Her pieces include many works for voice and vocal ensembles, including Symphonic Requiem (1980) and ‘‘Like Rain It Sounded’’ (1952). Chamber works, instrumental solos, and piano pieces also appear in her catalog. Julia Amanda Perry (1924–1979) earned a master of music degree at Westminster College. As a Guggenheim Fellow, she studied in Europe with Luigi Dallapiccola and Nadia Boulanger. Perry wrote symphonies (for example, Homage to Vivaldi), concertos, band music, piano sonatas, art songs, Stabat Mater (contralto and string orchestra, 1951), an opera (Cask of Amontillado, 1953), Humonculus CF (piano, harp, and percussion, 1960), and an opera-ballet (Sleeping Giant, 1964). Perry taught at Florida A&M and Atlanta universities. Her compositional language is an eclectic mixture that demonstrates rich blends of dissonant chords, contrapuntal textures, and, at times, a strong affinity for melodic constructs. Composer, pianist, and actor Robert Lee Owens (1925– ) began piano lessons at age four with his mother. By age 15, he wrote Piano Concerto and performed as a soloist with the Berkeley Young People’s Orchestra. He earned a diplome de perfection (1950) at Ecole Normale de Musique, Copenhagen, and studied at the Vienna Academy of Music (1952). Works include song cycles, Three Songs, Opus 31, Heart on the Wall, Opus 14 and Tearless, Opus 9 (all informed by the poetry of Langston Hughes, ca. 1959 and published in Songs for Voice and Piano, Orlando-Musikverlag, Munich, 1986). His Kultur! Kultur! (opera, 1962) premiered 1970 in Ulm, Germany. Owens lives in Munich. Hale Smith (1925–2010) began piano studies at age seven and worked in his father’s printing business. He was also active in jazz ensembles at an early age. Smith studied at Cleveland Institute (bachelor’s degree in music and master of music degree). Skills acquired from working for his father proved helpful, as he edited music for Frank Music, as well as for Edward B. Marks, C. F. Peters, and Sam Fox, all publishers of music. Smith’s motto, ‘‘To master music, master life,’’ is exemplified in the following acclaimed works: Evocation (piano, 1950),
Concert Music—Composers and Repertoire | 229 Contours for Orchestra (1962), Music for Harp and Orchestra (1967), the jazz cantata Comes Tomorrow (1972), and Ritual and Incantation (1974). He has also composed for film and television. Smith’s music has been performed by renowned orchestras in Cleveland, New York, and Chicago. Prominent musicians such as Kathleen Battle, Jessye Norman, John Coltrane, and Betty Carter have collaborated with Smith, and his works have been recorded on Deutsche Gramophone and CRI labels. Smith taught at Long Island University and the University of Connecticut, and he has mentored jazz and popular music notables, such as Eric Dolphy and Melba Liston. Further Reading Floyd Jr., Samuel A., ed. International Dictionary of Black Composers. Chicago: Fitzroy Dearborn Publishers, 1999. Southern, Eileen. Music of Black Americans: A History. 3rd ed. New York: W. W. Norton and Company, 1997. Walker-Hill, Helen. From Spirituals to Symphonies: African American Women Composers and Their Music. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 2002. Walker-Hill, Helen. ‘‘Black Women Composers in Chicago: Then and Now.’’ Black Music Research Journal 12, no. 1 (1992): 1–23. Work, John, III. www.tnstate.edu/library/digital/work.htm (accessed 2009). Regina Harris Baiocchi
Concert Music: 1968–Present Many political and social changes occurred during the middle and latter decades of the 20th century. The civil rights movement and the deaths of Martin Luther King and John Fitzgerald Kennedy were events that prompted responses by artists in various genres. With regard to music, however, some African American composers responded directly in compositions by evoking musical emblems from African American culture and others chose not to be so overt in their statements. Indeed, the breadth of artistic expression for African American composers broadened by the end of the 1960s and into the 1970s by way of experimentations with electronic media, serialism, and atonal works that contrasted more tonal, ‘‘conservative,’’ and neoromantic styles. The end of the 20th century, therefore, yielded an even broader range of vernacular influence and ‘‘conservatism,’’ as genres such as gospel and R & B became subjects for concert pieces and were, at times, merged with more conventional forms and techniques. African American composers from the 1970s and into the 21st century continue to contribute to the expanding body of works that constitute American ‘‘classical’’ music and have been recognized as leaders in the field of composition. Holders of numerous awards and commissions, representative composers include George Theophilus Walker (1922– ), T. J. Anderson (1928– ), Olly Wilson (1937– ), and Tania Le on (1943– ). George Theophilus Walker (1922– ) is an acclaimed pianist and composer. His notoriety as a pianist goes back to the 1940s, having performed Rachmaninoff’s
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Piano Concerto No. 3 with Eugene Ormandy conducting Philadelphia Orchestra (1945). Grieving his grandmother’s death, he wrote String Quartet No. 1 (1946); the second movement, ‘‘Lyric,’’ (originally ‘‘Lament’’) is the most performed music of any living composer. Better known as Lyric for Strings, this piece is usually performed by a string orchestra. Walker studied at Oberlin College (bachelor’s degree in music), Curtis Institute (artist diploma), and Eastman School (doctor of musical arts). His catalog includes vocal, instrumental, chamber, and orchestral pieces, as well as many commissions, including Dialogues for Cello and Orchestra (1976, Cleveland Symphony), Cello Concerto (1981, New York Philharmonic), and Lilacs for Voice and Orchestra (1995, Boston Symphony, honoring Roland Hayes). Lilacs won the 1996 Pulitzer Prize, the first for a living African American. (Scott Joplin was awarded a Pulitzer posthumously in 1976.) Walker taught at Dillard, New School, Smith, University of Colorado, Johns Hopkins, University of Delaware, and Rutgers University. Thomas Jefferson ‘‘T. J.’’ Anderson holds degrees from West Virginia State College, Penn State, and University of Iowa (doctorate, 1958). He taught at Tufts University and was resident composer with the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra (1968–1971). Anderson counts jazz, African music, and Asian music as his influences. Solo, chamber, and orchestral commissions include Soldier Boy, Soldier (opera, Indiana University, 1984), Fragments (piano concerto, University of Iowa, 2006), and works for Bill T. Jones, Yo-Yo Ma, and others. In 1972, Robert Shaw conducted the Atlanta Symphony in the premiere of Scott Joplin’s Treemonisha orchestrated by Anderson. Although quite modern in approach and aesthetic, a number of Anderson’s works draw on subjects from African American culture. Works such as Call and Response (1982), Street Song (1977), and Variations on a Theme by M. B. Tolson (1969) reflect such influence. Composer and scholar Olly Wilson was one of the first African American composers to experiment with electronic media. He earned a doctorate from the University of Iowa in 1964. Cultural influences such as jazz and West African music permeate his compositions. He has composed for traditional ensembles, but his works with electronic media further distinguish his accomplishments. Works such as ‘‘Sometimes’’ (for tenor and electronic sound, 1976) and ‘‘Akwan’’ (for piano, electric piano, and orchestra, 1972) show a strong sense of homage, as the ethos of the spiritual and African rhythmic emblems are evoked, respectively. An often-cited scholar, his articles and essays appear in The Black Perspective in Music and Black Music Research Journal. Arthur Cunningham (1928–1997) studied at Fisk University and Columbia (master of music degree, 1957) universities. Like many of his peers, he was a classically trained musician with jazz roots, and his concert pieces sometimes show strong affinities toward jazz. His Engrams (1969) is an atonal work that constitutes an intriguing blend of serial technique and jazz nuance. Cunningham came to national prominence with the 1969 premiere of Concentrics by the Symphony of the New World. His nine-movement Harlem Suite (1970)—for Natalie Hinderas—was cast for piano, choral ensemble, and orchestra. Cunningham’s multigenre output begins with Adagio for Oboe and String Orchestra (1954) and includes more than 100 pieces for solo, opera, choral, instrumental, and chamber ensembles.
Concert Music—Composers and Repertoire | 231 Although jazz influences are more imbedded in the modernist palates of Wilson, Cunningham, and Hale Smith, composers such as David N. Baker (1930– ), Frederick Tillis (1930– ), and Muhal Richard Abrams (1930– ) used an overt jazz voice in select compositions. Coined by Gunther Schuller as ‘‘Third Stream’’ music, these composers represent in a variety of realizations the countless ways that classical music can be fused with jazz. Muhal Richard Abrams (1930– ) attended DuSable High School and Chicago Musical College. He is a self-taught composer, pianist, and clarinetist. Major works include Transversion I, Opus 6, and NOVI for orchestra; and What a Man, a tribute to Mayor Harold Washington. Abrams’s music has been performed by Chicago, Detroit, and National Symphony orchestras and Kronos Quartet (Quartet No. 2, Carnegie Hall, 1985). Abroms recorded and performed with Art Ensemble of Chicago, as well as with Eddie Harris, Dexter Gordon, Max Roach, and Anthony Braxton. In 1965, Abrams co-founded the Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians (AACM)—an arts initiative dedicated to cultivating ‘‘indigenous’’ African American music via concerts and AACM school. Composer, cellist, and trombonist David Nathaniel Baker, Jr. (1930– ) earned a bachelor’s degree in music and a master of music degree from Indiana University in 1953 and 1954, respectively. He has written 2,000 concert and jazz works, 500 of which were commissioned by New York Philharmonic, Fisk Jubilee Singers, and others. Baker has written 400 articles and 60 books (many on jazz pedagogy)—notably The Black Composer Speaks (1978)—and has contributed to 65 recordings. Seminal works include Sonata for Piano (commissioned by Natalie Hinderas, 1968), Concerto for Cello and Chamber Orchestra (for Janos Starker, 1975), and Concertino for Cell Phones and Orchestra (2006). Themes of cultural homage pervade his extensive catalog in works such as Black America: To the Memory of Martin Luther King (1968), Singers of Songs/Weavers of Dreams: Homage to My Friends (1970), and Ellingtones: A Fantasy for Saxophone and Orchestra (1987). Frederick Tillis credits his early jazz education to the music of Louis Armstrong, Benny Carter and his mother’s lullabies. He studied at Wiley College (bachelor’s degree, 1949) and University of Iowa (master’s degree, 1952; doctorate, 1963). Tillis taught at Grambling State University, Wiley College, and the University of Massachusetts. He currently lectures and performs internationally with Trade Winds Ensemble and the Tillis-Holmes Jazz Duo. He writes instrumental, vocal, chamber, and orchestral music, including Quartet (flute, clarinet, bassoon, cello, 1952), Freedom (SATB, for Dr. King, 1968), symphonic works for Max Roach: Ring Shout Concerto (1974), seven poetry volumes, and In the Spirit, In the Flesh (Dunbar poems; SATB, jazz trio, orchestra; commissioned by Robert Shaw and Atlantic Symphony Orchestra, 1985). ‘‘Third Stream’’ was not the only modern muse that demonstrated a synthesis of Western composition and vernacular music; it was, however, a movement of sorts that was labeled as such. African American composers of the later decades of the 20th century and beyond incorporated historic themes and musical subjects of black culture into their works by way of quotation, highly idiomatic writing, and emblematic gestures. To be sure, this was not the only means of
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expression for these composers, as artistic choices, at other times, veered far away from black themes. To complement their compositional activities, these artists also thrived as performers, educators, and conductors. Composers representing this wide range of creative thought and professional activity include Betty Jackson King (1928–1994), Lena McLin (1929– ), Coleridge-Taylor Perkinson (1932–2004), and Dorothy Rudd Moore (1940– ). Betty Jackson King was a composer, pianist, singer, and educator. She earned degrees from Roosevelt University (bachelor’s degree in music, 1950; master of music degree, 1952) and taught at various schools, including the University of Chicago Laboratory School and Dillard University in New Orleans, Louisiana. She was president of NANM (1980–1985) and founder of Jacksonian Press. King arranged spirituals for operatic soprano Kathleen Battle, and wrote art songs, operas (Saul of Tarsus, My Servant Job), a ballet (Kids in School with Me), a cantata (Simon of Cyrene), a requiem, and chamber, choral, and solo compositions. Her music is recorded on American Songbook, Vol. III; Kaleidoscope, as well as in other collections. King was active as a church choir director, and biblical themes are the basis of many of her works. Lena Johnson McLin also has deep roots in the black church, as she is the niece of gospel pioneer Thomas Dorsey. Her formal musical training includes a bachelor’s degree in music from Spelman (1951) and additional studies at the American Conservatory and Roosevelt University. McLin taught for 36 years in Chicago public schools. In her capacity as educator, she coached Whitney Houston, R. Kelly, and operatic singer Mark Rucker. McLin wrote a textbook, Pulse: a History of Music, and more than 400 compositions, including Gwendolyn Brooks; Free at Last (tribute to childhood friend, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.), Psalm 117, and Little Baby. Her works reflect an eclectic mix of blues, gospel, and European influences. Like her mother, McLin served as minister of music (Trinity Congregational Church) and like her father, she is founding pastor of Holy Vessel Baptist Church. Coleridge-Taylor Perkinson studied at Manhattan School of Music (master of music degree, 1954). His works include pieces for film, chorus, orchestra, piano, and chamber ensembles. Among the titles of his expansive catalog are And Behold (chorus, 1950), Amazing Grace (film soundtrack, 1974), Scherzo (piano, 1952) and Blue/s Forms (violin). In 1965, he co-founded the Symphony of the New World, serving as associate conductor. Perkinson also performed as pianist with Max Roach Trio (1972–1973) and was music director for Dance Theatre of Harlem and Black Music Repertory Ensemble. Also representing a varied mixture of influences is composer and poet Dorothy Rudd Moore, who studied at Howard University (bachelor’s degree in music, 1963) and with Nadia Boulanger at the American Conservatory at Fontainbleau, France. Moore’s compositional voice shows an affinity to linear constructs. As Bach and Duke Ellington are among her influences, she invokes a poignant lyricism in modern contrapuntal and harmonic treatments. She taught in Harlem, Bronx, and at New York University before opening a private studio. She has been commissioned by National Symphony Orchestra (Symphony No. 1), Opera Ebony (Frederick
Concert Music—Composers and Repertoire | 233 Douglass), and Buffalo Philharmonic. Moore wrote From the Dark Tower (1970), an affirmation-protest song cycle for mezzo, cello, and piano and co-founded the Society of Black Composers with her husband, composer and cellist Kermit Moore. African American composers have contributed immeasurably to the world of concert music and continue to do so. Contemporary composers such as Adolphus Hailstork, Jeffrey Mumford, Lettie Beckon Alston, William Banfield, Regina Harris Baiocchi, Gary Powell Nash, Mary Watkins, Jonathan Bailey Holland, Nkieru Okoye, Trevor Weston, Andre Myers, and Anthony Kelly continue the tradition set forth by preceding generations of composers while forging new ground with their respective voices. In addition to these artists are the distinctive voices like that of Tania Le on (born in Cuba) all of whom challenge and change the landscape of concert music in the 21st century. These composers, and others, have received awards and commissions for their craftsmanship. They have served as residential artists for some of the more notable orchestras and chamber ensembles in the United States and abroad. The following sections highlight but a few of these accomplishments.
The Detroit Symphony and the Unisys Corporation In 1990, the Detroit Symphony Orchestra, through the support of the Unisys Corporation, began the African American Composers Forum. The forum provided an invaluable opportunity for African American composers to have their works performed by a professional orchestra, and an unprecedented chance for these works to be presented to the public during regular subscription concerts. In 1992, the program was expanded to include a three-day symposium, including events for conductors, administrators, educators, and the community. For the 1995–1996 concert season, the program changed its focus and began hosting one-year residencies featuring one or two composers, and an annual reading session. The resident composers presented lectures and demonstrations, visited schools, and had their works featured on various concerts.
Vocal Essence (founded as Plymouth Music Series) The Minnesota-based performing ensemble Vocal Essence has celebrated the works of African American composers through its WITNESS program. Each year since 1991, during Black History Month, the ensemble presents a series of concerts, recordings, and school presentations, performing both preexisting and newly commissioned works by African American composers, as well as by composers whose works are based on the rich contributions African Americans have made to American culture.
Atlanta Symphony Orchestra In 1994, the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra sponsored a composition competition for African American composers, as part of the National Black Arts Festival,
234 | Concert Music—Composers and Repertoire Table 1
African American Composers Forum Competition Finalist and Winners, 1990–1994
Year
Composers
Works Performed
1990
Leslie Adams Joyce Solomon Moorman David William Sanford David Soleya Stephen Taylor Muhal Richard Abramsa Ed Bland Noel de Costa Charles A. Harrison Joseph Hayes Michael Abels Regina A. Harris Baiocchi Wendell Logan Kevin Scotta Lettie Beckon Alston Anthony Kelleya Leo Edwards James Kimo Williams Donald Dillarda Daniel Roumain Jonathon Bailey Holland Dolores White
Symphony No. 1 (3rd Movement) The Soul of Nature Canto Ente The Sugmad Is Dreaming Transversion 1, Opus 6 Piece for Chamber Orchestra Blue Memories Reflections Sunday 3:00 pm, A Symphonic Sketch Global Warming Orchestral Suite The Drum Major Ben-Hur The Eleventh Hour Crosscurrents Fantasy Overture Symphony for the Sons of Nam Childhood Scenes Haitian Essay Martha’s Waltz Celebration
1991
1992
1993
1994
a
Winner.
which took place in Atlanta, Georgia. The orchestra, conducted by Yoel Levi, read the following works, and performed the winning composition in concert: Banfield Holland Mumford Nash Scott
Symphony No. 5 Martha’s Waltz as the air softens in dusklight Heroes Lazy Lion
Ritz Chamber Players Solely comprising highly accomplished musicians of African descent, the Ritz Chamber Players is the first chamber ensemble of its kind. The ensemble, which is based in Jacksonville, Florida, was founded in 2002 by Artistic Director Terrance Patterson, a clarinetist. Other members of the ensemble include prominent soloist, orchestral, and chamber musicians from around the world. Since its inception, the ensemble has hosted a composer-in-residence and has performed and premiered various works from each of these composers, as well as a wide variety of chamber music.
Concert Music—Composers and Repertoire | 235 Table 2
African American Composers-in-Residence and Works Performed, 1995–2003
Year
Composer
Works Performed
1995–1996
Anthony Davis Jonathan Bailey Holland Alvin Singleton Olly Wilson Adolphus Hailstork Patrice Rushen Wilson Delfeayo Marsalis Hailstork Frank Foster
Notes from the Underground Fanfares and Flourishes on an Ostinato BluesKonzert Shango Memory Symphony No. 2 Mine Eyes Have Seen the Glory Episodes for Orchestra Jaz and Jasmine Meet the Jazz Band Done Made My Vow Motor City Memories
1996–1997 1997–1998 1998–1999 2000–2001 2001–2002 2002–2003
Table 3
African American Composers Featured on Readings Sessions, 1995–2003
Year
Composer
Words Performed
1995–1996
Michael Abels William Banfield Leslie Dunner Jeffrey Mumford Gary Powell Nash Henry Panion III Ralph Russell Cedric L. Adderley Dunner Nkeiruka N. Okoye Regina Harris Baiocchi Calvin M. Taylor Gregory T. S. Walker Trevor Weston Henry A. Heard Abels Lettie Beckon Alston Patrice Rushen James ‘‘Jabbo’’ Ware Edward Algernon Brown James Lee III James Kimo Williams Herman Whitfield III Julius Williams
Theodore and the Talking Mushroom To Be Loved: Essay for Orchestra Songs for a Motherless Child as the air softens in dusklight In Memoriam: Sojourner Truth Fanfare and Elegy Essay No. 2 for Orchestra Symphony for Orchestra: Jubilation Fountain Fanfares for Fifteen Ruth Muse Inner-City Sunrise Micro*Phone Bleue Notations Five Seasons Anxiety Sinfonia Migration End of Seasons
1996–1997
1997–1998
1998–1999
2000–2001
2001–2002
Andre Myers Okoye
Papa Lapa Buffalo Soldiers Scherzo for Orchestra No. 1 in G minor Midnight Tolls: In Memoriam September 11, 2001 Colored Shadows Voices Shouting Out (Continued)
236 | Concert Music—Composers and Repertoire Table 3 (Continued) Year
Composer
Words Performed
2002–2003
Chad Hughes Dwight Banks Ozie C. Cargile II
Visions of a Renaissance Pupil of the Eye Creation of the Universe & The Second Movement Romance for Violin & Orchestra in A Flat minor Piano Concerto Grand Paradox: An Essay After Sibelius
Herman Whitfield III Yusef Lateef Rick Robinson
Table 4
Composers and Works Featured on WITNESS Programs, 1991–2007
Year
Composers
1991
I Want Jesus to Walk with Me City Called Heaven Witness From a Lost Continent Tribute to Martin Luther King In Time of Silver Rain Sometimes I Feel Like a Motherless Child Go Tell It on the Mountain WITNESS Crucifixion Hold Fast to Dreams Recitative and Final Chorus from The Passion of Martin Luther King Coleridge-Taylor, Samuel Bon-Bon Suite Newley, Anthony Gonna Build a Mountain (traditional) This Train Arlen, Harold Get Happy Dett, Nathaniel Ave Maria (traditional) Honor, Honor, Honor Susa, Conrad I Dream a World Harrison, Charles Deep Like the Rivers Morawetz, Oskar Memorial to Martin Luther King Sembello, Michael The Dream Thomas, C. Edward I Have a Dream Logan, Wendell The Drum Major: A Modern Two-Step for Orchestra Harris, Robert A. Glory to God Harris Go Down, Moses Nu~ nes-Garcia, Jose Mauricio Requiem Mass (excerpt) Beethoven/Moore, Sanford Sonata Pathetique (arr.) Bach/Smallwood, R. Jesu, Joy of Man’s Desiring (arr.)
1992
1993
Spiritual Spiritual Spiritual Still, William Grant Simonal, Wilson Moorman, Joyce Solomon Houkom, Alf Barnett, Steve Baker, David Morawetz, Oskar Franklin, Cary John Flagello, Nicolas
Works Featured
Concert Music—Composers and Repertoire | 237 Table 4 (Continued) Year
1994
1995
1996
Composers
Works Featured
Wilhousky, Moore Banfield, William Amram, David
Battle Hymn of the Republic Job’s Song (Symphony No. 3) Ode to Lord Buckley (Concerto for Alto Saxophone) Ice Cream Sextet from Street Scene Solitude (arr.) Memories of You (arr.) Finale from Negro Folk Symphony Gospel Finale: How Majestic Frederick’s Fables For Amber Waves Crucifixion Set Me as a Seal upon Thine Heart Nocturne The Voice of My Beloved from Scenes from the Life of a Martyr Golden Days from Costaso Lincoln Portrait An Old Black Woman, Homeless and Indistinct Martha’s Waltz Wailing Woman Cakewalk from Miss Sally’s Party Elijah Rock WITNESS My Lord, What a Mornin’ (arr.) Swing Low, Sweet Chariot (arr.) Seven Ghosts Symphony #6, Movement 1 I Believe This Is Jesus Tambourines to Glory Mother to Son We Shall Walk through the Valley Fanfare and Processional Frederick’s Fables: Theodore and the Talking Mushroom and Alexander and the Wind-Up Mouse Two Psalms: The Soul Panteth After Thee, O God; My Soul Hath Found Refuge in Thee Uncle Bouke and the Horse Can’t You Hear Those Freedom Bells Ezek’el Saw the Wheel Git on Board
Weill, Kurt Blake, Eubie/Moore Blake/Moore Dawson, William Abels, Michael Abels Locklair, Dan Hailstork, Adolphus Hailstork Hailstork Moore, Undine Smith Still Copland, Aaron Jennings, Joseph Holland, Jonathan Bailey Still Still Hogan, Moses Halloran, Jack Burleigh, Harry T. Kallman, Dan Larsen, Libby Banfield Moore Moore Moore Moore Moore Abels
Simpson-Curenton, Evelyn Howard, Jonathan McLin, Lena Bonds, Margaret Simpson-Curenton
(Continued)
238 | Concert Music—Composers and Repertoire Table 4 (Continued) Year
Composers
Works Featured
1997
Cook, Will Marion/Steg, Paul Banfield Price, Florence Simpson-Curenton
Overture: In Dahomey (arr.)
1998
1999
2000
2001
Symphony No. 7: Reveries, A Summer’s Circle Largo from Symphony in E minor Three Spirituals: Git on Board, Lil’ David, Balm in Gilead Steele, J. D. God Is Not Dead Farrow, Larry Witness (arr.) Jenkins, Edmund Thornton Charlestonia (Orchestra reconstruction by Vincent Plush) Singleton, Alvin Dett UMOJA — Each One of Us Counts Johnson, James P. The Chariot Jubilee (Orchestration by Hale Smith) Holland/Dove, Rita Yamekraw: Rhapsody in Black and White (Orchestration by Still) Singleton/Dove from Mother Love Simpson-Currenton from Thomas and Beulah deCormier, Robert Sinner, Don’t Let This Harvest Pass (arr.) Jackson, Richard He Never Said a Mumbalin’ Word (arr.) Crossin’ Ovah (arr.) Powell, Rosephanye Ascribe to the Lord Dawson, William Ezekiel Saw de Wheel (arr.) Dawson Mary Had a Baby (arr.) Morris, Robert L. I Thank You, Jesus Price Juba from Symphony No. 3 in C minor Taylor, Billy/Dr. Martin Peaceful Warrior for jazz trio, chorus & orchestra Luther King, Jr. Morris, Robert L. Ties That Bind Dawson Hope in the Night from Negro Folk Symphony Abels More Abundantly (arr.) Barnett, Carol Old Time Religion (arr.) Gresham, Mark Steal Away Parker, Alice Stayed on Jesus Heitzeg, Steve Injustice Anywhere is a Threat to Justice Everywhere Shaw, Robert Set Down Servant (arr.) Williams, John Seven for Luck Baker Witness Walker, Gregory T. S. dream n. the hood Hailstork Two Spirituals: Great Day, Cert’ny Lord Singleton Gospel Smith, Byron J. Worthy to be Praised (arr.) Ellington, Edward ‘‘Duke’’ King of the Magi from Les trois rois noirs Work III, John W. Give Me Your Hand Work Golgotha is a Mountain Work Canzonet (Humming Chorus)
Concert Music—Composers and Repertoire | 239 Table 4 (Continued) Year
2002
Composers
Works Featured
Singleton, Alvin Vaughan Williams, Ralph Barnwell, Ysaye M. Hairston, Jester Hairston Hairston Ruehr, Elena Hailstork Alexander, Elizabeth Brubeck, Dave Harrison Carter, Roland Rushen, Patrice
56 Blows (Quis Custodiet Custodes?) Five Mystical Songs Suite Death Amen In Dat Great Gittin’ Up Mornin’ Give Me Jesus Gospel Cha Cha An American Fanfare April Rain Song from Spring Revels Dream of Freedom Deep Like the Rivers Hold Fast To Dreams ‘‘Stars’’ and ‘‘Speech to the Young, Speech to the Progress-Toward’’ from Of Dreams and Other Possibilities ‘‘Mahalia/A Spiritual’’ from Symphony No. 5: Five Shades of a Woman in Black Psalm 27
Banfield
2003
2004
McFerrin, Bobby/Roger Treece McFerrin/Treece Morrow, David Abels Copland, Aaron Binkerd, Gordon James, Willis Morrow, David, arr. Alatunji/Whalum Rushen, Patrice Franklin, Cary John Hogan Dawson Johnson, Hall Franklin Still Hailstork Burleigh, Harry T. Johnson, H. Morris, Robert L. Hogan Rushen Rushen Barnwell, Ysaye Powell, Rosephanye Powel arr. Johnson, Hall/W. C.
Manna I Can’t Tarry (arr.) Fairest Lord Jesus (arr.) Zion’s Walls Dum Medium Silentium Laurence Robert Lee Got a Mind To Do Right Betelehemu ‘‘Round About de Mountain’’ from The Legacy of Roland Hayes Oh Freedom (arr.) This Little Light of Mine (arr.) Ev’ry Time I Feel the Spirit (arr.) Honor, Honor (arr.) Plenty Good Room (arr.) Ennanga I Will Lift Up Mine Eyes Deep River (arr.) Ain’t Got Time to Die (arr.) Rockin’ Jerusalem (arr.) Ride on, King Jesus (arr.) Fanfare et Fantaisie Herald the Day Truth Pressed to Earth Shall Rise Non Nobis, Domine Sometimes I Feel Like a Motherless Child Saint Louis Blues (Continued)
240 | Concert Music—Composers and Repertoire Table 4 (Continued) Year
Composers
Handy Dett Campbell, Lucie Eddie/ Robert Morris Robinson, Deidre McLin, Lena McLin Simpson-Curenton Simpson-Curenton Simpson-Curenton Moore 2005
2006
2007
Parks, Gordon Rachmaninoff, Sergey Debussy, Claude Avery, Stanley Traditional Nevin, Ethelbert Schuman, William Johnson Larsen, Libby Sippie Wallace/Paul Gerike Parks/Gerike Ellington, Duke/Keith McCutchen Waller, Fats/McCutchen Adams, H. Leslie McLin, Lena Guthrie, Woody/Gerike Copland, Aaron Robinson, Earl Parks/Gerike Parks Parks Simpson-Curenton Singleton/Carman Moore Moore Hogan Dawson Thomas, Andre Simpson-Curenton Burleigh Smith, William Henry Steffe, William/Peter Wilhousky Jennings
Works Featured
Ave Maria Something Within (arr.) Steady Soldier, Till I Die Down by the River Glory, Glory Hallelujah Oh What a Beautiful City Scandalize My Name (arr.) Amazing Grace Scenes from Life of a Martyr ‘‘To the memory of Martin Luther King, Jr.’’ A Star for Noon Prelude in C-sharp minor Clair de Lune I Called Upon the Lord Over My Head The Rosary ‘‘To All, To Each’’ from Carols of Death I Cannot Stay Here by Myself ‘‘Beneath These Alien Stars’’ from The Settling Years You Gotta Know How (arr.) No Love (arr.) Take the A Train/Stompin’ at the Savoy (arr.) Ain’t Misbehavin Love Song Take Life’s Challenge Pastures of Plenty (arr.) ‘‘The Promise of Living’’ from The Tender Land Ballad for Americans Theme from The Learning Tree (arr.) ‘‘Birch Boat Cue’’ from Solomon Northrup ‘‘Remember’’ from Martin Git on Board Truth We Shall Walk through the Valley in Peace My Soul’s Been Anchored in the Lord Soon Ah Will Be Done Keep Your Lamps Git On Board My Lord, What a Mornin Ride the Chariot Battle Hymn of the Republic (arr.) Harambee (Call to Unity)
Concert Music—Composers and Repertoire | 241 Table 4 (Continued) Year
Table 5
Composers
Works Featured
Sontonga, Enoch Mankayi/ Ysaye Barnwell Sigauke, Erica Heredia, Victor/Gerike Jansson, Lars Brown, Jr., Uzee Lokumbe, Hannibal
N’kosi sikelel’i Afrika (arr.) Gandanga (Freedom Fighter) Cantamos (We’re Still Singing) Todavia To the Mothers in Brazil (Salve Regina) We Shall Overcome (arr.) Dear Mrs. Parks
Ritz Chamber Players Composers-in-Residence, 2002–2010
Year
Composer-in-Residence
2002–2003
Coleridge Taylor-Perkinson Alvin Singleton Adolphus Hailstork Tania Leon T. J. Anderson Jonathan Bailey Holland David Baker George Theophilus Walker James Lee III
2003–2004 2004–2005 2005–2006 2006–2007 2007–2008 2008–2009 2009–2010
See also Anderson, Marian; Baiocchi, Regina Harris; Banfield, William C.; Concert Music—Conductors and Performers; Dawson, William Levi; Hailstork, Adolphus; Joplin, Scott; Kay, Ulysses; King, Betty Jackson; Opera; Robeson, Paul; Still, William Grant.
Composers Anderson, T. J. http://tjandersonmusic.com Baker, David. www.davidbakermusic.org Holland, Jonathan Bailey. www.jonathanbaileyholland.com Lee, James, III. www.jamesleeiii.com Leon, Tania. www.tanialeon.com Myers, Andre. www.andremyers.com Okoye, Nkeiru. www.nkeiruokoye.com
Ensembles Atlanta Symphony Orchestra. www.atlantasymphony.org Detroit Symphony Orchestra. www.detroitsymphony.com
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Ritz Chamber Players. www.ritzchamberplayers.org Vocal Essence. www.vocalessence.org Further Reading Banfield, William. Musical Landscapes in Color: Conversations with Black Composers. Lanham, MD: The Scarecrow Press, 2003. Floyd Jr., Samuel A., ed. International Dictionary of Black Composers. Chicago: Fitzroy Dearborn Publishers, 1999. Walker-Hill, Helen. From Spirituals to Symphonies: African American Women Composers and Their Music. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 2002.
Further Listening Detroit Symphony Orchestra. Ellington and the Modern Masters. Neeme J€arvi. DSO1003, 2000. Okoye, Nkeiru. The Journey of Phyllis Wheatley. Moscow Symphony Orchestra. Charles Ansbacher. Landmarks Recordings CD0395, 2005. VocalEssence. The Witness Collection. Philip Brunelle. Clarion CLR 9044 CD, 2004. Jonathan Bailey Holland and Regina Harris Baiocchi
Concert Music—Conductors and Performers Overview The descriptor ‘‘classical’’ means two different things. In academic circles, ‘‘classical’’ means specifically the music of Western Europe composed primarily between the mid-1700s and the 1820s, a time during which musical ideals and aesthetics centered on the themes of symmetry, order, control, and formal clarity. The other connotation of ‘‘classical’’ is much broader. In this more general context, classical music is understood to be that music that is in keeping with the ‘‘formal,’’ ‘‘serious,’’ or high art, concert tradition—that is, music that is written rather than improvised and performed in contexts typical of those European traditions that present music as well-crafted aesthetic ‘‘objects’’ for both enjoyment and intellectual contemplation. In this usage, ‘‘classical music’’ is juxtaposed to commercial or popular music. It is the music performed by symphony orchestras, opera companies, and chamber groups, irrespective of era. In the United States, the earliest consumers of such music were the wealthy intelligentsia whose tastes were a reflection of the pastimes within their financial and social reach. Deeply rooted in the 19th century, the class associations assigned to this stereotypically ‘‘high brow’’ music remain intact in the 21st century. Situating black artists in this tradition is quite intriguing because the distinctions of ‘‘high,’’ ‘‘serious,’’ and ‘‘cultivated’’ seemingly reside in the loftier places of majority culture. Yet, the African American presence in classical music extends
Concert Music—Conductors and Performers | 243 back at least two centuries. A number of factors account for the presence of African Americans in the world of classical music. Since the early decades of the 19th century, free blacks, particularly in the northeastern states, embraced cultural practices that paralleled values common to their white counterparts. These citizens created and supported their own organizations to promote and cultivate various cultural and educational activities, including those that involved the performance and consumption of classical music. One such organization was the Philadelphia Library Company of Colored Persons, founded in 1833. Black newspapers such as the Weekly Advocate, the Colored American and Frederick Douglass’s North Star promoted concerts, advertised singing schools, and offered periodic editorials on music (Southern 1997, 100–102). The African American community’s appreciation for classical music provides part of the context for the rise of pioneering artists such as Elizabeth Taylor Greenfield and Sissieretta Jones. By the end of the 19th century, more educational opportunities were available to blacks. Liberal musical institutions such as Oberlin and the New England Conservatory opened their doors to many black musicians who wished to pursue studies of the European written tradition. And, a great number of those musicians carried their formal training to black colleges as instructors and professors of music. These early artists included composers Harry T. Burleigh, Will Marion Cook, R. Nathaniel Dett, William Levi Dawson, Florence Price, William Grant Still, and others who influenced and inspired subsequent generations of African Americans. Along with these composers, African American classical performers and conductors have long had a place in the classical world. From Sissieretta Jones to Leontyne Price, from Hazel Harrison to Andre Watts, and from Dean Dixon to Paul Freeman, African American performers and conductors have enjoyed international acclaim. Further Reading Abdul, Raoul. Blacks in Classical Music: A Personal History. New York: Dodd, Mead and Company, 1977. Floyd, Samuel A., Jr. The Power of Black Music: Interpreting Its History from Africa to the United States. New York: Oxford University Press, 1995. Southern, Eileen. The Music of Black Americans: A History, 3rd ed. New York: W. W. Norton and Company, 1997. Wright, Josephine. ‘‘Art/Classical Music: Chronological Overview.’’ In African American Music: An Introduction, edited by Mellonee V. Burnim and Portia K. Maultsby. New York: Routledge Taylor and Francis Group, 2006. Horace J. Maxile, Jr.
Conductors and Performers of Concert Music: 1776–1919 1776–1865 Before emancipation, much of the music-making and performing by African Americans could be considered in the folk and popular idioms. A number of
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African American musicians were well known for providing dance music for the social functions of people of the majority culture. And, various accounts of sacred and secular music that emanated from slave and free black communities have been recorded. Such spirituals, work songs, and dances are the early folk music renderings of African Americans. In the world of concert (or ‘‘classical’’) music, however, few African Americans were recognized as performers. Two exceptions were Elizabeth Taylor Greenfield (1824–1876) and Thomas J. Bowers (1811–1873). Elizabeth Taylor Greenfield, called ‘‘the Black Swan,’’ was responsible for launching her own career and those of others through national and international tours. Born in Mississippi as a slave, Greenfield later moved to Philadelphia with her Quaker owner, who then freed her and paid for music lessons. Through that patronage, she was able to advance an international career. Her sobriquet was first used in Buffalo, site of her concert debut. Drawing a likeness in talent to Jenny Lind, ‘‘the Swedish Nightingale,’’ a journalist commented on the flexibility of her deep voice. Her successes coincided with the increased activity among abolitionists at home and abroad, who eagerly patronized her concerts. In fact, the October 23, 1851, edition of the Buffalo Daily Express reported that while we congratulate a worthy member of a proscribed race upon her remarkable success, we can assure the public that the Union is in no degree periled by it. May we not hope that her music may tend to soften the hearts of the free and lighten the shackles of her race enslaved. Abandoned by her agent in London during a concert tour, she contacted Harriet Beecher Stowe who was also visiting England. As a result, Greenfield eventually sang in Buckingham Palace for Queen Victoria. The African American community was originally ambivalent about her successes in white America, but during the Civil War she performed on programs that featured Frederick Douglass as speaker. It was common for African American singers to have their talent validated by labeling them with the names of Italian opera stars of great renown. As a result, there was an attempt to name Thomas J. Bowers (1826–1885) a tenor born in Philadelphia as ‘‘The Colored Mario’’ after revered tenor Giovanni Mario. Bowers objected to that title and also to ‘‘Indian Mario’’ and ‘‘African Mario.’’ He insisted that if a title was necessary, he would be called simply ‘‘Mareo [sic].’’ Bowers, his brother, and sister all became accomplished musicians. As protege of Elizabeth Taylor Greenfield, they both appeared in a recital together in 1854, and he subsequently toured the in the United States and Canada. His specialties were romantic ballads and popular arias from well-known operas, among which selections from Il Trovatore were great favorites.
1865–1919 Performers of this era were normally pianists, violinists, or singers. Most had European training or professional experiences. By the end of the 19th century, more education opportunities were available to African Americans. Liberal
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Elizabeth Taylor Greenfield, ‘‘The Black Swan.’’ (New York Public Library)
musical institutions such as Oberlin and the New England Conservatory opened their doors to many black musicians who wished to pursue studies of the European written tradition. And, a great number of those musicians carried their formal training to black colleges as instructors and professors of music. Noted pianists of the late 19th and early 20th centuries included Basile Bares (1846–1902), Blind Tom Bethune (1849–1908), and Samuel Jamieson (1855– 1930). An early graduate of the Boston Conservatory, Jamieson gave periodic concerts in Boston but was primarily known as a piano pedagogue. Bares was born into slavery, but became one of the more popular composers and performers of piano dances in New Orleans after the Civil War and many of his works were published during his lifetime. Bethune is the artist about whom the most information has been preserved with more than 100 references extant in newspapers, magazines, journals, and reference books. These references have been collected by scholar and pianist Geneva Southall.
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Thomas Greene Wiggins (known as Blind Tom Bethune) was born enslaved to the Bethune family in Georgia. Notwithstanding his blindness and a condition now known as autism, he was able to earn a great deal of money through his concerts and sales of published music. Records of legal challenges to his enslavement show his success as the reason his owners kept him enslaved even after emancipation. He debuted at the age of eight in Columbus and then continued to perform in various cities in Georgia. Following the debuts in Georgia, Wiggins was contracted to another slaveholder to manage his career. This led to tours in the Northern and Southern states and performances before the first representatives of Japan to visit the United States. It also led to the use of Wiggins’s money for the Confederacy. In fact, Wiggins supported the entire able-bodied Bethune family. Eventually his mother sued and won, but relationships with the Bethune family continued. Wiggins toured throughout the United States and Europe earning up to $50,000 per year, yet, because of ongoing exploitation, he died in poverty. Like Chopin, whose works he often performed, his compositional oeuvre is almost entirely for the solo piano, although it includes a few art songs. Added to gallops, polkas, and marches, popular dances of his day, Wiggins also composed nocturnes and other works that reflect the romantic tradition. Walter F. Craig (1854–1920), John Thomas Douglass (1847–1886), and Joseph Douglass (1871–1935) joined with Edmund Dede as acknowledged masters of the violin. Interestingly, Frederick Douglass (ca. 1817–1895), icon of American orators is part of that number as well. He and his grandson Joseph represent a family tradition of musicianship. Joseph, reportedly the first violinist recorded by Victor, had a lengthy and active touring career at home and abroad. Hailed as the ‘‘Prince of Negro Violinists,’’ Walter Craig was active in his own dance orchestra and a string quartet. A native of New Jersey, Craig and John Douglass both worked and taught in New York, although he toured and performed with noted singers Madame Selika and Flora Batson, among others. He is noted as the first African American to be accepted into the New York Musician’s Union. Douglass, a European-trained concert violinist whose career in the United States was derailed by the color bar of American orchestras, taught David Mannes, who later founded the Music School Settlement for Colored People in honor of his African American teacher. In a critique of the critics who were unprepared to accept African American singers as presenters of the ‘‘classics in music,’’ I. McCorker, writer of ‘‘The ‘Black Patti!’ One of the World’s Most Tuneful Cantatrices’’ (December 27, 1902, Indianapolis Freeman), shows a residual self-denial by noting that ‘‘rag-time opera,’’ which is all many critics said black voices were capable of handling, was ‘‘unworthy’’ as a subject, however catchy the tunes might be. He went on to proudly announce one of these voices, Sissieretta Jones, as a purveyor of ‘‘high-class’’ music. In spite of some negative preconceptions, it was quite common for critics to comment on the effective combination of natural talent and careful training. Several singers were able to craft successful careers during this era. The Hyers Sisters (1850s), Coretti Arle-Tilz (ca. 1870–1943), F. Azalia Hackley (1867–1922),
Concert Music—Conductors and Performers | 247 Amie Pauline Pindell (ca. 1834–1901), Desseria Plato Bradley (d. 1907), William Richardson (1869–ca. 1930) represented only a few. In the midst of these, however, are stars whose careers deserve special mention. New York newspapers referred to Flora Batson Bergen (1864–1906) as the ‘‘Queen of Song,’’ ‘‘Jenny Lind of the Race,’’ and ‘‘worthy successor to the Black Swan [Elizabeth Greenfield].’’ Her mezzo-soprano voice was considered perfect for the ballads that were her specialty. Judged as decidedly awkward in her stage presence in the early part of her career, it is clear from reports that she applied herself to presentation of her music. Widely referred to as the ‘‘Black Patti’’ after Italian opera diva Adelina Patti, Sissieretta Jones’s (1869–1933) 1895 premiere at the Wintergarten theater in Germany resulted in significant praise in the February 20, 1895, issue of the Berliner Fremblenblatt. Jones was credited for her power, fire, and facility in operatic arias and her ‘‘talent for expression and sentiment’’ in such ballads as ‘‘The Last Rose of Summer.’’ This opinion was repeated in several German papers. In fact, the Borsen-Courier was so taken by her ability that they referred to the adjective ‘‘black’’ as ‘‘unnecessarily impolite’’ pointing out her tasteful costume and ladylike bearing.
Sissieretta Jones, ‘‘The Black Patti.’’ (New York Public Library)
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Marie Selika Williams (1852–1937) was known as ‘‘Queen of Staccato’’ and the ‘‘Patti of the African Race.’’ Williams was born in Mississippi and raised in Cincinnati, but studied music in San Francisco, Chicago, and Boston. Leaving the United States in 1882 for nearly four years, she toured in Austria, Bavaria, Belgium, Denmark, England, Germany, Russia, Scotland, and Sweden, turning down ‘‘for good reasons’’ invitations to return to the United States, according to the New York Globe, February 26, 1883. These reasons were highlighted later in the article in discussing her stay at an elegant Brussels hotel where she and baritone Sampson Williams, her husband, were ‘‘never Pianist and composer Thomas Greene Bethune also once slighted on account of known as ‘‘Blind Tom.’’ (New York Public Library) their color.’’ ‘‘What a lesson,’’ James Trotter declaimed, ‘‘for our yet uncivilized America!’’ Trotter, a journalist, wrote Music and Some Highly Musical People in 1878. In 1896, Batson, Jones, and Selika made their first public appearance together at New York’s famed Carnegie Hall. Wallace Taylor (1840–1903) studied privately in New Jersey. When he joined forces with the famous Hyers Sisters, his career garnered critical acclaim. The Hyers Sisters were entrepreneurs who began their own performance company for concerts and comic operas. His most famous role was as Prince, a happy slave, in the musical Out of Bondage. Like Bowers and Greenfield (see Conductors and Performers, 1776–1861), Taylor was successful internationally, yet he went further than Europe, performing in Australia and Asia. Also like Bowers, he was known for his sentimental ballads, like ‘‘A Boy’s Best Friend is His Mother.’’ Several newspaper reviews in New York, Ohio, and elsewhere paid tribute to his talent. While the accomplishments of African American concert singers and instrumentalists began and gained momentum in the 19th century, virtually no synonymous figures were evident in the conducting ranks. The far-reaching accolades and activity of bandleader Frank Johnson and his contemporaries are duly recorded, but those significant undertakings are probably considered as popular musical events because of the dance elements incorporated in the performances
Concert Music—Conductors and Performers | 249 and repertoire. These ‘‘popular’’ society and dance or brass bands contrast the genteel exclusivity of the symphony orchestra. Few records indicate the presence of an African American at the helm during this period. The presence of African American leadership in a number of these society and military bands throughout the 19th and early 20th century is notable. Further Reading ‘‘Black Prima Donnas of the Nineteenth Century.’’ The Black Perspective in Music 7, no. 1 (1979): 95–106. Graziano, John. ‘‘The Early Life and Career of the ‘Black Patti’: The Odyssey of an African American Singer in the Late Nineteenth Century.’’ Journal of the American Musicological Society 53, no. 3 (2000): 543–596. High, Ronald H. ‘‘Three African-American Tenors of the Nineteenth Century: Thomas J. Bowers, Wallace King, and Sidney Woodward.’’ Journal of Singing: The Official Journal of the National Association of Teachers of Singing 54, no. 5 (1998): 19–25. Nettles, Darryl Glen. African American Concert Singers before 1950. Jefferson, NC: McFarland and Company, Inc., 2003. Southall, Geneva. Blind Tom: The Black pianist composer (1849–1908): Continually Enslaved. Lanham, MD: The Scarecrow Press, 1999. Walton, Lester, L. H. White, and A. W. K. Lucien H. White. ‘‘Black-Music Concerts in Carnegie Hall, 1912–1915.’’ The Black Perspective in Music 6, no. 1 (1978): 71–88. Wright, Josephine. ‘‘Black Women in Classical Music in Boston During the Late Nineteenth Century: Profiles of Leadership.’’ In New Perspectives on Music: Essays in Honor of Eileen Southern, edited by Josephine Wright and Samuel A. Floyd, Jr. Warren, MI: Harmonie Park Press, 1992. Wright, Josephine. ‘‘Violinist Jose White in Paris, 1855–1875.’’ Black Music Research Journal 10, no. 2 (1990): 213–232. Wyatt, Lucius. ‘‘Six Composers of Nineteenth Century New Orleans,’’ Black Music Research 10, no. 1 (1990): 125–140. G. Yvonne Kendall
Conductors and Performers of Concert Music: 1919–1968 The middle decades of the 20th century were marked with many accomplishments by African American artists who performed and composed in the Western concert tradition. For example, Carnegie Hall presented its first ‘‘black-music survey’’ concert, which included symphonic music, and Todd Duncan (1903–1998) was the first African American opera singer to sing with a major opera company (New York City Opera, 1945). Along with the many historic firsts were long and reputable careers of concert singers and instrumentalists. New York appeared to be a primary center of activity for African American concert artists during these decades, as many composers and performers were educated in the more liberal institutions of the northeast and most of the opportunities for concertizing and recitals were in New York. Singers such as Roland Hayes (1887–1976), Marian Anderson (1902–1993), Paul Robeson (1898–1976), and Dorothy Maynor (1910–1996) were counted among the
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leading opera and concert performers of their era, and they were trailblazers for the generations of African American singers that followed. As African American concert singers were met with more acceptance than instrumentalists, these artists also helped break down institutional barriers for instrumentalists. Tenor Roland Hayes was the first African American male to receive international acclaim as a concert singer. His singing career began in a church choir in Chattanooga, Tennessee, and continued through his enrollment at Fisk University in the precollege department. Following his matriculation through the Fisk academic programs, Hayes sang and toured with the Fisk Jubilee Singers in 1911. The momentum of his collegiate and professional experiences led him to study voice in Boston. The remainder of that decade (1911–1919) was spent touring the eastern states and maintaining unrelated jobs. During those years, Hayes sang at Carnegie Hall and on Henry Hugh Proctor’s Colored Musical Festival Concerts in Atlanta, Georgia (among other notable venues and concert programs). In 1920, Hayes left the United States to study abroad. He landed in London and gave a memorable performance at London’s Aeolian Hall. He was praised for the richness of his voice and landed many performance engagements throughout Europe for the next three years. Returning to the United States in 1923, Hayes secured professional management and offered a recital in Boston that vaulted him into celebrity status that same year. He maintained an international reputation through the 1940s and entered the collegiate teaching ranks in the 1950s. He gave a farewell benefit concert in 1962 for the aid of students at historically black colleges. Known for his rich and varied repertoire, Roland Hayes was perhaps the greatest concert tenor from the 1920s through the 1940s. Contralto Marian Anderson made her concert debut in New York in 1922 and received less-than-favorable critical reviews. Other small recitals and concerts followed during the next few years, but she began to receive critical acclaim in 1925 after she won top honors at a singing competition sponsored by the New York Philharmonic. Such wide acclaim led to professional management and more singing engagements. For Anderson, the 1930s were filled with European tours and debuts. Her international status grew during these years with audiences and critics in countries such as Austria, France, and Finland. Although she occasionally returned to the United States as a renowned artist during the 1930s, the issues of race and discrimination sometimes surfaced in her career. Because of her race, Anderson was denied the opportunity to give a concert at Constitution Hall in 1939. The public outrage over this act was amplified when First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt resigned from the organization that denied Anderson the permission to perform, the Daughters of the American Revolution. Eleanor Roosevelt along with other White House administrators scheduled a concert for Anderson on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial that same year. Her prominence as a concert singer continued through the 1940s and 1950s, and she made history by being the first African American to sing with the Metropolitan Opera in 1955. Her brilliant career boasted tours to Asia, engagements with royalty and ambassadors, television and radio appearances, and an earned billing as the ‘‘greatest living contralto.’’
Concert Music—Conductors and Performers | 251 Like Anderson, bass-baritone Paul Robeson won critical acclaim in 1925 and was considered among the leading concert singers during the 1940s. However, unlike Anderson and Hayes, Robeson was more of a Renaissance figure, having professional involvements in theater and film. A significant contrast to the careers of his contemporaries is the literature for which Robeson was best known, the Negro spirituals. The critically acclaimed debut concert in 1925 consisted solely of spirituals, and he became known throughout the world for his interpretations of those folk songs. Robeson was a more overtly political figure, and he held beliefs in certain facets of socialism and relationships with people in the Soviet Union. These relationships and beliefs, among other things, led to him being denied a U.S. passport, and his career declined during the 1950s because he was not able to honor international engagements. Despite these impositions, Robeson is remembered as one of the leading artists of the mid-20th century. Soprano Dorothy Maynor shared with Anderson, Hayes, and Robeson the distinction of being one of the world’s elite concert singers of the early to mid20th century. She studied with Robert Nathaniel Dett at the Hampton Institute in the early 1930s and rose to national prominence in 1939 after her debut at New York’s Town Hall. Following tours that included visits to Australia, South America, and Europe, Maynor was a highly regarded performer. Although her program lists included many opera arias, she never appeared in an opera. Instead, she is known for her work with many of the major orchestras in the United States and abroad. A strong proponent for education, she founded the Harlem School of the Arts in 1965 and served as its director until 1980. The Harlem School of the Arts continues to serve the youth in that area by supporting their ventures in music, dance, theater, and the visual arts. Along with the notable names of Hayes, Anderson, Robeson, and Maynor were a number of other singers who were not as well known. These singers performed recitals in African American churches and community-supported events, such as Clef Club concerts in New York and the Atlanta Colored Music Festivals. Instrumentalists also benefitted from these community-centered venues and a few instrumentalists of the early to mid-20th century drew international attention and critical praise. Pianist Hazel Harrison (1883–1969) was among the few instrumentalists to secure an international presence as a concert artist. African American orchestral conductors also began to emerge in the mid-20th century and Dean Dixon (1915–1976) was a leading figure. Hazel Harrison demonstrated the promise of a brilliant performer at an early age and studied piano privately as a youth. Through the contacts of one of her teachers, she was invited to perform at the Royal Theatre in Berlin, Germany, in 1904. She returned to the United States in 1905 and started a teaching studio in La Porte, Indiana, her hometown. Harrison continued to teach and perform through the end of that decade. A series of recitals in Chicago in 1910 were critically acclaimed and, as a result, Harrison secured sponsorship for continued study abroad. She spent the following four years in study in Germany and returned to the United States in 1914. Harrison, upon her return to the United States, was a renowned artist and was in demand as a performer. She maintained
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a busy performance schedule through the 1920s. Her teaching career began in 1931 with her appointment as head of the piano department at Tuskegee Institute in Alabama. She maintained an active performance calendar during these years, as she would sometimes take extended leaves from the university to facilitate her concert schedule. Harrison’s teaching career continued through tenures at Howard University and Alabama State College. Dean Dixon was born in Harlem, New York, to West Indian parents who migrated to the United States in the late 19th century. Dixon was exposed to classical music at an early age, beginning violin lessons at the age of three and piano lessons shortly thereafter. At age nine, Dixon was considered by many a prodigy on the violin and given numerous opportunities to perform on local radio stations in New York. In 1932, Dixon enrolled at the Juilliard School of Music as a violin major. It was during that time he discovered conducting. That same year Dixon started a small orchestra at the local YMCA in Harlem. He later named the group the Dean Dixon Symphony Orchestra. The orchestra was the first integrated group of its type in Harlem. The success of this orchestra caught the attention of First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt, who in many ways championed the careers of black classical artists like Paul Robeson and Marian Anderson. Eleanor Roosevelt provided Dixon and his orchestra an opportunity to perform at the famed Hecksher Theater in 1941. Attending that concert was the music director of NBC, Samuel Chotzinoff. Chotzinoff was so impressed with Dixon that he invited him to appear with the NBC Orchestra on several occasions. The success with NBC resulted in his first appearance with the New York Philharmonic. After successful guest conducting engagements with the orchestras of Philadelphia and Boston, a number of newspapers and popular magazines began to write about Dixon as someone to watch, a leading figure among a new breed of American conductors, and soon-to-be leader of a major symphony orchestra. Unfortunately, these accolades did not lead to an appointment with a major orchestra. Dixon became increasingly disillusioned at the lack of interest shown him in the United States. In 1949, Dixon was invited by the French National Radio Orchestra to guest conduct for several upcoming broadcasts. Dixon left for Europe, where his career blossomed. He went from sparse appearances during 1944–1949 in the United States, to a full roster of prestigious guest conducting appearances across Europe. Additionally, he went from no major conducting appointments in the United States to two conducting appointments in Europe: Goteburg Symphony in Sweden (1953–1960) and the Radio Symphony Orchestra in Frankfurt, Germany (1961–1974). His success in Europe also led to an appointment in Australia, where he served as principal conductor of the Sydney Symphony Orchestra (1964– 1967). Dixon’s success abroad was unprecedented for an American conductor, and he did not return to the United States for 21 years. He ended his self-imposed exile when the New York Philharmonic invited him to conduct, for the second time, as part of their 1970–1971 season. Several guest conducting performances in various cities throughout the United States followed with favorable reviews. Further Reading Anderson, Marian. My Lord What a Morning: An Autobiography. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2002.
Concert Music—Conductors and Performers | 253 Cazort, Jean E., and Constance Tibbs Hobson. Born to Play: The Life and Career of Hazel Harrison. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1983. Duberman, Martin B. Paul Robeson: A Biography. New York: New Press, 1996. Nettles, Darryl Glen. African American Concert Singers before 1950. Jefferson, NC: McFarland and Company, Inc., 2003. Southern, Eileen. Biographical Dictionary of Afro-American and African Musicians. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1982. Southern, Eileen. The Music of Black Americans: A History. 3rd ed. New York: W. W. Norton and Company, 1997. Rufus Jones, Jr. and Horace J. Maxile, Jr.
Conductors and Performers of Concert Music: 1968–Present For most Americans, 1968 will harbor feelings of great sadness. This was the year that the civil rights leader, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., was assassinated outside of a hotel room in Memphis, Tennessee. During his short life, Dr. King saw many positive changes for African Americans and dreamed that many more would be his country’s future. Dr. King’s efforts to bring equality to all people in all areas of the workplace did not stop him from lamenting that a career in classical music (particularly conducting) would be one of the last bastions of elitism. Those who chose this profession knew that to succeed one had to have talent of the highest caliber, perseverance, and patience. Many would have to go abroad to find their ‘‘voice’’ because few opportunities were accessible in the United States during the 1960s and 1970s. The following artists represent the major contributors in the field of classical music that have broken through this seemingly impossible ceiling to become internationally recognized artists. They have paved the way for future African American classical artists, including conductors Henry Lewis (1932–1996), Paul Freeman (1936– ), James DePreist (1936– ), and Michael Morgan (1957– ); pianist Andre Watts (1946– ); and sopranos Leontyne Price (1927– ) and Jessye Norman (1946– ). Henry Lewis began playing the piano at age five and later showed an interest in the double bass. At age 16, Lewis became a member of the Los Angeles Philharmonic and remained a member of the double bass section for six years. In 1961, Lewis made national headlines by becoming the assistant conductor of the Los Angeles Philharmonic. But by far the biggest achievement for Lewis was his appointment as music director of the New Jersey Symphony Orchestra in 1968, making him the first African American to be appointed music director of a major symphony orchestra. He held this post until 1976. In 1972, he was the first African American to conduct the Metropolitan Opera. From 1960 to 1979, he was married to famed mezzo-soprano Marilyn Horne. After his tenure with the New Jersey Symphony, Lewis had numerous guest conducting engagements with major orchestras in Boston, Chicago, Cleveland, New York, and San Francisco. His last post was as music director of the Radio Symphony Orchestra in Hilversum (1989–1993). Paul Freeman received all of his formal music education at the Eastman School of Music. In 1967, Freeman won the Dimitri Mitropolous International Conductors’ Competition. From 1968 to 1989, Freeman held conducting posts
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with the Dallas, Detroit, and Victoria symphonies. In 1987, he founded the Chicago Sinfonietta. The Sinfonietta’s mission is not only to serve as model for diverse music being presented at the highest artistic level, but also to serve as a model for diversity in its participants. As a guest conductor, Freeman has led more than 100 orchestras in 30 countries. In 1996, he was appointed music director and chief conductor of the Czech National Symphony Orchestra in Prague. To date, Freeman has made more than 200 recordings, but he is widely recognized for his mid-1970s recording of black classical composers. This series, produced by Columbia Records, traced the history of black classical composers from 1750 to the 21st century. James DePreist is the nephew of the renowned contralto, Marian Anderson. DePreist began his formal training in music at the University of Pennsylvania and the Philadelphia Conservatory of Music, studying composition with Vincent Persichetti. In 1962, DePreist contracted polio while on tour in East Asia, which resulted in paralysis in both legs. During his recovery, he immersed himself into his study of orchestral scores. His career flourished after winning the 1964 Mitropoulous International Conducting Competition in New York. He was later appointed by Maestro Leonard Bernstein as the assistant conductor of the New York Philharmonic in 1965. In 1980, DePreist was appointed music director of the Oregon Symphony. He remained with the Oregon Symphony for 25 years. Through his artistic leadership, the Oregon Symphony developed from a regional ensemble to an internationally recognized recording symphony. In 2005, DePreist was awarded the National Medal of Arts, which is the nation’s highest honor for artistic excellence. DePreist has made more than 50 recordings and has conducted every major North American orchestra. Internationally, he has conducted in Berlin, Munich, Tokyo, Prague, Rome, London, Stockholm, and Vienna. Conductor Isaiah Jackson began his musical journey at age four on the piano. Although Jackson grew up in a segregated neighborhood, he was far from disadvantaged. His father and grandfather were both surgeons and one of his childhood friends was the famed African American tennis star Arthur Ashe. At age 14, Jackson was sent to boarding school where continued his studies on the piano. Jackson enrolled at Harvard University with a concentration in Russian history and literature, all the while continuing his music studies. After graduating (cum laude) from Harvard University in 1966, he pursued music and continued his formal training at Stanford University (master’s degree, 1967) and the Juilliard School (master’s degree, 1969, doctor of musical arts, 1973). Jackson has held posts with the American Symphony Orchestra, Baltimore Symphony Orchestra, Rochester Philharmonic, Flint Symphony Orchestra, Dayton Philharmonic, and the Royal Ballet. Michael Morgan was born in Washington, D.C., and began conducting at the age of 12. He received his formal training at the Oberlin Conservatory of Music. In 1980, Morgan was awarded first prize in the Hans Swarovsky International Conductors Competition in Vienna, Austria. In 1986, Morgan made his debut with the New York Philharmonic as guest conductor and started his new position as assistant conductor of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra. He remained with
Concert Music—Conductors and Performers | 255 Chicago until 1991. In 1990, Morgan was appointed music director of the Oakland East Bay Symphony. Pianist Andre Watts was born in Nuremburg, Germany, to an African American soldier and a Hungarian mother who was his first piano instructor. In 1954, Watts and his family moved to Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, where he would continue his studies with Genia Robiner, Doris Bawden, and Clement Petrillo at the Philadelphia Musical Academy. At age nine, Watts was invited to perform Haydn’s Piano Concerto in D with the Philadelphia Orchestra for their annual children’s concert. In 1963, he was invited to perform Liszt’s first piano concerto with the New York Philharmonic and famed conductor Maestro Leonard Bernstein. In 1966, he made his European debut with the London Symphony Orchestra. He would return to Europe a year later under the sponsorship of the U.S. State Department. Watts continued his formal training, albeit sporadically, with famed American pianist and conductor, Leon Fleisher at the Peabody Conservatory from 1963 to 1974. In 1976, Watts would make history by becoming the first artist to give a solo recital on a nationally televised broadcast, ‘‘Live at Lincoln Center.’’ In 1988, Watts performed as soloist with the New York Philharmonic to celebrate the 25th anniversary of his debut performance. This live, nationally televised performance included the Liszt piano concerto he performed 25 years ago, Beethoven’s second piano concerto, and Rachmaninoff’s second piano concerto. That same year, Watts was awarded the Avery Fisher Prize, which is considered one of the highest individual honors for an American classical musician. Leontyne Price, soprano, was born in Laurel, Mississippi, in 1927. She began her formal music training at age five on the piano. She continued to play the piano and sing in the choir throughout her high school and college years. The president of her college noticed her vocal talents and convinced Price to change her major from music education to applied voice. At that point, she began to pursue a career as a vocal soloist. She continued her formal studies at the Juilliard School on a full tuition scholarship. In 1952, Price made her debut with Dallas Opera, performing the role of Bess in Gershwin’s Porgy and Bess. Price toured with this production for two years throughout the world. The production was a success and garnered Price immediate international recognition. In 1955, Price made her television debut by performing the role of Floria Tosca in an NBC opera production of Puccini’s Tosca. In 1961, Price made her Metropolitan debut performing the role of Leonora in Verdi’s Il Trovatore. The performance resulted in a 42-minute ovation, which is documented as one of the longest in the history of the Metropolitan Opera. Price gave more than 118 operatic and concert performances from 1961 to 1969. During the 1970s she performed less frequently. Price has won 15 Grammy Awards for her recordings, including a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award in 1989. Jessye Norman, soprano, was born in Augusta, Georgia in 1945 where she began singing at age six. She began her formal training at Howard University and later continued her studies at the Peabody Conservatory of Music and the University of Michigan. In 1968, she won the Munich International Music
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Competition. Norman made her operatic debut in 1969 in the Deutsche Oper, Berlin, singing the role of Elisabeth in Wagner’s Tannhauser. Norman has performed music from all musical eras (Baroque to Contemporary). Norman has sung many roles both as a soprano and mezzo-soprano. She has performed at all the major opera houses and concert halls, some of which include Lincoln Center, Covent Garden, Carnegie Hall, La Scala, Paris Opera, and the Vienna State Opera. She has performed with internationally recognized conductors like Dean Dixon, Zubin Mehta, Herbert van Karajan, and James Levine. In 1983, Norman made her debut with Metropolitan Opera, performing the role of Cassandra in Berlioz’s Les Troyens. In 2006, she won a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award. In 2009, Norman was one of the recipients of the Kennedy Center Honors. This award is given to those who have been recognized as an extraordinary artistic talent in the United States and abroad. See also Anderson, Marian; Concert Music—Composers and Repertoire; Maynor, Dorothy; Robeson, Paul; Watts, Andre. Further Reading Abdul, Raoul. Blacks in Classical Music: A Personal History. New York: Dodd, Mead, and Company, 1977. Gray, John. Blacks in Classical Music: A Bibliographical Guide to Composers, Performers, and Ensembles. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1988. Handy, D. Antoinette. Black Conductors. Metuchen, NJ: The Scarecrow Press, 1995. Rufus Jones, Jr.
Congo Square Located within Louis Armstrong Memorial Park and adjacent to the French Quarter in the richly historic Treme district of New Orleans, Congo Square holds a significant position in the history of African American musical tradition. As a gathering place, the square afforded African slaves the rare opportunity of public cultural expression, a basic right that fearful slaveholders sought to suppress. On Sunday afternoons, slaves were permitted to gather in the square for communal singing and dancing that often would extend well into the evening hours. In an 1819 journal entry, famed architect Benjamin Latrobe famously described the lively scene he observed: An elderly black man sits astride a large cylindrical drum. . . . He jabs repeatedly at the drum head . . . evoking a throbbing pulsation with rapid, sharp strokes. A second drummer, holding his instrument between his knees, joins in, playing with the same staccato attack. A third black man . . . plucks at a string instrument . . . and a woman beats at [a drum] with two short sticks. One voice, then other voices join in. A dance of seeming contradictions accompanies this musical give-and-take, a moving hieroglyph that appears, on the one hand, informal and spontaneous yet, on closer inspection,
Cooke, Sam | 257 ritualized and precise. It is a dance of massive proportions. A dense crowd of dark bodies forms into circular groups—perhaps five or six hundred individuals moving in time to the pulsations of the music. Such a description communicates a musical phenomenon dictated by controlled improvisation: a dichotomy between organization and seeming disorder that is certainly germane to jazz. Furthermore, Latrobe’s account accentuates the antiphonal nature of the music, its emphasis on rhythm and percussive sounds, and the communal music-making process. Thus, scholars have often cited such firsthand accounts to uphold a somewhat-oversimplified hypothesis that the square can be considered the birthplace of jazz music. The gatherings in fact ended soon after the Civil War. In 1886, the area was renamed Beauregard Square in honor of the Confederate general, serving as a sight for brass band concerts. The significance of Congo Square as both a historical landmark and a cultural phenomenon cannot be overstated, however, and rests largely in the rare glimpse it provides into the transmission of African music-making to the United States. The salient features of slave music were so readily subsumed into the collective musical identity of the United States that their origins often are carelessly obscured. Although perhaps but one segment of the complex history of the advent of jazz, Congo Square continues to serve as an enduring symbol of the pivotal role African slaves played in the development of a uniquely American national music: a lasting physical monument to the extraordinary musical gift given to the United States by the very people whose cultural expression its white majority sought to suppress. See also
Jazz. Further Reading
Donaldson, Gary. A. ‘‘A Window on Slave Culture: Dances at Congo Square in New Orleans, 1800–1862.’’ The Journal of Negro History 69, no. 2 (spring 1984): 63–72. Gioia. Ted. History of Jazz. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1997. Kmen, Henry A. ‘‘The Roots of Jazz and the Dance in Place Congo: A Re-Appraisal.’’ Yearbook for Inter-American Musical Research 8 (1972): 5–16. Erica K. Argyropoulos
Cooke, Sam (1931–1964) Many consider Sam Cooke to be the most important soul and R & B singer in music history. In 2008, Rolling Stone named him number four in their list of the top 100 greatest singers of all time. Cooke was a trailblazer; he began his career as a gospel singer, brought soul music from the church to the general public, and fused gospel, soul, and pop into his signature sound. Cooke was a prolific songwriter and an important role model in the African American business community. His unparalleled career, filled with both success and controversy, was short-lived as his life was tragically cut short at 33 years old. Cooke was born January 22, 1931, in Clarksdale, Mississippi, the son of a Baptist minister. The Cook family (Sam added the ‘‘e’’ to his name later) struggled
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during the Great Depression and moved to Chicago where the gospel music scene was exploding. In 1951, Cooke became the lead vocalist for the Soul Stirrers, one of the day’s top gospel acts with whom he recorded and toured for six years. Cooke began to cross over from gospel to popular music, much to the dismay of gospel fans. Although he first recorded under the name Dale Cook, his clear and recognizable voice did not shield audiences from his true identity. His manager, Bumps Blackwell, secured Cooke’s released from the Soul Stirrers and signed him with Keen records where he recorded ‘‘You Send Me’’ (1957) and ‘‘Wonderful World’’ (1960), each selling more than a million copies. Cooke signed with RCA in 1960 and continued to record hits including ‘‘Cupid’’ (1960), ‘‘Twistin’ the Night Away’’ (1962), and ‘‘Bring it on Home to Me’’ (1962); his career yielded 29 top 40 hits. Cooke was a strong supporter of the civil rights movement. Songs like ‘‘Chain Gang’’ (1960) revealed Cooke’s frustrations with playing to segregated audiences and the existing Jim Crow laws. Deeply affected by Bob Dylan’s protest classic ‘‘Blowin’ in the Wind,’’ the overt discrimination he encountered, and the drowning death of his 18-month-old son, Cooke recorded the enormously popular ‘‘A Change Is Gonna Come’’ (1965), which was released after his death. Cooke was an influential business man and the first African American artist to own his own music publishing and recording companies. His personal life, however, was wrought with controversy. He fathered several children with various women and was married when he checked into a hotel with Elise Boyer the evening of December 11, 1964. Although the events that followed are unclear, the night ended with the hotel manager, Bertha Lee Franklin, shooting Cooke; the death was ruled a justifiable homicide. Cooke was inducted as a charter member of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1986 and influenced such artists as Aretha Franklin, Otis Redding, James Brown, Stevie Wonder, Marvin Gaye, and Rod Stewart. See also
Chicago, Illinois; Soul Music. Further Reading
Gulla, Bob. Icons of R & B and Soul: An Encyclopedia of the Artists Who Revolutionized Rhythm. Westport, CT: Greenwood, 2007. Guralnick, Peter. Dream Boogie: The Triumph of Sam Cooke. New York: Little and Brown, 2005. Wolff, Daniel J., S. R. Crain, Clifton White, and G. David Tenenbaum. You Send Me: The Life and Times of Sam Cooke. New York: W. Morrow, 1995. Kim Kennedy White
Cool Jazz See
Jazz.
Country Music | 259
Cooper, William Benjamin (1920–1993) Church organist and music educator Walter Benjamin Cooper was born February 14, 1920, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. He obtained his musical education at the Philadelphia Musical Academy (formerly Zeck-werhahn Conservatory, bachelor’s degree in music, 1951; master of music degree, 1952); at Trinity College of Music in London, England; the School of Sacred Music of the Union Theological Seminary in New York; and at the Manhattan School of Music in New York. He began playing for church choirs when he was 12 years old. During his school years he also played for dancing classes, performed (viola) with the Philadelphia Concert Orchestra, and directed community choruses and opera workshops. His teaching career included tenures at Lincoln University in Pennsylvania (1940–1943), Hampton Institute in Virginia (summers 1940, 1941), Bennett College in Greensboro, North Carolina (1951–1953), and in the New York public schools for 26 years, beginning in 1958. His career as a church organist-choirmaster included tenures at the St. Philip’s Episcopal Church (1958– 1974) and St. Martin’s Episcopal Church (1974–1988), both in New York. He composed in a wide variety of musical forms and genres, but gave primary attention to sacred music, particularly for the church service (masses, cantatas, motets, oratorios) and organ music. His secular compositions included concertos for organ and string or wind ensembles, ballets, art songs, operettas, two operas, and works for small orchestra. His best-known work was The Choral Service of the Episcopal Church Set to African-American Chants (recorded by the choir of St. Stephen’s Church at Petersburg, Virginia). His Pastorale appeared in Mickey Thomas Terry’s African-American Organ Music Anthology, Volume 2 (2001). Cooper died on May 25, 1993. His obituary appears in Diapason 84, no. 8 (August 1993). Eileen Southern
Country Blues See
Blues.
Country Music Country music is a folk-derived style of American music that developed primarily among rural Southerners in the United States. Over the course of the 20th century, as it became a major genre of popular music and eventually a multimillion dollar industry, African Americans played a significant role in country music as performers, songwriters, producers, and listeners. Although many of the core elements of country music originated in the ballads, dances, and instrumental tunes of Anglo-Saxon and Celtic immigrants, the music that led to country music began absorbing African American elements as early as the 17th century. Living and working in proximity to one another, rural
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Southern blacks and whites had a shared cultural history that facilitated a great deal of musical interchange. By the 19th century, the fiddle and the banjo were the predominant instruments among both black and white folk musicians; the string band tradition that employed these instruments dominated early country music in the first part of 20th century. In the 1920s, when record labels first began recording rural Southern music, they began marketing it into separate series intended for white listeners (then labeled ‘‘hillbilly’’ music and later called ‘‘country’’ music) and for black listeners (then called ‘‘race’’ music). Because these companies generally were reluctant to allow performers of either race to record the full range of music in their repertoires, string band music was primarily recorded by white performers and largely associated with country music, whereas recordings of African American music were dominated by blues and gospel music. Despite this segregation, however, several African American string bands made commercial recordings during the 1920s and 1930s. These included Andrew and Jim Baxter, the James Cole String Band, the Dallas String Band, Peg Leg Howell and His Gang, and the Mississippi Sheiks, the last of which released records that were listed in the hillbilly catalog of the Okeh label (though under different pseudonyms). Occasionally, African American musicians even recorded with white string bands; examples include fiddler Jim Booker with Taylor’s Kentucky Boys (1927) and fiddler Andrew Baxter with the Georgia Yellow Hammers (1927). Additionally, country performers during this era, including Jimmie Rodgers and Jimmie Davis, occasionally used accompaniment by African American musicians during their recording sessions. Like the performers during this era, music listeners were not entirely divided by race. African Americans purchased ‘‘hillbilly’’ records, and in turn, whites purchased ‘‘race’’ records. As a result, the recordings themselves played a significant role in presenting country music to African Americans (and African American music to country musicians) throughout the South. Countless African Americans also listened to country music on broadcasts of radio shows such as the Grand Ole Opry on WSM and the National Barn Dance on WLS. There are well-known examples of African American musicians directly tutoring renowned country performers. Arnold Schultz, a Kentucky fiddler and guitarist, mentored Bill Monroe (the ‘‘Father of Bluegrass’’) and was a key influence on the ‘‘thumbpicking’’ guitar style popularized by many country guitarists, including Merle Travis and Chet Atkins. North Carolina guitarist Leslie Riddle has been credited with providing a number of songs to the Carter Family and with teaching Maybelle Carter her signature guitar style that was later emulated by numerous country musicians. The first African American musician to achieve significant fame as a country performer was harmonica player DeFord Bailey (1899–1982), a star of the Grand Ole Opry who gained much popularity among both black and white audiences during the show’s early years. He was born and raised near the small town of Bellwood, Tennessee, to a musical family who played what Bailey later often called ‘‘black hillbilly music.’’ After beginning his musical career as a teenager, Bailey
Country Music | 261 moved to Nashville in 1918 and performed around the city before joining the WSM Barn Dance (later known as the Grand Ole Opry) in 1926. He made 18 recordings (11 of which were issued) during 1927 and 1928 for the Brunswick/Vocalion, Columbia, and Victor record labels. Bailey toured extensively and remained on the Opry until 1941, when he was dismissed from the show because of his insistence on performing only older pieces and his unwillingness to develop new material. After this, Bailey rarely performed publicly until the mid-1970s, when he made various radio and television appearances, including some performances on the Opry. Throughout its history, country music has incorporated musical elements from several African American sources. Among the music found in the repertoires of early country musicians were African American ballads, such as ‘‘John Henry’’ and ‘‘Frankie and Johnny’’; spirituals, including ‘‘Mary, Don’t You Weep’’ and ‘‘When I Lay My Burden Down’’; and songs from 19th-century minstrel shows, such as ‘‘Turkey in the Straw’’ and ‘‘Old Dan Tucker.’’ Ragtime had a considerable influence on early country music, demonstrated by the fact that hundreds of prewar hillbilly recordings were rags or included the word ‘‘rag’’ in their titles. Although some of these tunes came directly from the piano rag tradition (such as ‘‘Dill Pickles’’ and ‘‘Twelfth Street Rag’’), some merely demonstrated the syncopations and other rhythmic characteristics of ragtime (including ‘‘Bill Bailey’’ and ‘‘Alexander’s Ragtime Band’’), while others were newly composed instrumental tunes (such as ‘‘Beaumont Rag’’ and ‘‘Down Home Rag’’). Blues has been a key influence on country music. Hundreds of songs recorded by country performers during the prewar era were blues tunes or included the word ‘‘blues’’ in their titles. During this time, blues performers such as Blind Lemon Jefferson and Blind Blake made influential recordings that had a substantial impact on country guitar playing and singing. In fact, a number of white country performers achieved great success closely emulating African American blues performances; examples include the Allen Brothers, Cliff Carlisle, Darby and Tarlton, Frank Hutchison, and Jimmie Rodgers (commonly called the ‘‘Father of Country Music’’). Country music has been significantly influenced by jazz, particularly in the subgenres of western swing and bluegrass. Both styles feature driving rhythms, creative improvisation, and skilled instrumentalists trading solos in a manner resembling that of jazz musicians. During the late 1940s and early 1950s, many country records began to show the influence of rhythm and blues (R & B), giving rise to the ‘‘hillbilly boogie’’ style that foreshadowed rockabilly. During this time, a number of record labels recorded both country music and R & B; these included Alladin, Apollo, Bullet, King, Mercury, and Specialty. In particular, King Records played a major role in bringing together R & B and country music, especially through the work of African American producer, songwriter, and artist and repertoire (A&R) man Henry Glover. Glover arranged and produced recording sessions for artists in both genres, often cutting versions of the same songs by both R & B and country artists. This cross-influence continued into the 1960s and 1970s, with R & B and soul artists such as Solomon Burke, Fats Domino, and Al Green covering country songs. Numerous R & B and soul performers even released entire
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country-oriented albums; these included Ivory Joe Hunter, the Supremes, Joe Tex, Tina Turner, Otis Williams, and Bobby Womack. An important African American contributor to country music was R & B and soul artist Ray Charles (1930–2004). Charles developed an appreciation for country music as a child, picking up influences from performers such as Jimmie Rodgers and Roy Acuff and listening regularly to the Grand Ole Opry. After beginning a career as a professional musician while still a teenager, he spent a few months in 1946 playing piano in Tampa, Florida, with an otherwise all-white country band called the Florida Playboys. During the 1950s, Charles made a series of classic R & B recordings for Atlantic Records that propelled him to stardom. In 1959, he recorded a version of Hank Snow’s ‘‘I’m Movin’ On,’’ the first in a long string of country songs he would perform throughout his career. In 1962, he released the groundbreaking album Modern Sounds in Country and Western Music, which became a number one album and one of his best-known records ever. The single it spawned, Don Gibson’s ‘‘I Can’t Stop Loving You,’’ spent five weeks as the number one single in America, ultimately selling more than a million copies. That album was followed by Modern Sounds in Country and Western Music, Volume 2 (1962) and Country and Western Meets Rhythm and Blues (1965). Throughout the rest of the 1960s, Charles recorded many additional country songs, and during the 1970s and 1980s, he released several more country-oriented albums. He also made numerous guest appearances on country-oriented television programs such as Hee Haw and several television specials. Since the 1960s, several African American musicians have exclusively performed country music. By far, the most successful of these has been Charley Pride (1939– ), who, in addition to being the only true African American country music superstar, is also one of the most successful country singers of all time. Born and raised in Sledge, Mississippi, Pride began playing guitar and singing country songs at the age of 14. While he was still a teenager, his aspirations to be a baseball player led him to leave home to play for the Memphis Red Sox in the Negro American League, and he continued to play professional baseball until the early 1960s. By this time, Pride was living in Montana and had begun singing publicly. In 1963, he was discovered by country stars Red Foley and Red Sovine, who urged him to move to Nashville. After signing with the RCA label in 1965, Pride’s first single, ‘‘The Snakes Crawl at Night,’’ was released later that year. Over the next 20 years, Pride placed 51 top 10 country singles on the Billboard charts, 29 of which went to number one. Among his biggest hits were ‘‘Just Between You and Me’’ (1967), ‘‘I’m So Afraid of Losing You’’ (1969), ‘‘Is Anybody Goin’ to San Antone’’ (1970), and the gold single ‘‘Kiss an Angel Good Morning’’ (1971). Pride also earned 12 gold albums and numerous awards, including three Grammy Awards, the Country Music Association’s Entertainer of the Year award (1971) and Male Vocalist of the Year award (1971 and 1972), and Cashbox’s Country Artist of the Decade award for the 1970s. According to many sources, Pride became RCA’s second-best-selling recording artist after Elvis Presley. Since the 1970s, Pride has continued to perform while also owning and investing in several lucrative businesses.
Country Music | 263 Although no other African American country singer has come close to the commercial success of Charley Pride, a few have achieved moderate fame performing country music and have placed records on the charts. One such performer was singer and songwriter Stoney Edwards (1929–1997), who was born to farmers of African, Irish, and Native American origins in Seminole, Oklahoma. Edwards grew up listening to country music on the radio and was particularly influenced by western swing pioneer Bob Wills and honky-tonk legend Lefty Frizzell. By the early 1950s, Edwards relocated to Richmond, California, working various manual jobs and occasionally singing in bars. In 1970, he was discovered by a local lawyer while performing at a benefit for Bob Wills, which led to his signing a deal with Capitol Records later that year. Edwards’s career at Capitol resulted in five albums and several hit singles, including ‘‘Two Dollar Toy’’ (1971), ‘‘Poor Folks Stick Together’’ (1971), ‘‘She’s My Rock’’ (1972), ‘‘Hank and Lefty Raised My Country Soul’’ (1973), and ‘‘Mississippi You’re on My Mind’’ (1975). By 1977, Edwards’s tenure at Capitol ended after the label chose not to renew his contract, and he subsequently signed with the labels JMI, Music America, and Boot. Throughout the 1980s and 1990s, Edwards suffered from a number of health problems but managed to record a final album, Just for Old Times Sake, for the Country Music People label in 1991. Another African American performer who had a modestly successful career in country music was O. B. (Obie Burnett) McClinton (1940–1987). Born near Senatobia, Mississippi, McClinton grew up listening to country music, blues, and rock ’n’ roll on the radio. After relocating to Memphis and working as a DJ on WDIA, he began pitching his songs at Stax Records in the early 1960s. His first break came when his song ‘‘Keep Your Arms Around Me’’ was recorded by Stax soul artist Otis Redding in 1965. Soon after, McClinton released his first single on the Beale Street Records label and three additional singles on the Goldwax label. During this period, however, McClinton achieved more success as a songwriter than as a performer, with his compositions being recorded by Clarence Carter, Arthur Conley, Willie Hightower, the Ovations, and—most notably—James Carr, who had hits with McClinton’s ‘‘You’ve Got My Mind Messed Up’’ (1966) and ‘‘A Man Needs a Woman’’ (1968). During the late 1960s, the success of Charley Pride convinced McClinton that he should pursue a career in country music. In 1971, he was signed to Stax Records as a country performer and placed on Stax’s affiliate label Enterprise. Over the next four years, McClinton released four albums and several singles on the label. Seven of his singles made the country charts, the most successful being ‘‘Don’t Let the Green Grass Fool You’’ (1972) and ‘‘My Whole World Is Falling Down’’ (1973). After Stax folded in 1975, McClinton recorded several singles for Mercury, ABC-Dot, and Epic, and released an album on the Sunbird label. He recorded less frequently throughout the late 1970s and the 1980s but continued to perform publicly. In 1986, McClinton discovered that he had cancer, and in November of that year, several country artists, including Waylon Jennings, Ricky Skaggs, and Reba McEntire, performed at a benefit concert in Nashville to help defray the cost of his medical bills. McClinton recorded a final album for Epic in 1987 before passing away later that year.
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Other notable African American singers who have achieved fame in country music over the years have included Linda Martell, Ruby Falls, Big Al Downing, Cleve Francis, and Herb Jeffries. More recently, performers such as Cowboy Troy, Nisha Jackson, Miko Marks, Rissi Palmer, Carl Ray, Rhonda Towns, Trini Triggs, Vicki Vann, and the all-black band Wheels have enjoyed moderate commercial success in country music. Groups such as the Carolina Chocolate Drops and the Ebony Hillbillies are noteworthy for performing in the African American string band tradition of the 19th and early 20th centuries. See also Jazz; Minstrel Shows; Soul Music; Spirituals; String Bands and Ensembles. Further Reading Foster, Pamela E. My Country, Too: The Other Black Music. Nashville: My Country, 2000. Hoskyns, Barney. Say It One Time for the Brokenhearted: Country Soul in the American South. London: Bloomsbury, 1998. Malone, Bill C. Country Music, U.S.A. 2nd rev. ed. Austin: University of Texas Press, 2002. Russell, Tony. Blacks, Whites, and Blues. New York: Stein and Day, 1970. Thomas, Rebecca. ‘‘There’s a Whole Lot o’ Color in the ‘White Man’s’ Blues: Country Music’s Selective Memory and the Challenge of Identity.’’ Midwest Quarterly 38, no. 1 (Fall 1996): 73–89.
Further Listening Dirty Laundry: The Soul of Black Country (compilation). Trikont US-0333, 2005. From Where I Stand: The Black Experience in Country Music (box set). Warner Bros. 9 46248-2, 1998. More Dirty Laundry: The Soul of Black Country (compilation). Trikont US-0367, 2008. Andrew Leach
Covers of African American Music See
Appropriation of African American Music.
Cox, Ida (1896–1967) A blues singer and songwriter, Ida Cox was one of great classic blues singers of the 1920s and 1930s. Her career began during her teenage years as a performer in minstrel shows. During the 1910s she toured frequently, sometimes sharing the stage with jazz artists such as Jelly Roll Morton. Cox’s recording career was launched in 1923 with Paramount Records who billed her as the ‘‘Uncrowned Queen of Blues.’’ She recorded more than 75 songs with the label over a six-year period, an impressive output that highlighted her powerful voice and personal song lyrics. Cox also managed her own vaudeville group, Ida Cox and Her Raisin’ Cain Company, during the 1920s. Though not as popular as Ma Rainey or Bessie Smith, she sustained a relatively strong career throughout the 1930s and was featured in performances at the Cafe Society night club and in the
Cube, Ice | 265 historic From Spirituals to Swing concerts that took place in New York’s Carnegie Hall in 1938 and 1939. Among her more popular songs are ‘‘Wild Women Don’t Have the Blues,’’ ‘‘Coffin Blues,’’ and ‘‘Death Letter Blues.’’ Her recording and performing career ended due to health complications in the mid 1940s. Cox entered the recording studio for the last of her recordings in 1961, Blues for Rampart Street. This album was recorded with Coleman Hawkins and featured renditions of her old classics such as ‘‘Hard Times Blues’’ and standards such as W.C. Handy’s ‘‘St. Louis Blues.’’ See also
Blues. Further Listening
Ida Cox: The Essential. Classic Blues CBL-200017, 2001. Blues for Rampart Street. Riverside OJCCD-1758-2, 1990. Horace J. Maxile, Jr.
Cube, Ice (1969– ) Born O’Shea Jackson in 1969 and brought up in south central Los Angeles, Ice Cube became one of the founding members of the gangster (gangsta) rap group N.W.A. (Niggaz with Attitude). After leaving the group in 1990 over a royalty dispute, Ice Cube went on to develop an extremely successful career as a solo artist and film actor, writer, and director. Although Ice Cube continued in the confrontational modality of the gangsta tradition, his work increasingly questioned the social and political implications of the African American urban experience around the turn of the 21st century. Ice Cube situated himself in a tenuous position, maintaining the tough image and volatile iconography of gangsta rap while exploring more socially constructive forms of artistic expression. Through films such as his 2002 work, Barbershop, Ice Cube thoughtfully examines the close ties and tensions within the African American community in the South Side of Chicago. The gangsta persona is one of the subjects that is parodied and studied in this film; rather than function as the center of the drama, this character is only one part of the narrative, shown in relation to a wider assortment of urban identities. Ice Cube’s later work reflects this movement, from the narrow niche of gangsta rap out into an expanded field of African American consciousness. As a contemporary folklorist of sorts, Ice Cube can be seen as working in the hybrid zones where popular media are able to intersect and honestly portray the minutiae of actual African American communities. See also
Rap Music. Further Reading
Bogdanov, Vladimir, Chris Woodstra, Stephen Thomas Erlewine and John Bush, eds. All Music Guide to Hip-Hop: The Definitive Guide to Rap & Hip-Hop. San Francisco: Backbeat Books, 2003. Christopher S. Schaberg
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D
Dance and Music The relationship between music and dance is symbiotic. Though each exists as a separate entity, together the association is mutually advantageous. United by rhythm, at times they are inseparable. Together, music and dance are used for religious worship, communication, and recreation, as well as community and selfexpression. A result of their close relationship is a theatricality that can enthrall and entrance spectators. Their combined forces also have the ability to invoke a power that can transform spectators into participants. Music and dance have a shared history in the shaping of the expressive cultural products of African Americans.
1776–1861 An African form of religious expression that incorporated music and ‘‘dance’’ is known as the ring shout. Sometimes lasting hours at a time, shouters (participants) began by forming a circle that other shouters eventually joined. Shuffling slowly, they followed each other in a circle (some accounts indicate a counterclockwise rotation.) Accompanied by the beat of a sacred drum played by someone outside the circle, the pace would quicken. Singers outside the circle sang, clapped, chanted, and stomped their feet. Sometimes the shouters joined hands. As the pace quickened, they would begin to be taken over by a supernatural power. The pace would get faster and faster, resulting in the participants becoming entranced, flailing, or being overcome by what seemed to be hysteria. Eventually, some of the shouters would drop to the ground in exhaustion. Though these practices varied in different communities, the intention was the same, to commune as one with the ancestors, deities, and the Creator. Africans retained this practice when they were brought to America as slaves. Eventually the enslaved people were denied use of their drums, as slave masters discovered their communicative properties. However, this did not prevent them from performing sacred rituals. They still possessed one essential element needed to create music 267
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Break dancers perform in a competition. (Bettmann/Corbis)
intrinsic to their practices, their bodies. As musical instruments, their bodies produced the rhythms necessary to propel themselves and others in their community into religious expression. Therefore, the ring shout continued to thrive in some slave communities even with the absence of the drum. The drum, however, was not completely lost in African American life during this time. It surfaced in the musical and dance activities of late 18th- and early 19th-century New Orleans, as Congo Square was the gathering place for collective drumming, which accompanied certain dances such as the bamboula. Secular dancing was also a popular pastime for slaves and an intrinsic part of their social life, festivals, and celebrations. Among the instruments used for secular dance were fiddles, flutes, and banjos. If the musicians became exhausted from playing for hours or if no instruments were available, the slaves could produce their own music by ‘‘pattin’ juba,’’ rhythmic tapping, clapping, slapping, and stomping using different parts of the body. At times, vocal utterances also accompanied the dance moves and, over time, rhyming texts were added. Most accounts from that period do not mention specific tunes that the slaves played. But, they do mention many different types of dances that accompanied the musings of the slave musicians during slave gatherings, including the buck, pigeonwing, jig, juba, and cakewalk. Some slaves were made to perform for their masters, establishing a common practice of African American musicians providing dance music for whites. Though not always formally trained, some slaves became quite adept in European forms, including quadrilles and reels. This music was mostly performed on fiddles and many accounts mention the high caliber of performance of some
Dance and Music | 269 enslaved musicians. The European influence also migrated into some slave dance forms, as they too developed their own forms of quadrilles and reels.
1861–1919 During the Civil War, African American music and dance practices continued, albeit under different and more difficult conditions. Even black servicemen in the Union Army held ring shouts and some secular dances. Although Southern slaves were made to work for the Confederate Army, much less is known or documented about how their music and dance practices were affected. Elements of the ring shout continued in some churches after the war, as sacred dances became known as shouts or holy dancing. This was more evident in the holiness churches than other denominations. Drums, percussion, hand clapping, and vocal improvisations provided the musical background for religious dance. Minstrelsy (or Ethiopian minstrelsy) was a popular entertainment form that actually developed before the Civil War. A minstrel show consisted of white actors portraying African American characters or aspects of African American life in derogatory and stereotypical ways. Subjects of African American music and dance were included and many of the narratives were based in slave culture. Examples of strong African American retentions or references were the ‘‘walkaround,’’ which was a featured dance that resembled the activity of a ring shout though presented in a secular context and the ‘‘essence dance’’ which consisted of slower movements and sophisticated manipulations of the heels and toes. Black minstrel groups came along after the war and did little to change the demeaning perceptions of the shows. They were known, however, to have offered original and entertaining variations on the themes presented in the earlier Ethiopian minstrel shows. The ‘‘soft shoe’’ developed through black minstrel reinterpretations of the essence dance. The cakewalk continued through minstrelsy and was a featured part of some of the shows. As minstrelsy declined at the turn of the 20th century, rag music developed. In some African American communities, the terms ‘‘rag’’ and ‘‘dance’’ were interchangeable and the characteristic sounds made their way into the dance halls of the North and the juke joints of the South. The dances of this rag-influenced period were the Big Apple, which contained elements of the ring shout, the Black Bottom, and the Charleston. Similar dances developed in New York as a number of Southern African Americans migrated there before World War I and influenced the social dance scene. Those new dances of the 1910s included the Lindy Hop and the Jitterbug.
1919–1942 In 1921, Noble Sissle (1889–1975) and James Hubert ‘‘Eubie’’ Blake’s (1883– 1983) Shuffle Along sparked an era of successful Broadway shows written by and starring African Americans. This production brought the Charleston to the larger masses of New York and to the world at large. Shuffle Along and other successful
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shows recalled lively folk dances and remnant dances from minstrelsy as well as incorporating contemporary forms such as tap dancing. For at least another decade, more African American revues and musical comedies followed, tap dancing continued to develop through the performances of Bill ‘‘Bojangles’’ Robinson (1878–1949) and others, and the social dances of the 1910s continued through the 1930s, finding new performance spaces in certain musical theater productions. Other dancers to gain notoriety during this period include Florence Mills, Josephine Baker, and Earl Tucker. During the 1930s and 1940s, tap dancing developed even more into a highly choreographed component of some jazz big band and musical theater performances. Techniques such as the ‘‘time step’’ and ‘‘catch step’’ were incorporated with improvisations of dancers. The rhythmic complexities generated such interest among enthusiasts that ‘‘breaks’’ would be inserted into big band arrangements so that the tap dancer could take a ‘‘solo.’’ Among the tap dance giants were King Rastus Brown, Al Williams, Maceo Anderson, Clarence Bowens, and the Nicholas Brothers (Harold and Fayard). Regarding concert dance forms, Asadata Dafora (1889–1965) staged Kykuntor, America’s first African ballet-opera, in New York in 1934. He regularly staged African-folk musicals and dance festivals until he returned to Sierra Leone in 1960. Anthropologist and choreographer Katherine Mary Dunham (1909– 2006) is considered to have institutionalized the African American concert dance company with Ballet Negre in 1930. This company toured around the world and later opened dance schools in Chicago and New York. Dunham predominantly drew on Afro-diasporic folk music to accompany her works, as well as music that drew more abstractly on folk materials.
1942–1968 The developments in jazz that led to styles such as bebop and cool jazz also signaled an end, of sorts, for the big band and dance forms associated with early big band jazz. Popular music styles of the 1940s and 1950s included rock ’n’ roll and R & B and featured artists such as Billy Eckstine, Nat King Cole, Sam Cooke, Chuck Berry, and Antoine ‘‘Fats’’ Domino. These popular artists were heard on many radio stations, and their music almost instantly became dance music. Variations on the jitterbug and lindy hop continued through the 1950s, but the 1960s brought about a new era of popular dance song. Chubby Checker’s version of ‘‘The Twist’’ (1960) started a dance craze that lasted the entire decade. Paul Williams’s dance hit ‘‘Hucklebuck’’ (1949) predated the ‘‘The Twist,’’ but Checker’s twist inspired many other dances that were directly related to songs or song titles such as ‘‘The Dog’’ and ‘‘Walking the Dog’’ (Rufus Thomas), ‘‘The Bird’’ (the Duotones), ‘‘The Jerk’’ (the Larks), ‘‘The Swim’’ (Bobby Freeman), and ‘‘The Mashed Potato’’ (Dee Dee Sharp). Dances of this type also are known as eponymous dances and their popularity spawned new songs related to the dance itself such as ‘‘Come On and Do the Jerk’’ (the Miracles) and ‘‘Jerk It’’ (the Gypsies), both from Motown. In this particular context—albeit industry driven—dance inspired the creation of new music.
Dance and Music | 271 In 1943, concert dancer Pearl Primus (1919–1994) premiered ‘‘Strange Fruit’’ her antilynching solo, and the social protest pieces, ‘‘Rock Daniel’’ and ‘‘Hard Time Blues.’’ The boundaries of music for concert dance companies were further broken when Alvin Ailey (1931–1989) launched the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theatre in 1958. This modern-dance company continues to use a variety of African American styles of music, including popular, gospel, blues, jazz and spirituals to partner its dances. America’s first African American classical ballet company, The Dance Theatre of Harlem, was co-founded in 1969 by Arthur Mitchell (1934– ) and his mentor and friend, Karel Shook (1920– 1985). Modern and ethnic dance were also at the core of this groups mission.
1968–Present James Brown’s ‘‘The Popcorn’’ was a perhaps the most popular dance song of 1969, and he capitalized on its popularity with three more ‘‘popcorn’’ songs, ‘‘Mother Popcorn,’’ ‘‘Lowdown Popcorn,’’ and ‘‘Let a Man Come In and Do the Popcorn.’’ R & B hits such as Brown’s ‘‘The Popcorn’’ remained fairly popular during the 1970s, but new musical developments, evolving into new genres such as funk, soul, and disco, birthed new types of dances and social spaces for dance. Dances such as The Bump, Hustle, Freak, Bus Stop, and the Robot were introduced during the 1970s. While not as eponymous as the dances of the 1960s, these dances were national in scope and continued the momentum of social dance in the United States. The social spaces for dance, the clubs, were the launching pads for even more developments in African American music as club DJs began to do more than ‘‘spin records.’’ Although its history goes back to the early 1970s, hip hop was a dominant dance phenomenon of the 1980s and 1990s. As a conglomerate of urban musical, visual, and dance influences, hip hop culture and its dance derivatives further demonstrate the symbiotic relationships between music and dance. Breakdancing is one of the best-known dances associated with hip hop during the 1980s. It is an extremely acrobatic form that focuses attention on the performer. Therefore it is not as much a social dance as The Bump or Hustle. In breakdancing, break beats were provided by the DJ through various manipulations of sound samples. Sometimes the beats were prearranged on recordings or, at other times, realized in live club or street (outdoor) settings. Other dance styles associated with hip hop are The Wave, The Snake, The Centipede, Popping, and Locking. These dance styles often were incorporated into breakdance routines. Dance battles between crews (or dance teams) hearken back to cakewalk and tap dance contests and the improvisations of the breakdancer that recall the spontaneous creations of the jig dancer. Thus, hip hop cultural products perpetuate the indelible links that connect African American music and dance. Eponymous dances also survived through the 1980s and 1990s by way of the ‘‘Harlem Shuffle’’ and the ‘‘Electric Slide.’’ Through sampling and other innovations, the rap and DJing aspects of hip hop are influenced by a variety of past music and dance styles while at the same time influencing current ones, such as
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newer dances like the ‘‘Cha Cha Slide’’ (DJ Casper), ‘‘The Cupid Shuffle’’ (Cupid), and ‘‘Crank Dat Soulja Boy’’ (Soulja Boy). As hip hop culture continues to evolve, so too will the music and dances it inspires. See also
Disco; Funk; Hip Hop Culture; Ragtime; Soul Music; Turntablism. Further Reading
Emery, Lynne Fauley. Black Dance in the United States from 1619 to 1970. Palo Alto, CA: National Press, 1972. Haskins, James. Black Dance in America: A History through Its People. New York: Thomas Y. Crowell Books, 1990. Long, Richard A. The Black Tradition in American Dance. New York: Rizzoli, 1989. Pruter, Robert. Chicago Soul. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1991. Southern, Eileen. The Music of Black Americans: A History. 3rd ed. New York: W. W. Norton and Company, 1997. Southern, Eileen, and Josephine Wright. African-American Traditions in Song, Sermon, Tale and Dance. Westport, CT: Greenwood, 1990. Stearns, Marshall, and Jean Stearns. Jazz Dance: The Story of American Vernacular Dance. New York: Schirmer Books, 1979.
Further Listening Cataliotti, Robert. Every Tone a Testimony: An African American Aural History. Smithsonian Folkways audio compact disk 47003, 2001.
Further Viewing Dancing in the Light. Directed by Madison Davis Lacy. West Long Branch, NJ: The American Dance Festival and Educational Broadcasting Corporation, 2007. Alicia Payne
Dance Halls See
Popular Venues (Cafe Society, Nightclubs, and Dance Halls).
Davis, Miles (1926–1991) Jazz trumpeter and composer Miles Davis ranks among the most innovative jazz artists of all time. Born Miles Dewey Davis III in 1926 in Alton, Illinois, he stood at the helm of many stylistic developments in jazz from the 1950s through the 1980s. Davis entered the jazz scene in the mid-1940s as a freelance sideman with artists such as Benny Carter and Charles Mingus. He eventually secured a long-running position with the bebop-pioneering Charlie Parker quintet of the late 1940s. Also during that time he was a part of collaborations with other artists that included Gerry Mulligan and Gil Evans, which resulted in what is
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Miles Davis was always at the cutting edge of modern jazz. His extraordinary trumpet improvisations and fine ensemble work pushed boundaries of rhythm, harmony, and melody and continuously posed musical challenges that suggested future paths for jazz. (AP/Wide World Photos)
now known as ‘‘cool jazz’’ and represented on Birth of the Cool (1950). Davis continued to record bop albums with such notables as Horace Silver, John Coltrane, and Sonny Rollins through the 1950s, but he grew weary of the bop style and turned to another approach, ‘‘modal jazz,’’ in the late 1950s. Representative recordings include Milestones (1958) and feature Davis’s trademark phrasing and rhythmic placement, which stood in contrast to the solo styles of bebop players. Kind of Blue (1959), which featured lush string accompaniments and awe-inspiring arrangements was also conceived in the modal style. It is considered his magnum opus and one of the most significant jazz recordings ever made. Compositions from this era that are now standard are ‘‘So What’’ and ‘‘Freddie Freeloader.’’ As Davis continued to mature as a soloist and composer, his approach to writing shifted slightly in the mid-1960s to include freer forms and is represented on albums such as E.S.P. (1965) and Nefertiti (1967). The end of the 1960s prompted yet another stylistic shift for Davis, ‘‘fusion.’’ Considered a mixture of jazz, rock, and pop musical elements, Davis was the leader in its development in the late 1960s and 1970s. In A Silent Way and Bitches Brew, both
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from 1969, are considered classic works in that style. His innovative and exploratory practices continued through the 1980s, as he utilized the musical and technological advancements of the day. His collaborations during those years featured artists such as George Duke and Marcus Miller and resulted in more classic recordings like Tutu (1986). See also
Coltrane, John; Jazz; Rollins, Sonny. Further Reading
Davis, Miles, with Quincy Troupe. Miles: The Autobiography. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1989.
Further Listening Davis, Miles. Birth of the Cool. Capitol Jazz CDP 7 92862 2, 1989. Reissue. Davis, Miles. Kind of Blue. Columbia CK 64935, 1997. Reissue. Davis, Miles. Sketches of Spain. Columbia CK 65142, 1997. Reissue. Horace J. Maxile, Jr.
Davis, Rev. Gary (1896–1972) Rev. Gary Davis’s musicianship, particularly his skill at fingerpicking and his ability to play unusual chord patterns (a trait attributed by Davis to a broken wrist that was improperly set), his powerful singing, and a repertoire that included blues, gospel, and string band tunes, mark him as one of the most important figures in African American folk music. He was also known as ‘‘Blind Reverend Gary Davis’’ and ‘‘Blind Gary.’’ Davis was born in 1896 near the towns of Laurens and Clinton in the upstate area of South Carolina. He lost most of his sight at, or shortly after, birth and was blind by adulthood. Despite his disability, Davis taught himself guitar, harmonica, and banjo, and by the age of 10 he was performing for local dances and church services. He soon moved to Greenville, South Carolina, and became a part of the local string-band scene. In 1914, Davis moved to Spartanburg to attend the South Carolina Institution for the Deaf and Blind. Although he left the school after a few months, he continued to live and play music in the Greenville-Spartanburg area for the next decade and traveled throughout the Carolinas and Tennessee, carrying with him the fast fingerpicking style of the Piedmont blues guitarists. Davis apparently learned this style from the string-band players upstate and passed it on himself to younger players in his part-time work as a music teacher. By 1926, Davis had moved to Durham, North Carolina, where he performed on the streets near the tobacco warehouses and took on a new student, Fulton Allen, who would gain fame as Blind Boy Fuller. Davis and Fuller, along with washboard player George Washington (also known as ‘‘Bull City Red’’), were recruited by J. B. Long, a manager of a local discount store and an amateur
Davis, Sammy, Jr. | 275 talent scout, to travel to New York to record for the ARC label. In July 1935, Davis recorded more than a dozen songs for ARC, a mix of blues and gospel numbers. Both Davis’s and Fuller’s recordings exhibit the ragtime influence and fingerpicking styles typical of Piedmont blues. Davis refused to return to New York with Long in the late 1930s for a second recording session, claiming that Long cheated him out of full payment for the first. By this time Davis had become an ordained minister and played blues less and less, choosing instead to concentrate on gospel. In the early 1940s, Davis and his second wife moved to New York, and in 1945, Davis returned to the recording studio. From the mid-1940s until his death in 1972, Davis continued to record and perform, primarily playing gospel and religious songs. (Davis did occasionally perform and record secular blues numbers, notably a 1957 recording for folklorist Kenneth Goldstein.) Beginning in the late 1950s, Davis became a popular figure in the growing folk music revival for his skill and versatility as well as the authenticity of his music. He performed at the Newport Folk Festival; recorded a live album; recorded studio albums for Folkways, Vanguard, and Transatlantic; toured England and the United States; and inspired a number of white folk and rock guitarists, including members of Jefferson Airplane, the Grateful Dead, and Peter, Paul, and Mary. Further Reading Bastin, Bruce. Red River Blues: The Blues Tradition in the Southeast. Urbana, IL: University of Chicago Press, 1995. Grossman, Stefan. Rev. Gary Davis: Blues Guitar. New York: Oak Publications, 1974. Tilling, Robert, ed. Oh, What a Beautiful City: A Tribute to Rev. Gary Davis. Channel Islands, UK: Paul Mill Press, 1992. Stephen Criswell
Davis, Sammy, Jr. (1925–1990) Entertainer Sammy Davis, Jr. was born on December 8, 1925, in New York, New York. He came from a show business family: his father was the lead dancer in Will Mastin’s vaudeville touring show, Holiday in Dixieland, and his mother was the lead chorus girl. He began touring with the troupe before he was three years old, at first as a kind of human prop, then as a performer. When the troupe was reduced from 12 performers to 3, he toured with the trio (1930–1948), featured as ‘‘Little Sammy’’ with Mastin (his adopted uncle) and his father, Sammy, Sr. After the two older men retired, he continued his career as a solo entertainer. Beginning in 1933 he appeared in numerous film musicals, including Rufus Jones for President (1933), Porgy and Bess (1959), Golden Boy (1964), A Man Called Adam (1966), Sweet Charity (1968), and One More Time (1970), among others. He played leading roles in Broadway musicals, among them Mr. Wonderful (1956) and Golden Boy (1964). He toured widely on the nightclub circuit in the United States and abroad, sang on radio and on numerous television shows and
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special programs, and recorded extensively. In 1965 he published an autobiography, Yes, I Can. Although best known as a singer, he also played instruments, particularly the vibraharp and drums. His most popular songs were ‘‘What Kind of Fool Am I?’’ (1962) and ‘‘Candy Man’’ (1969). He was known as a member of the ‘‘Rat Pack,’’ a group of entertainers headed by Frank Sinatra, who often performed together in Las Vegas, primarily in the 1960s. He appeared on various television shows in the 1970s and 1980s and became an accomplished amateur photographer. He died on May 16, 1990, of throat cancer. Further Reading Davis, Sammy, Jr., with Burt Boyar, and Jane Boyar. Sammy: An Autobiography. New York: Farrar, Straus, and Giroux, 2000. Haygood, Will. In Black and White: The Life of Sammy Davis, Jr. New York: Knopf, 2003. Eileen Southern
Dawson, William Levi (1899–1990) Composer and college professor William Levi Dawson was born September 26, 1899, in Anniston, Alabama. He obtained his musical education at Tuskegee Institute in Alabama (1914–1921), which he entered when he was 13 years old, and where he played in the band and orchestra, was music librarian, and traveled with the Institute Singers for five years. He also studied at Washburn College in Topeka, Kansas (1921–1922); at the Homer Institute of Fine Arts in Kansas City, Missouri (bachelor’s degree in music, 1925); at the American Conservatory of Music in Chicago, Illinois (master of music degree, 1927); and at the Eastman School of Music in Rochester, New York. He also studied privately with Carl Busch. In the summer of 1921 he sang tenor and played trombone with the Red-path Chautauqua. During his stay in Chicago he played first trombone with the Chicago Civic Symphony Orchestra. His teaching career included tenures as director of music at Kansas Vocational College in Topeka (1921–1922), at Lincoln High School in Kansas City (1922–1927), and at Tuskegee Institute (1931–1956). Under his leadership the Tuskegee Choir gained international renown. In 1956 he was sent by the U.S. Department of State to conduct choral groups in Spain; thereafter he toured widely in the United States and abroad as a guest conductor of choruses and orchestras. He began to compose when he was 16 years old and thereafter wrote continuously in a variety of forms. His best-known compositions were his numerous spiritual arrangements, such as ‘‘King Jesus Is a-Listening,’’ ‘‘Talk about a Child,’’ and ‘‘Jesus Walked This Lonesome Valley’’; Negro Folk Symphony (1934); Negro Work-song for Orchestra; Trio in A for violin, cello, piano; Sonata in A for violin and piano; and a Scherzo for orchestra. His musical style was neoromantic with use of Negro folk elements. After touring in West Africa in 1952, he revised his Negro Folk Symphony, infusing it with African rhythms and
Detroit, Michigan | 277 idioms. His honors included Wanamaker Awards (1930, 1931), an honorary doctorate from Tuskegee (1955), an Alumni Achievement Award from the University of Missouri at Kansas City (1963), election to the Alabama Arts Hall of Fame (1975), and an American Choral Directors Association Award (1975). In 1989, he was inducted into the Alabama Music Hall of Fame for the Lifework Award for Non-Performing Achievement. Later that year, the Tuskegee University Board of Trustees awarded him the Board of Trustees Distinguished Service Award. His 90th birthday celebration was held at The Tuskegee University Chapel in September 1989. He died on May 2, 1990, in Montgomery, Alabama. See also Concert Music—Composers and Repertoire; Concert Music—Conductors and Performers. Eileen Southern
Delta Blues/Country Blues See
Blues.
Detroit, Michigan The musical life of Detroit is often situated in the significance and influence of Motown Records, but its history dates back to the antebellum when the city became one of the many portals allowing escaping slaves to enter the freedom of Canada. During the 1840s and 1850s, the city’s population exploded and became home to a large community of freed blacks and abolitionists and home of the second-oldest African American church in America, Second Baptist Church, which was founded by freed slaves in 1836. As with many black churches of the time, Second Baptist served as the center of black life in the city and was an important entity in the Underground Railroad movement. Spirituals, hymns, and the secular traditions cultivated in the South became part of the music-making of Detroit’s early black community. But the black population of the city grew slowly in the interim years between the Civil War and World War I. Those African Americans who lived there primarily resided on the city’s east side in an area that became known as Black Bottom. With the population shifts associated with the Great Migration, tensions regarding the expansion of the blacks into other areas of the city grew. The black middle class grew as small businesses such as restaurants and boardinghouses serving Southern migrants blossomed. Just as the business grew, so too did the musical life of the black community. In the 19th century, musicians in Detroit were influenced by the growing popularity of ragtime, brass bands, and society bands. The city was home to two noteworthy ragtime composers—Fred S. Stone and Harry P. Guy. Stone was a member of Finney’s Orchestra, the leading society band in the city. The band
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was lead by violinist Theodore Finney and thought to be one of the earliest professional bands to play ragtime in the country. The aggregation played a repertory that consisted of light classical works, waltzes, and ragtime. When Finney died in 1899, Stone became the leader of the band. John W. ‘‘Jack’’ Johnson led one of the most influential brass bands in the city. Organized in 1890, the Johnson Cornet Band served as a training ground for many young musicians including Fred Stone. The best-known black society band was led by Leroy Smith, who headed a 16-piece band at the socially exclusive Pier Ballroom from 1914 to 1919. Smith’s aggregation would be one of many that would attempt to navigate the narrowing boundary of society dance music and early jazz in the early 20th century. Hastings Street, an area that initially served the Jewish community, had become the center of the African American business district by the early 1920s. A number of theaters that lined the street were part of the black vaudeville circuit, which was the Theater Owners’ Booking Association (T.O.B.A.). Of the nine theaters peppering Hastings Street, only one theater was black owned—the Vaudette. Owned by Edward B. Dudley, a former musician who had played with W. C. Handy and traveled with a number of minstrel troupes, the Vaudette hosted three shows a night that featured the best talent the circuit had to offer. Although smaller than some of the other theaters, the Vaudette featured a five-piece pit band led by Willie Tyler and Clarence Lee and featuring some of the best musicians in the city. When Dudley became manager of the Koppin Theater in 1921, that theater replaced the Vaudette as the city’s main T.O.B.A. theater. Located on the Southern boundary of ‘‘Paradise Valley’’—the entertainment center of the Black Bottom—the Koppin served as the center of the vaudeville blues in Detroit. The Koppin hosted Maime Smith, Bessie Smith, Ma Rainey, and many of the blues women who popularized the blues on an unprecedented level in the 1920s. It hosted local musicians who were accompanied by a pit band, as well as other types of entertainment, including black musicals like Shuffle Along and James P. Johnson’s Runnin’ Wild, along with movies and jazz performances. As the popularity of talking movies increased and the Great Depression brought about the decline of the vaudeville blues, the Koppin, like other theaters, struggled to adjust to the changes, but it could not withstand the maelstrom and closed in 1931. Restaurants and cabarets were significant in disseminating the city’s burgeoning jazz scene. Smaller bands generally played these locations, while larger society bands played the ballrooms. The city was home to a number of bands that contributed to the development of big band jazz, including McKinney’s Cotton Pickers and Jean Goldkette’s Orchestra, which featured some of the leading white players of the day. By the 1930s Paradise Valley became the center of Detroit’s jazz scene.
Jazz Music The jazz scene in Detroit was defined by a confluence of activities and institutions. Because of its history with the T.O.B.A., the city remained an important
Detroit, Michigan | 279 artery of the Midwest. Many notable bands trekked through the city playing one-nighters, and a number of native-grown bands also formed the scene. The dance halls; black and tan clubs, like Club Plantation; taxi-dance ballrooms, where patrons paid $0.10 for a dance with a female teacher of Paradise Valley; and some peripheral areas all contributed to the growing popularity of swing in the city. Howard Bunts led the only band in Detroit that rivaled the popularity and influence of McKinney’s Cotton Pickers. Twice a month his band battled some of the top bands, including those of Duke Ellington, Fletcher Henderson, and Louis Armstrong. Big bands and combos proliferated throughout the 1930s and 1940s drawing talent from other cities as well as Detroit’s public school system, which was notable for its advancement of music education. While a number of factors contributed to Detroit’s growing population of notable and influential jazz musicians, no agent was as important as high schools like Cass Technical and Miller High School in setting a high standard for the training of musicians. Northwestern and Northern also provided basic music education to its students, but Cass Tech and Miller High were significant in producing generation after generation of musicians who advanced jazz in Detroit and beyond. In the late 1940s, modern jazz began to redefine the city’s jazz scene and Paradise Valley began what would be a slow decline in importance. By the 1950s, Paradise Valley would no longer serve as the central district for black entertainment as blacks expanded northward and westward. Nightclubs such as the Bluebird, Twenty Grand, Klein’s, and an artist collective called The World Stage, provided Detroit modernists with the artistic space to develop their distinct style and approaches that ranged from bebop to hard bop, cool jazz, and avant-garde or free jazz. While the city’s jazz history boasts a large number of regional players who remained a part of the cityscape, an equally large number of musicians found success in New York and abroad. These include, but are not limited to, pianists Tommy Flanagan, Terry Pollard, Alice Coltrane, and Geri Allen; trumpeters Howard McGhee, Marcus Belgrave, and Thad Jones; saxophonists Pepper Adams, Wardell Gray, Joe Henderson, and Yusef Lateef; bassists Paul Chambers and J. C. Heard; violinist Regina Carter; guitarist Kenny Burrell; and drummer Elvin Jones.
Gospel Music The population explosion of the years surrounding World War I and World War II resulted in significant changes in the sacred lives of black Detroiters and newly arrived migrants. Although many congregations contributed to the development of gospel music in the city, the Apostolic and Holiness denomination proved to be the most influential. Because of Chicago’s proximity to the city, many early performers of the genre migrated between the two cities. But in the years following World War II, a number of significant figures in the development of the postwar gospel tradition emerged. Of these individuals the most significant were Rev. C. L. Franklin, Anna Broy Crockett Ford, and Mattie Moss Clark. Following several pasturing assignments in Memphis and Buffalo, New York, Clarence
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LaVaughn Franklin (1915–1984) migrated to Detroit, where he became pastor of the Bethlehem Baptist Church. For more than 35 years Franklin’s church would serve as a major promoter of gospel music in the city and produce one of the most influential singers of the 20th century—his daughter Aretha. While Franklin was a noteworthy vocalist, it was his preaching that cemented his place in the history of the African American worship life. He recorded, in his lifetime, more than 60 of his sermons. His home became a regular meeting place for gospel singers and musicians who transversed the city. Anna Broy Crockett Ford and Mattie Moss Clark’s influence on Detroit’s gospel scene reflected the growing influence of the Church of God in Christ (COGIC) in the city. Crockett (1916– ) migrated to the city in 1943 and was identified quickly as a strong vocalist. But her contribution to the gospel scene was in her ability to organize gospel groups. In 1945, she organized a gospel choir at the church of Bishop John Seth Bailey. Four years later, prompted by the success of this choir, she organized the Music Department of the national COGIC. Her duties later expanded to her serving as the music director for the Women’s International Convention of COGIC. While the National Baptist Convention had held a place of importance in introducing new gospel artists in the first half of the 20th century, the COGIC denomination became the principle disseminator of new styles and artist as the century progressed. Mattie Moss Clark (1928–1994) became an important agent in the promotion of gospel both in the COGIC denomination and in Detroit. Moss migrated to the city from Selma with a sister and became a member of the church pastored by John Seth Bailey, then known as the Bailey Temple Church of God in Christ. She had extraordinary skill as a composer, organist, and director. In addition to directing the choir at the Bailey Temple, she was appointed as director of music of the Southwest Michigan Jurisdiction (diocese) of COGIC and later as president and director of the music department of COGIC, International. Clark’s importance to Detroit’s gospel scene and to gospel music in general came through her directorship of the Midnight Musicals held at COGIC’s annual convention. These were nondenominational showcases for new gospel talent that Clark deemed noteworthy. A number of singers came to prominence through these vehicle. They include Andrae and Sandra Crouch, the Hawkins Family (Edwin, Walker, and Tramaine), Keith Pringle, Donald Vails, and Vanessa Bell Armstrong, among others. She was pivotal to the advancement of the mass gospel choir and became the first artist to record with these aggregations in the late 1950s. Her daughters, known as the Clark Sisters, became gospel superstars in the 1970s. Elbernita (‘‘Twinkie’’), Jackie, Denise, Dorinda, and Karen with their strong, jazz-influenced vocals transformed gospel music during the 1970s and 1980s with hit songs like ‘‘You Brought the Sunshine,’’ ‘‘I’m looking for a Miracle,’’ and ‘‘Is My Living in Vain,’’ which appealed not only to gospel audiences but also to secular radio. In addition to the Clark Sisters, Detroit was home to a number of influential groups, including the Meditations, Harold Smith, and the Majestics and the Winans Family. The Mediations personified gospel music in Detroit from 1953 to 1959. Founded by Earnestine Rundless in 1947 the group included Della
Detroit, Michigan | 281 Reese (1931– ), Lillian Mitchell, and Marie Waters. Reese, who went on to have a successful career in pop music, was the most experienced, having sung with choirs throughout the city as early as age six and touring with Mahalia Jackson during the summers from 1945 to 1949. Despite numerous personnel changes and transitions in style, the Mediations were still one of the city’s premier female gospel groups and their influence can be heard in the sound produced by a number of Motown’s groups. Harold Eugene Smith (1934–1993) was a protegee of Mattie Moss Clark and in 1963 formed the Majestics, a 50-voice gospel choir. The group performed throughout the area and was noted for their presentation of gospel music dramas, but Smith’s impact came when he and James Cleveland formed the Gospel Music Workshop of America in 1968, which became important in the showcasing of new gospel music. Rev. Charles H. Nicks, Jr. (1941–1988), organist for the group and a founding member of the Gospel Music Workshop, became noteworthy in his own right. He developed an organ style that influenced a generation of players and that is commonly identified with gospel even in the 21st century. During the 1950s, a number of church choirs and ministers elevated Detroit to one of the leading centers for the performance and advancement of the music. Rev. James L. Lofton’s Church of Our Prayer Choir drew weekly audiences to their live broadcasts from the Paradise Theater. Rev. Charles A. Craig, Lofton’s minister of music, later established the Voice of Tabernacle, which was co-directed by James Cleveland and went on to record a number of Cleveland’s biggest hits. In the ensuing decades of the late 20th century, Detroit emerged as one of the leading cities in gospel music. During the 1980s, it became known as the ‘‘Gospel Music Capital of the World’’ producing more influential gospel artist than any other spatial location. Its reputation was not only solidified by the roster of artists who called the city home, but also by the recording industry that developed there. One of the first gospel labels within the city was House of Beauty Records (HOB Records), which was founded by Carmen Murphy in 1959. Her recordings of the Voices of Tabernacle helped establish the group as one of the most versatile choirs in the country. In 1969, Armen Boladian launched the all-gospel label Sound of Gospel (SOG), which was significant in recording a number of regional acts, including Mattie Moss Clark, Thomas A. Dorsey, Minister Thomas Whitfield, and the Whitfield Company and the Clark Sisters. Subsequent years would bring Crystal Rose Records, started in 1994, and boasting a roster that included the Clark Sisters, Thomas Whitfield, Rickey Dillard, and Donald Lawrence and the Tri-City Singers and a host of small labels that catered to regional artists. Detroit’s exceptional roster of artists was significant in defining contemporary and traditional gospel style throughout the last 30 years. The Rance Allen Group, formed in the 1960s, consists of Rance Allen and brothers Steve and Thomas. They were one of the earliest groups to integrate elements of R & B, jazz, and soul into their gospel performances. They also are considered pioneers in the contemporary gospel movement. The Winans family name became synonymous with gospel music in the 1980s and 1990s. Led by gospel singers David and Delores Winans, the family consists
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of Daniel; BeBe and CeCe (Benjamin and Priscilla); Marvin, Carvin, Michael, and Ronald (The Winans); Angie and Debbie (who launched their own careers in the 1990s); and Vicki, former wife of Marvin. The family’s influence on the genre was established first through the parents, commonly known as Mom and Pop Winans, who met while singing in the Lucille Lemon Choir directed by James Cleveland. Brothers Marvin, Carvin, Michael, and Ronald performed throughout the city in a modern quartet style before being discovered by Andrae Crouch and signed to a record deal. Their music found favor with both sacred and secular audiences, especially 1989’s ‘‘It’s Time,’’ which featured a guest rap from new jack swing creator and artist Teddy Riley. Siblings BeBe and CeCe furthered the evolution of gospel music with a style that fused R & B, gospel, and hip hop. After a short stint as singers on the Christian program the PTL Club, the duo launched into a successful recording career that included hit songs like ‘‘Lord Lift Us Up Where We Belong,’’ ‘‘Heaven,’’ and ‘‘Addicted Love,’’ among others. The next generation of Winans have also continued in gospel music. Marvin Winans, Jr., Carvin Winans, Jr., Michael Winans, Jr., and Juan Winans (son of Carvin, Sr.) formed Winans Phase 2 in 1988. Marvin Jr. also started his own production company and has produced tracks on his mother Vicki’s albums. Thomas Whitfield (1954–1992) commonly known as ‘‘The Maestro’’ was best known for his innovative arrangements and compositions as well as his prowess as an organist and pianist. He produced albums for a number of prominent performers, including Vanessa Bell Armstrong, Yolanda Adams, Keith Pringle, and others. Fred Hammond (1960– ) began his career singing in the youth choir. He later played bass for the Winans and Thomas Whitfield. He was also a founding member of Commissioned, a group formed in 1982 by Hammond, Michael Brooks, Mitchell Jones, Karl Reid, Keith Staton, and Michael Williams. The group’s strong vocal harmonies, and style which drew from funk, soul, and traditional gospel set the standard for contemporary male groups in the 1980s and 1990s. Hammond departed the group in the early 1990s to form Radical for Christ (RFC), a group that defined a new era of urban praise music. With Hammond as one of the main songwriters and producers, the group’s popularity grew with songs like ‘‘Blessed,’’ ‘‘No Weapon,’’ ‘‘All Things are Working’’ and many others. Although RFC’s sound expanded definitions of ‘‘contemporary’’ gospel, they still produced music that found a place in the worship life of most churches. Later incarnations of Commissioned would yield a number of influential soloists, including Marvin Sapp, whose 2008 single ‘‘Never Would Have Made It,’’ from the album Thirsty, dominated gospel and urban contemporary radio. The single garnered him eight Stellar Awards and is considered the bestselling album of his solo career and the top-selling gospel album of 2008. It peaked at number 14 on the Billboard’s Hot R & B/Hip Hop Songs, number one on Billboard’s Hot Gospel Songs chart, and number one on Billboard’s Top Gospel Albums. It has been certified gold by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) due to the album selling more than 500,000 copies. Byron Cage, known in gospel circles as the ‘‘Prince of Praise,’’ began his career singing background vocals for Commissioned and BeBe Winans. In the
Detroit, Michigan | 283 mid-1980s, he formed a nine-member group called Purpose, with which he has recorded three albums to date. His 2004 single, ‘‘The Presence of the Lord Is Here,’’ became a praise anthem in churches across the country and garnered him four Stellar Awards. Producers PAJAM, which consists of James Moss (J Moss), Paul D. Allen, and Walter Kearney, have increased Detroit’s visibility with their cutting-edge, hip hop–influenced production. Gospel in its traditional and contemporary forms continues to define Detroit’s musical history and daily draws audiences, aspiring artists, and producers to its churches and concerts.
Blues The blues, much like gospel, in Detroit was affected by its closeness to Chicago. Because there was a lack of a strong recording scene, many Detroit blues musicians cycled between the two cities. But the city was home to a number of small regional labels that recorded local musicians, including Staff/Dessa, Fortune Records, and JVB/Gone/Von/Viceroy Records, a family of labels that were pioneering in their recordings of Detroit vocal and R & B groups. But these labels’ importance was scarcely known outside of the region as they all encountered national distribution of their product. Despite this, these independent labels did define one aspect of a thriving blues scene in the city. While guitarist John Lee Hooker is looked upon as being the leading and most influential purveyor of the blues in Detroit, a distinct style of piano blues and jump blues tradition reminiscent of Louis Jordan developed there as well. Big Maceo is one of the most famous purveyors of this rollicking, barrelhouse style of piano. His 1945 hit ‘‘Chicago Breakdown’’ made him one of the early influential pianists in the post–World War II Chicago blues scene. But health problems compromised his playing and his late recordings lacked the zeal of his early works. Although this style was associated early with the rent party culture of the city, pianists like Count Detroit (born Bob White) and Boogie-Woogie Red brought it to the nightclubs and recording studios of Detroit and Chicago. John Lee Hooker is perhaps the most famous purveyor of blues to be associated with the city of Detroit. A migrant to the city, Hooker created a style that was a confluence of rural blues and urban electric blues traditions. He was one of the few Detroit-based blues artists to build his reputation on recordings made in the city, recording with Sensation Records. His first session produced ‘‘Boogie Chillen’’ a record that was number one on the R & B charts in early 1949. Between 1948 and 1956, Hooker recorded more than 200 titles and all but a few were recorded in Detroit. Although not welcomed in some of the clubs that catered to R & B audiences, Hooker found an audience in the emerging folk music scene. In the 1960s, his style became more rock oriented and he became an inspiration for white rock ’n’ roll bands. In 1970, he moved to San Francisco where he continued to mentor and influence a generation of blues performers. While Hooker may not have purveyed a distinct style of Detroit blues, he was influential to a number of other Detroit blues performers. Other figures that shaped the scene were Washboard Willie, guitarists Bo Bo Jenkins, Baby Boy
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Warren, and Eddie Burns, as well as singers Alberta Adams and Olive Brown. The bands of Todd Rhodes, King Porter, T. J. Fowler, and Paul Williams personified the jump blues tradition, which served as an antecedent of rhythm and blues bands of the late 1950s and early 1960s.
Rhythm and Blues As rhythm and blues supplanted urban blues traditions as one of the leading form of black popular music, new venues highlighting the style emerged. Tantamount to the development of Detroit’s R & B scene were the Flame and the Fox and Broadway Capitol Theaters. The Flame was an upscale nightclub that presented national acts and gave local talent a platform. The club became well known for it house band, which backed all artists, and its exceptional rotation of talent, which included at times Dinah Washington, LaVern Baker, Wynonie Harris, and Detroiters Della Reese and Jackie Wilson, both of which crossed over to R & B from gospel. Wilson would go on to become one of the leading voices in late 1950s R & B. Commonly known as ‘‘Mr. Entertainment,’’ Jackie Wilson transformed the idiom of R & B through his dynamic dance moves and vocals. His music career started with several brief stints with a number of vocal groups. In 1957 he launched his solo career and signed with Brunswick Records. A number of his early singles, including ‘‘Reet Petite,’’ ‘‘Lonely Teardrops,’’ and ‘‘To Be Loved,’’ were written by Berry Gordy, Jr. The two would later part ways over royalty disputes, but Wilson would continue to have success throughout the early 1960s. His performances were memorable and influenced a generation of performers, including Michael Jackson, who adopted his emotional singing style and energetic dance style. But Wilson’s career stalled in the mid-1960s. Although he had a few hits in the late 1960s, including ‘‘(Your Love Keeps Lifting Me) Higher and Higher,’’ he never could achieve the success he had in the late 1950s and early 1960s. In 1975, during a performance at a Dick Clark Show in New Jersey, Wilson suffered a heart attack and fell head first onto the stage. The fall left him comatose and in a vegetative state for more than eight years until he died at age 49 in 1984. After parting with Wilson, Berry Gordy went on to found Motown Records, the vehicle that would establish Detroit’s iconic place in popular music history. Motown’s importance to the Detroit music scene would be twofold: it would provide Detroit musicians with a recording company that could overcome the problems of national distribution, thus guarantee maximum exposure; and it would transform readings of black popular music in the mainstream and create music that would capture the consciousness of a generation. The Motown Sound was centered on the confluence of jazz and R & B musicians that had played in a number of bands throughout the city. The house band, later known as the Funk Brothers, exposed their innovative approaches to musical performance with songs written by Holland-Dozier-Holland and Smokey Robinson further galvanizing popular music during the early 1960s. In addition to capitalizing on the vast influx of instrumentalists Detroit had to offer, Gordy
Detroit, Michigan | 285 drew from Detroit’s rich circle of vocalists. The Four Tops, Temptations, Supremes, Mary Wells, and others were all young singers groomed in Detroit’s churches, high schools, street corners, and talent shows. Although Gordy would move his operations to Los Angeles in 1972, the original Motown studio, known as Hitsville U.S.A. still draws musicians and visitors inspired by the music created there. In subsequent years Detroit’s musical scene has continued to grow. Techno music and a strong hip hop scene, which produced Producer J Dilla and Eminem continue to situate the city as important to popular music. Its theater district is second only to New York in size, consisting of 18 professional theaters and two outdoor music venues, thus providing Detroiters with the means to hear and purvey every genre of music imaginable. See also Cleveland, James; Franklin, Aretha; Gordy, Berry; Gospel Music; Hip Hop Culture; Hooker, John Lee; Motown Sound; Robinson, Smokey; Supremes, The; Techno; Theater Owners’ Booking Association (T.O.B.A.); Winans Family, The. Further Reading Bjorn, Lars, and Jim Gallert. Before Motown: A History of Jazz in Detroit, 1920–1960. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2001. Boyer, Horace Clarence. The Golden Age of Gospel Music. Urbana and Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 2000. Detroit Gospel.com. ‘‘Survey of Detroit Gospel Scene.’’ www.DetroitGospel.com (accessed 2009). Gioia, Ted. Delta Blues: The Life and Times of the Mississippi Masters that Revolutionized American Music. New York: W.W. Norton and Company, 2008. ‘‘History of Detroit Music.’’ www.detroitmusichistory.com (accessed 2009). ‘‘Legends of Detroit Gospel Virtual Tour.’’ http://museum.msu.edu/museum/tes/ gospel/aframgospel.htm (accessed 2009). Mix Tape Detroit. www.mixtapedetroit.com (accessed 2009). Obrecht, Jas. Rollin’ and Tumblin’: The Postwar Blues Guitarists. San Francisco: Miller Freeman Books, 2000. Pollard, Deborah Smith. When the Church Becomes Your Party: Contemporary Gospel Music. Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 2008.
Further Listening Armstrong, Vanessa Bell. The Best of Vanessa Bell Armstrong. Verity, 1999. Burrell, Kenny. Introducing Kenny Burrell: The First Blue Note Sessions. Blue Note, 2000. Burrell, Kenny. Kenny Burrell and John Coltrane. OJC, 1958. Burrell, Kenny. Verve Jazz Masters 45. Polygram Records, 1995. Cage, Byron. Invitation to Worship. Gospocentric, 2005. Cage, Byron. Live at the Apollo: The Proclamation. Gospocentric, 2007. Cage, Byron. Live at New Birth Cathedral. Gospocentric, 2003. Cage, Byron. Transparent in Your Presence. Atlantic International, 1996.
286 | Detroit Symphony Chambers, Paul. Bass on Top. Blue Note, 1957. The Clark Sisters. Is My Living in Vain? Sony, 1995. The Clark Sisters. Live: One Last Time. EMI Gospel, 2007. The Clark Sisters. You Brought the Sunshine. Sounds of Gospel, 2002. Cleveland, James. James Cleveland Sings with World’s Greatest Choirs. Savoy, 1995. Coltrane, Alice. Alice Coltrane: The Impulse Story. Impulse, 2006. Coltrane, Alice. Journey in Satchidananda. GRP Records, 1970. Coltrane, Alice. Universal Consciousness. UMVD Label, 1971. Commissioned. The Best of Commissioned. Verity, 1999. Commissioned. Commissioned Reunion: Live. Verity, 2001. Franklin, Rev. C. L. Dry Bones in the Valley/The Gold Calf. Atlantic International, 2008. Franklin, Rev. C. L. The Preacher That Got Drunk/Moses at the Red Sea. Atlantic International, 2008. Franklin, Rev. C. L. Story of Job/Study to Show Thyself. Atlantic International, 2008. Hitsville U.S.A., Vol. 1: The Motown Singles Collection 1959–1971. Motown, 1992. Hooker, John Lee. ‘‘The Definitive Collection. Hip-O Records, 2006. Jones, Thad. Detroit-New York Junction. Blue Notes, 2007. Jones, Thad. The Magnificent Thad Jones. Blue Note, 2007. Lateef, Yusef. Detroit. Collectables, 2002. Lateef, Yusef. Eastern Sounds. Prestige, 1961. Lateef, Yusef. Jazz Mood. Savoy Jazz, 1957. Sapp, Marvin. Diary of a Psalmist. Verity, 2003. Sapp, Marvin. I Believe. Verity, 2002. Sapp, Marvin. Nothing Else Matters. Sony, 1999. Sapp, Marvin. Thirsty. Verity, 2007. Whitfield, Thomas. The Best of Thomas Whitfield. Verity, 1999. Wilson, Jackie. The Ultimate Jackie Wilson. Brunswick Records, 2006. Winans, BeBe, and CeCe Winans. BeBe and CeCe Winans: Greatest Hits. Capitol, 1996. The Winans. The Very Best of the Winans. Rhino/WEA, 2002. Winans, Vickie. Greatest Hits. Artemis Strategic, 2005. Winans, Vickie. Live in Detroit. Light Records, 1997. Winans, Vickie. Live in Detroit, Vol. 2. Compendia, 1999. Tammy L. Kernodle
Detroit Symphony See
Concert Music—Conductors and Performers.
Diddley, Bo (1928–2008) Born Otha Ellas Bates McDaniel in McComb, Mississippi, this most original of the first generation of rock ’n’ roll musicians and self-professed Muddy Waters fanatic was the author of a repertoire of classic songs that represent the earliest examples of rock music stemming from its R & B source material: ‘‘Bo Diddley,’’ ‘‘I’m a Man,’’ ‘‘Diddley Daddy,’’ ‘‘Pretty Thing,’’ ‘‘Who Do You Love?’’ ‘‘Hey Bo Diddley,’’ ‘‘Mona (I Need You Baby),’’ ‘‘Say Man,’’ and ‘‘Road Runner.’’ Famous for his distinctive sound and African-based ‘‘Bo Diddley beat’’ rhythmic pattern, as well as his trademark square guitar, he exerted considerable influence
Diddy | 287 on many American rock musicians during the 1950s and 1960s, including Jimi Hendrix, the Beatles, the Rolling Stones, and the Yardbirds. Diddley earned his place as a founding ‘‘Father of Rock ’n’ Roll’’ and received much of the credit due for his musical success. His legacy was enhanced considerably in the mid-1960s when cover versions of his songs were recorded by many American and English groups (especially by British blues revival rock groups): the Yardbirds covered ‘‘I’m a Man’’; the Rolling Stones revised ‘‘Mona’’; and the Animals redid ‘‘Bo Diddley.’’ In addition to covering Diddley’s songs, in 1964 the Animals recorded a tribute to him, ‘‘The Story of Bo Diddley.’’ The Bo Diddley beat has been used in many rock songs, including Buddy Holly’s ‘‘Not Fade Away,’’ Johnny Otis’s ‘‘Willie and the Hand Jive,’’ the Who’s ‘‘Magic Bus,’’ Bruce Springsteen’s ‘‘She’s the One,’’ U2’s ‘‘Desire,’’ and the Pretenders’ ‘‘Cuban Slide,’’ to name a few. Diddley continued to tour in the 1970s and 1980s, and in 1979 he opened concerts for the British punk group the Clash. Inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1987, Diddley, still performing, writing, and recording in the 1990s and the new century, reached younger blues musicians with his rhythmic and blues-based style, as is apparent in the music of George Thorogood. Diddley received the Rhythm & Blues Foundation Lifetime Achievement Award and, in 1998, the Grammy (National Academy of Recording Arts & Sciences) Lifetime Achievement Award. He died in 2008 of heart failure. See also
Appropriation of African American Music; Rock ’n’ Roll; Soul Music. Further Reading
Diddley, Bo. www.bodiddley.com/. Light, Alan. ‘‘Bo Diddley.’’ Rolling Stone, June 26, 2008: 49–51. Wright, George R. Bo Diddley, Living Legend. Chessington, UK: Castle Communications. 1995. Lisa Scrivani-Tidd
Diddy (1969– ) A leading entrepreneur, record executive, and mogul hip hop and international popular culture icon, Sean Combs was born on November 4, 1969, in Harlem. Diddy (formerly known as ‘‘Puff Daddy,’’ ‘‘Puffy,’’ and ‘‘P. Diddy’’) essentially created his own success within the hip hop industry. After matriculating from the Mount St. Michael’s Academy in Bronx and while a student at Howard University studying business management, Diddy accepted an internship in New York City at MCA affiliate Uptown Records. Within a year, he moved from being an intern to serving as vice president of talent and marketing. His work directly affected the success of such artists as Mary J. Blige, Jodeci, Father MC, and Heavy D & the Boys. Diddy was directly responsible for signing a young street emcee by the name of Notorious B.I.G. to the label. Fired for taking too many risks in 1993, Diddy quickly started his own label, Bad Boy Records and
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Sean Puffy Combs hosting the MTV European Music Awards in 2002. (Photofest)
navigated a $15 million distribution deal with Arista. He quickly signed Notorious B.I.G. (who was also released from Uptown) and grew a list of innovative artists, such as Craig Mack, Total, 112, and Faith Evans. Ten years later, Bad Boy Worldwide Entertainment group boasted almost $300 million sales annually with 609 employees. Under the umbrella of Bad Boy Worldwide Entertainment are Notorious Entertainment, Sean John clothing, Justin Combs Music Publishing, Bad Boy Marketing, Bad Boy Productions, Daddy’s House Studios, Daddy’s House Social Programs, Bad Boy Technologies, Bad Boy Films, and Bad Boy Books. Diddy is also the owner of Justin’s Caribbean and Soul Food Restaurant in Atlanta. In 2007, Diddy entered a 50-50 share agreement with Diageo PLC to endorse the Ciroc premium vodka line. In 2008, he acquired the Enyce clothing line from Liz Claiborne while also starring in the ABC release of A Raisin in the Sun. In 1999, Diddy embarked on a revolutionary concept for reality television with his Making the Band Series. The first three years featured the composition and struggles of the group, O-Town, followed in 2002 by three seasons of Making the Band 2: Da Band. Next came three seasons of Making the Band 3: Danity Kane. The fourth installment, Making the Band 4: Day26 and Donnie
Disco | 289 King also featured three seasons with the third season presented in two parts. During the summer of 2009, Diddy launched two new shows simultaneously, Making His Band (a search for his next touring ensemble) and P. Diddy’s Starmaker, a reality show style competition for a recording contract with Bad Boy Records as the prize. Through all of his challenges with the law and numerous risky business decisions, Diddy has enjoyed unprecedented success in music publishing, fashion, television, film, and numerous other ventures. See also
Hip Hop Culture; Rap Music. Further Reading
Price, Emmett. Hip Hop Culture. Santa Barbara, CA: ABC-CLIO, 2006. Emmett G. Price III
Disco Disco was the predominant pop music genre from the mid-1970s to around 1980, when the music, and the controversial club culture that it was a part of, began to fade. Derived from the French words disc (record) and bibliotheque (library), the term discotheque was first coined as the name of an occupation-era French nightclub—Le Discotheque—that played banned American jazz records throughout World War II. The word soon gained common usage as a term for any club playing proscribed jazz and dance music records. Postwar discotheques became popular throughout Europe. The first widely known American discotheque was New York’s Peppermint Lounge, which opened in 1961 and which exploited the twist, a dance craze popularized by Chubby Checker, among others. The use of records as the primary source for dance music became, and remained, a characteristic of the disco phenomenon in the 1970s, although early prototypes also featured live performance and premixed tapes. The shortened version of the word became popular in the 1970s, both as a name for dance clubs and as an identifiable musical style developed for the dance club culture. Initially a DJ-dominated phenomenon that primarily drew from preexistent African American dance music, disco evolved into a producer-driven and stylistically homogeneous genre that favored black artists but was marketed primarily to white and, for a while, largely gay audiences. By the beginning of 1978, the cultural and social impact of the film Saturday Night Fever had created a predominantly heterosexual white mainstream audience for disco that accepted, and then eventually rejected with great hostility, the music and the culture that nurtured it. The disco phenomenon in the United States began in New York City in the early 1970s, when DJs at African American, Latino, and gay clubs played combinations of dance records that dovetailed into each other, creating an uninterrupted flow of music that could sustain a crowd’s energy for an extended period of time. These songs often were by Motown and soul artists such as Marvin Gaye, Sly and the Family Stone, and Stevie Wonder, and funk artists such as James Brown. Dance cuts by Philadelphia acts like the Spinners and the Stylistics were especially popular. At first, DJs would use multiple turntables to achieve a
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relatively seamless flow of songs. Eventually, however, DJs began to remix, or reedit, many songs on a single long reel-to-reel tape, adding sections of other songs and extended percussion breaks between songs or in the middle of a song, and in general creating an uninterrupted dance track that often built to repeated climaxes contrasted with periods of relative respite. The first DJ to formulate this practice was Tom [Thomas Jerome] Moulton (1940– ), who began mixing tapes for a Fire Island club in 1972; his influence was felt not only in subsequent disco music, but also in remixing techniques found in rap and hip hop. Moulton’s tools were primitive by contemporary standards: a small Wollensak reel-to-reel recorder, a razor blade, Scotch tape, and a variable speed turntable that allowed him to equalize slightly variant tempos from song to song. As his extended-play tapes became increasingly popular, Moulton, who previously had worked for several record companies, accidentally came upon the idea of recording a dance cut on a 12-inch 45-rpm single. Until that serendipitous moment, seven-inch was the standard. The first 12-inch single disc was an edit of Moment of Truth’s ‘‘So Much For Love,’’ which did not receive immediate commercial release in the longer format. It remained for either Walter Gibbons’s 1976 re-edit of Double Exposure’s ‘‘Ten Percent’’ or Jesse Green’s ‘‘Nice and Slow’’ to become the first commercially released 12-inch single: sources vary as to which was first, although both were released in 1976. After the successful experiments by Moulton and other DJs, the 12-inch single became the standard for disco recordings. Other influential DJs throughout the 1970s include Frankie Knuckles, David Mancuso, Francis Grasso, Neil Rasmussen, and Larry Levan, all of whom developed individual styles. Larry (Lawrence Philpot) Levan (1954–1992) was the African American DJ at the legendary New York disco Paradise Garage, which opened in 1976 and which, during its heyday, was highly regarded as a club that emphasized quality music. This reputation was largely due to Levan’s standards as a DJ. His fans often referred to his work in the heightened vocabulary of evangelism or churchgoing, and the Paradise Garage, due in large part to Levan’s presence and his devoted followers, retained an ethnically diverse crowd longer than many of the more restricted clubs that increasingly catered to a largely white and affluent crowd. Eventually, however, the Garage mirrored the clientele of its competitors. Levan started his DJ career at the Continental Baths, a well-known gay bathhouse and dance club. A legendary remixer, Levan was also revered as a master of creating, sustaining, and altering the moods on the dance floor over the course of an evening; this was the goal of all disco DJs, but few were as successful at it as Levan. He is further credited with popularizing dub technique, which evolved from the reggae practice of eliminating vocals from a recording and mixing in echo and reverb effects as well as restoring short sections of the vocal track. Levan, who was openly gay and known for having what has been called a diva personality, is widely known for his remix of Smokey Robinson’s ‘‘And I Don’t Love You,’’ among other creations. A longtime user of intravenous drugs, Levan died of endocarditis in 1992. As disco began to emerge as a specific and stylistically identifiable genre of dance music, fueled by the mixes of the DJs and the increasing popularity of the
Disco | 291 clubs that featured them, new songs were written expressly for commercial consumption as well as for use in the dance clubs. Harold Melvin and the Blue Notes’ ‘‘The Love I Lost’’ (1973) was one of the earliest recordings to mark the shift of disco into a marketable style of music as opposed to a DJ’s singular creation from preexistent recordings. The producers of these new songs quickly became integral to the further codification of the sound and, by the end of the 1970s, several were powerful not only within the genre but within the music industry at large. Neil Bogart of Casablanca Records was a remarkably talented and especially successful producer and marketer, as were Mel Cheren of West End Records, Marvin Schlacter of Prelude Records, and Joe, Ken, and Stan Cayre of Salsoul Records. Musically, disco as a distinct and identifiable musical style was rooted in the soul and funk of the late 1960s, the music that initially provided the dance cuts mixed by the DJs. Its primary musical characteristics include a prominent vocal solo, often heavily reverberated; a steady ‘‘four on the floor’’ beat throughout, in which the bass, or kick, drum equally emphasizes each beat in a bar of four/four time and eliminates any sense of a backbeat; a prominent 16-beat division of each measure, often established by the hi-hat cymbal; a relative lack of syncopation; and frequently lush, string-dominated orchestration. Often, the rhythmic patterns of Latin dances, such as the rhumba or the samba, are layered over the fundamental four-on-the-floor rhythm. Tempos are usually consistent at around 120 beats per minute, thus allowing songs to follow one another with little or no interruption of the beat. By 1974, disco had crossed over into mainstream pop charts, and two songs— The Hues Corporation’s ‘‘Rock the Boat’’ and ‘‘Love’s Theme’’ by Barry White and his Love Unlimited Orchestra—reached the number one spot. Still largely performed by African American artists or integrated groups, such as K. C. and the Sunshine Band, disco also became a showplace for African American female recording artists who were particularly popular with the music’s still largely gay audiences. Gloria Gaynor was the first disco diva, and her 1975 album Never Can Say Goodbye featured the title song and two others—‘‘Honey Bee’’ and ‘‘Reach Out, I’ll Be There’’— performed on one side as a continuous 19-minute set. This was the first disco mix album to feature a continuous side, and it was a huge success. In addition to Gaynor, other African American women scored big with disco releases, among them Patti LaBelle, Thelma Houston, and Donna Summer. Donna Summer (born LaDonna Adrian Gaines, 1948– ) began singing in church and subsequently used her voice in the theater. At age 19, she appeared on Broadway in the musical Hair, which afterward took her to Germany. While there, she married a German man and met record producers Giorgio Moroder and Pete Bellotte, who were integral in the development of an electronicsdominated style of disco that featured mechanical drum machines and synthesizers and later became known as Eurodisco. Summer’s early hit, ‘‘Love to Love You Baby,’’ was an example of this mechanized sound. Casablanca’s Neil Bogart heard the original three-minute version of the song and asked for a longer version. Moroder, Bellotte, and Summer created a now legendary 17-minute version that was as controversial as it was successful due to Summer’s repeated vocal
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evocations of sexual pleasure. Summer again teamed with Moroder and Bellotte in 1977, creating the album I Remember Yesterday. Without the duo, Summer had two hits in 1978, ‘‘Last Dance,’’ from the soundtrack of the film Thank God It’s Friday, in which Summer appeared, and a disco mix of Jimmy Webb’s ‘‘MacArthur Park,’’ which appeared on the album Live and More. The 1979 album Bad Girls mixed disco with soul and blues styles, and the title cut and ‘‘Hot Stuff’’ were commercial hits. In 1980, Summer became a born-again Christian, and she increasingly distanced herself from disco music and the gay men who had supported her career. Later accused of making negative comments about her gay audience and HIV/AIDS, Summer made repeated efforts to reaffirm her support of that community and AIDS activism. While disco was initially music for disenfranchised groups in clubs well outside mainstream American popular culture, 1977 saw a radical change in the reception and experience of the music. Three things happened in that year that turned disco into a far-reaching mainstream cultural phenomenon. First, in 1977, Steve Rubbell and Ian Schrager, with the help of Carmen D’Alessio, opened the legendary nightclub Studio 54. The Studio, which was a disco for the rich and famous and those who wanted to be around them, was notoriously hard to get into and equally notorious for the drug use and sexual activity that went on behind its well-guarded entrance. While drug use, particularly cocaine and ‘‘poppers,’’ or amyl nitrate, had been part of the disco scene from the beginning, Studio 54 prided itself in the presence and use of drugs within the premises. Studio 54 also altered the earlier egalitarian aspect of discos, which had welcomed crowds from mixed socioeconomic and ethnic backgrounds; instead of being welcoming, the Studio was notoriously exclusive. Despite this, or perhaps in part because of it, Studio 54 received constant media attention and was the model for clubs that opened afterward. Second, 1977 saw the appearance of the Village People, a group that represented over-the-top stereotypes from gay culture—a construction worker, a cowboy, an American Indian chief, and a policeman—and sang songs rich in campy double entendre. ‘‘Y.M.C.A.,’’ ‘‘In the Navy,’’ and ‘‘Macho Man’’ all suggested an open, sexually permissive lifestyle that was associated with gay men in the 1970s. Yet the group, which was cast after it had been conceived by Jacques Morali and Henri Belolo, was embraced by mainstream heterosexual America, perhaps in part because the silliness of the stereotypes rendered them harmless and in part because the slickly produced songs were immensely catchy. Because it was impossible to take the Village People seriously, however, it became increasingly difficult to take disco music seriously. Finally, in December of 1977 and well into 1978, the extremely successful movie Saturday Night Fever represented disco as the territory of the straight blue-collar white man. Thanks to the unprecedented popularity of the soundtrack that featured the Bee Gees’ famously falsetto-heavy vocals—until Michael Jackson’s Thriller, the soundtrack to Saturday Night Fever was the largest-selling record of all time— and a memorable star performance by a young John Travolta, the film exploited dance club culture as the proving ground for economically challenged white masculinity. Saturday Night Fever, more than any other single phenomenon, made
Disco | 293 disco ‘‘safe’’ for the white middle class, and discos soon appeared in strip malls and communities all over American suburbs and small towns. Once Saturday Night Fever and its soundtrack demonstrated the far-reaching commercial possibilities of disco, the music industry turned disco music into a profit-driven machine, resulting in seemingly unending disco tracks by artists as various as Barbra Streisand, Dolly Parton, Rod Stewart, and the Rolling Stones, among many others. Earlier music, from big band swing to classical selections such as Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony, was remixed according to the disco formula. Disco became so pervasive that New York soft rock station WKTU went all disco in 1978 and became one of the most listened to radio stations in the country; within six months, all-disco stations appeared in almost all the major markets in the United States. Responses to this kind of oversaturation of the market were inevitable. FM rock radio stations, economically threatened by the disco craze, began sponsoring antidisco activities. The turn against dance music and elements of disco culture, such as drugs, gay sex, social elitism, and African American performers, all of which had been accepted or at least acknowledged by mainstream white audiences, resulted in the diminished airplay of black music in general. ‘‘Death to Disco’’ and ‘‘Disco Sucks,’’ rallying cries of white rockers, became prevalent. The climax of the antidisco fervor occurred in the summer of 1979 at Chicago’s Comiskey Park when, between the games of a White Sox double-header, rock DJ Steve Dahl blew up thousands of disco records, many of which had been brought by the nearly 50,000 fans in attendance. A riot ensued, and the second game had to be cancelled as the police unsuccessfully tried to restore order. By the early 1980s, disco, while still played in urban dance clubs, was waning. Elements of it remained in techno and dance mix, but the excesses of the club scene and its dancing patrons were mostly over by the middle of the 1980s. Occasional disco revivals highlight the garishness and party atmosphere of the clubs and the music, but they seem to overlook that disco started as a social and musical outlet for African Americans, Latinos/as, and ethnically diverse gays, outsiders all. See also
Funk; Popular Music; Soul. Further Reading
Aletti, Vince. ‘‘Discotheque Rock ’72: Paaaaarty!’’ Rolling Stone, September 13, 1973. Emery, Lynne Fauley. Black Dance from 1619 to Today. London: Dance Book Publishers, 1988. George, Nelson. Buppies, B-Boys, Baps and Bohos: Notes on Post-Soul Black Culture. New York: Harper, 1992. Jones, Alan, and Jussi Kantonen. Saturday Night Forever: The Story of Disco. Chicago: A Cappella Books, 1999. Lawrence, Tim. Love Saves the Day: A History of American Dance Music, 1970–1979. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2004. Shapiro, Peter. Turn the Beat Around: The Secret History of Disco. New York: Faber and Faber, 2005.
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Further Listening Bee Gees, Tavares, K. C. and the Sunshine Band, et al. Saturday Night Fever: Original Movie Soundtrack. Polydor compact disc 42282 5389 2, 1996. Summer, Donna. Endless Summer: Donna Summer’s Greatest Hits. Casablanca Records compact disc 314 526 178-2, 1994.
Further Viewing Saturday Night Fever: 25th Anniversary DVD Edition. Directed by John Badham. Hollywood, CA: Paramount Pictures, 2002. Jim Lovensheimer
Dixie Hummingbirds The career of the African American gospel group the Dixie Hummingbirds began in 1928 and parallels the evolution of the genre from a cappella spirituals to soul gospel. James Davis organized the Dixie Hummingbirds in 1928 in Greenville, South Carolina, with Barney Parks, Bonnie Gipson, Jr., and Fred Owens, his friends from Sterling High School. The quartet made its first appearances at the Bethel Church of God Holiness in Greenville before traveling to Atlanta to sing at the denomination’s annual national convention. The group’s success there prompted them to pursue a career as professional ‘‘spiritual entertainers.’’ Over the next decade, the Hummingbirds embarked on a campaign to establish a reputation, traveling to small towns, performing on local radio stations, and staying until everyone knew them by name before moving on to the next town. In 1938, Davis and Parks, joined by Wilson ‘‘Highpockets’’ Baker and bass singer Jimmy Bryant, traveled to New York City and recorded 16 a cappella spirituals for Decca Records. Returning to South Carolina and propelled by their new ‘‘recording artist’’ status, the Hummingbirds worked a circuit of churches, schools, and auditoriums throughout the East and as far south as Florida. In 1942, with the addition of lead singer Ira Tucker of Spartanburg, South Carolina, the Dixie Hummingbirds relocated to Philadelphia, where, as the Swanee Singers, they were heard daily over station WCAU. The broadcasts caught the attention of producer John Hammond, who hired the group to perform at Cafe Society, one of the first clubs in New York City to present African American talent to integrated audiences. Billed as the Jericho Quintet and with the instrumental backing of Lester Young’s band, the group members fine-tuned their stagecraft and expanded their repertoire. In 1944, the Dixie Hummingbirds— now James Davis, Ira Tucker, Beachey Thompson, and bass singer William Bobo—returned to touring. Appearing frequently on bills with headliner Sister Rosetta Tharpe, the Hummingbirds looked for a record company that could break them nationally. They recorded for a succession of labels, including Regis/Manor, Apollo, Okeh, and Gotham, before settling in 1952 with Don Robey’s Houston-based
Dixon, Willie James | 295 Peacock label. With Peacock, they would, with the addition of second lead James Walker and electric guitarist Howard Carroll, develop their signature soul gospel sound. The Dixie Hummingbirds broke out in the mid-1950s as one of the leading groups in gospel with hit recordings such as ‘‘Let’s Go Out to the Programs’’ (1953), ‘‘Christian Automobile’’ (1957), and ‘‘Bedside of a Neighbor’’ (1962). They initiated gospel programs at the Apollo Theater and were among the first gospel performers to appear at the Newport Folk and Jazz Festivals. In 1973, the Dixie Hummingbirds recorded ‘‘Loves Me (Like a Rock)’’ with pop singer Paul Simon, winning a Grammy Award that year for their own rendition of the song. The success of ‘‘Loves Me (Like a Rock)’’ brought the Hummingbirds cross-cultural fame unprecedented in their career. In the 21st century, the Dixie Hummingbirds, with Ira Tucker at the helm, continue to record and perform worldwide. See also
Gospel Music. Further Reading
Allen, Ray. Singing in the Spirit. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1991. Boyer, Horace Clarence, and photographs by Lloyd Yearwood. How Sweet the Sound: The Golden Age of Gospel. Washington, DC: Elliot and Clark Publishing, 1995. Broughton, Viv. Black Gospel: An Illustrated History of the Gospel Sound. Poole and Dorset, UK: Blandford Press, 1985. Heilbut, Anthony. The Gospel Sound: Good News and Bad Times. New York: Limelight Editions, 1985. Reagon, Bernice Johnson, ed. We’ll Understand It Better By and By: Pioneering African American Gospel Composers. Washington, DC: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1992. Young, Alan. Woke Me Up This Morning. Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, 1996. Zolten, Jerry. Great God A’Mighty! The Dixie Hummingbirds: Celebrating the Rise of Soul Gospel Music. New York and Cambridge: Oxford University Press, 2003. Jerry Zolten
Dixieland Jazz See
Jazz.
Dixon, Willie James (1915–1992) Bluesman Willie James Dixon was born July 1, 1915, in Vicksburg, Mississippi. He was attracted to the blues as a child when he heard performances of ‘‘Little Brother’’ by Eurreal Montgomery. In 1935, he settled in Chicago, Illinois, where he entered professional boxing. But he began singing with ‘‘Baby Doo’’ Leonard Caston, and about 1939 he left boxing to sing and play bass fiddle in local clubs, at first in the Big Three Trio with Caston and Ollie Crawford. He first recorded in 1949 with Robert Nighthawk and ‘‘Muddy Waters’’ (born McKinley Morganfield). During the 1950s he began a long association with ‘‘Memphis Slim’’ (born
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Peter Chatman); the two bluesmen recorded and toured together in the United States and abroad. During the early 1960s, they organized the American Folk Blues Festival, which made its first European tour in 1962. Dixon also performed and/or recorded with Eddie Boyd, Chuck Berry, ‘‘Bo Diddley’’ (born Otha Ellas Bates), and ‘‘Sonny Boy Williamson No. 2’’ (born Willie ‘‘Rice’’ Miller), among others. In addition to performance, his career included many years as an A & R man (Artist and Repertory) for various record companies and as a record producer and blues promoter. Beginning in the 1960s he led his own band, the Chicago Blues All Stars, and during the 1970s–1980s he published a column in Living Blues magazine. He was perhaps best known as a songwriter who produced blues for Sam Cooke, Little Walter Jacobs, and Muddy Waters, among others. Willie Dixon’s album Hidden Charms won him a Grammy for Best Traditional Blues Recording in 1989. He died in January 1992 and was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame posthumously in 1994. See also
Blues. Further Reading
Dixon, Willie, and Don Snowden. I Am the Blues: The Willie Dixon Story. New York: Da Capo Press, 1989. Neff, Robert, and Anthony Connor. Blues. Boston: Godine, 1975. Eileen Southern
Domino, Fats (1928– ) Blues, jazz, and rock singer, Antoine Domino was born February 26, 1928, in New Orleans, Louisiana. As a child he studied piano with his brother-in-law, Harry Verrett, who played with Edward (‘‘Kid’’) Ory and Oscar (‘‘Papa’’) Celestin. He began playing professionally at the age of 20 and made his first recording in 1949. During the 1950s he became one of the established rhythm and blues entertainers; he recorded extensively and toured widely. For his first recording, he went into partnership with Dave Bartholomew, and the two musicians worked together off and on for the next three decades—writing and arranging songs and producing records. During the late 1960s Domino stopped recording and gave more time to touring the nightclub circuit the world over as a singer and pianist. He returned to recording in 1977. Among his biggest hits were such songs as ‘‘Ain’t That a Shame’’ (1955), ‘‘Blueberry Hill’’ (1956), ‘‘I’m Walkin’ ’’ (1957), and ‘‘Walking to New Orleans.’’ (1960). He was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1986. The following year, in 1987, he received the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award. In 1998, he was awarded a National Medal of Arts by President Bill Clinton. In 2005, Fats Domino and family had to be rescued from their flooded house in New Orleans during Hurricane Katrina; for a while, he was feared dead. In 2006, President Bush awarded him a replacement
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Singer, composer, and pianist Fats Domino, ca. 1956. (AP/Wide World Photos)
National Medal of Arts for the one he had lost in the hurricane and Domino has promoted efforts to rebuild New Orleans after the hurricane. See also
Rock ’n’ Roll. Further Reading
Coleman, Rick. Blue Monday: Fats Domino and the Lost Dawn of Rock ’n’ Roll. 1st Da Capo Press pbk. ed. Cambridge, MA: Da Capo Press, 2007. Eileen Southern
Doo-Wop Doo-wop is a genre of vocal harmony popular in the United States during the 1950s. Originating in working- and middle-class African American neighborhoods of the urban Northeast, the music was distinguished by its consistent use of circulatory chord progressions with a prominent bass, 12/8 meter, and a lead voice usually in the high tenor or falsetto range. The generic name ‘‘doo-wop’’ is largely anachronistic; in its time, the music was referred to as R & B vocal harmony. A series of revivals, however, beginning as early as 1959, soon established a
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retrospective canon of groups and songs that together with newly composed vocal numbers in a self-consciously older style are now commonly referred to as doowop.
Origins As a predominantly secular genre, doo-wop owes its immediate inspiration to the tradition of African American pop quartets active in the 1930s and 1940s, such as the Mills Brothers and the Ink Spots. The Ink Spots stood as a particularly inspirational example, both for their considerable commercial success in mainstream pop venues, and also for their adroit handling of romantic themes in their music. Like many performers who operated within the vaudeville and big band circuit, however, the Ink Spots gradually fell out of popularity after World War II. Two young groups from the Northeast, the Ravens and the Orioles, generally are credited for inspiring the new wave of African American vocal groups later called doo-wop. The Ravens were established in 1946 in New York City and quickly made a name for themselves performing clever and fast-paced versions of pop standards. Bass Jimmy Ricks made a particular name for himself, extending the ‘‘talking bass’’ made popular by the Ink Spots into a full-fledged lead role. His up-tempo rendition of ‘‘Ol’ Man River’’ not only made it to number 10 on Billboard’s Harlem Hit Parade, it showed that a vocal group could create the same energy found in the honking saxophone lines of jump blues. With this move, vocal harmony began to take its place as one of the postwar musical styles gradually coalescing into what would soon be known as ‘‘rhythm and blues.’’ The Orioles, five young men from the segregated black neighborhoods of West Baltimore, made an even more decisive break from past vocal harmony traditions with their 1948 hit ‘‘It’s Too Soon to Know.’’ Although a slow romantic ballad not dissimilar from the style of the Ink Spots, the song made several important innovations. It was first of all an original composition, written for the group by their equally youthful manager Deborah Chessler. Second, the Orioles had developed a unique style of vocal blending, where inner harmony voices skillfully played off each other. Finally, lead singer Sonny Til performed with an extraordinary sense of emotional intimacy that lent a highly sexualized veneer to otherwise sentimental songs. Fans, many of them young teenage girls, began to treat Til and the other Orioles as eroticized objects, causing near-riots at performances and driving records sales. Another aspect of the Orioles story that is equally important to the narrative of doo-wop was their myth of origin. Although many previous vocal groups began their careers as amateur ensembles, the story of a group of teenagers being discovered singing on the street corner and being launched into stardom proved irresistible. The Orioles worked to project an everyday image of themselves, and their early recordings were unpolished. This amateur aesthetic, coupled with the postwar boom in small independent record labels, created a new entry point into popular music for young musicians: vocalists were no
Doo-Wop | 299 longer constrained to either the social limitations of gospel music or the rarity of success in the world of white popular music.
R & B Vocal Harmony Inspired by the Orioles, urban African American communities around the country developed dozens of new vocal harmony scenes. In addition to Baltimore and New York City, Washington, D.C., Los Angeles, and Chicago became major centers of the new vocal group style. Many of the performers were either amateur or what might be thought of as semiprofessional, holding down jobs or attending high school while competing in vocal competitions. These groups articulated the social organization of the communities from where they came: groups often were based in high schools, local community centers, youth organizations, and even the occasional gang. This first wave of R & B vocal groups were stylistically diverse, drawing from a wide range of musical inspirations. Most groups were heavily indebted to pop standards as their basic musical source. Standards and other covers could be sung in a fairly straightforward manner, as for example in the Five Keys’ 1951 version of Billy Hill’s 1931 song ‘‘The Glory of Love.’’ Or, as in the case of the Cadillacs’s influential 1954 hit ‘‘Gloria,’’ several different Tin Pan Alley songs could be drastically rearranged into a new song. The importance of mainstream pop music to these groups cannot be overestimated. The R & B vocal groups strongly reflected a postwar African American community that included a burgeoning middle class, and a desire for upward mobility. In this respect, these songs can be linked to the concurrent establishment of periodicals aimed at the black middle-class, such as Ebony and Jet, as well as to the series of court cases that ultimately lead to the Brown v. Board of Education decision in 1954. Interestingly, few musicians in this milieu drew on the gospel singing tradition that would later become so influential in African American popular music. This is partly because singers rooted in more ecstatic religious performing traditions were few and far between; those performers with religious backgrounds tended to come from more mainline denominations. One important exception was Clyde McPhatter, of the Dominoes and later the Drifters, who began his career in gospel ensembles, and retained that singing style as he moved into secular music. Most performers, however, were happier with the Sonny Til model of smooth romanticism. The use of a strong melodic bass line, as pioneered by the Ravens, grew increasingly in this period. Even as few groups actually used the bass in a lead role, the idea of a versatile melodic bass meant that the bass accompaniment could assume new prominence. Combined with the continuing popularity of boogie-woogiestyle bass lines that gave the music its characteristic meter, songs such as the Crows’ ‘‘Gee’’ rejected the smooth, blended ideal of the Orioles and other earlier groups, in favor of a rhythmic, danceable sound. The combination of vocal harmony and dancing became an important aspect of the groups in question. Many sought out professional dancers to choreograph stage routines. The Cadillacs, for instance, hired the former vaudeville tap dancer Cholly Atkins to create custom
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routines for each song, and devised elaborate costume changes and stage patter for their shows.
Crossing Over In 1954, three R & B vocal groups had major pop hits emblematic of the growing mainstream popularity of R & B vocal groups: ‘‘Sh-Boom,’’ by the Chords, ‘‘Earth Angel’’ by the Penguins, and ‘‘Goodnite Sweetheart, Goodnite’’ by the Spaniels. None represented a striking departure from the R & B vocal group consensus. ‘‘Earth Angel’’ was a slow romantic ballad in the tradition of the Orioles, while ‘‘Sh-Boom’’ was a faster number of considerable dexterity on the part of the singers. Both hits made use of an increasingly common practice of adopting only the chord progressions from pop standards and creating entirely new lyrics and arrangements. One of the most notable doo-wop songs was by the Gary, Indiana-based group, the Spaniels. Formed in 1952 as Pookie Hudson & the Hudsonaires, the group signed with Vee-Jay Records under the name, the Spaniels. Vee-Jay Records was the first large independent black-owned record label. ‘‘Goodnite Sweetheart, Goodnite’’ eventually became a hit and remains a wellknown and frequently cited song from the period. One of the most characteristic trademarks of early doo-wop was the popular harmonic progression known as the ‘‘Blue Moon’’ changes. Named after the harmonic chord changes found in the 1934 song by Rodgers and Hart, this progression dominated R & B vocal music by 1954, and was used extensively in the aforementioned three songs. The success of these two songs on the largely white pop charts usually is attributed to the growing public taste for youth-oriented dance music. The R & B vocal groups were an important part of the stylistically diverse collection of genres and performers soon to be christened rock ’n’ roll. The groups who became most popular in this trend were those who, unlike the Orioles, had affiliated themselves with record labels and managers interested in placing them within this larger context. An important leader in this regard were the Moonglows, lead by Harvey Fuqua. Initially an amateur group under the name the Crazy Sounds, the singers were discovered by Cleveland disc jockey Alan Freed. Freed encouraged them to change their name to the Moonglows to use them as a sort of house band for his radio program, ‘‘The Moondog Show.’’ Freed arranged for a contract with Chess Records, and placed them on the bill of his influential touring show that helped create the craze for rock ’n’ roll. In a similar vein, several groups on the roster of R & B label Atlantic Records achieved broad success. One of the first had been the Washington, D.C.-based Clovers. As with many of their artists, Atlantic added to the Clovers’ vocal harmony a gritty, heavy instrumental accompaniment, largely adopted from jump blues. One of their most successful groups in the context of rock ’n’ roll, however, was the Drifters, lead by former Dominoes singer Clyde McPhatter. The subject matter and dance beat of songs like ‘‘Money Honey’’ were clearly identifiable with the new sounds beginning to subsume the R & B charts.
Doo-Wop | 301 If the Atlantic Records model of gritty R & B created a popular vein of music, the opposite ideal, sentimental romanticism, still existed. As many R & B groups grew more sexually explicit, those on the other side began to increasingly downplay any hint of eroticism in their music in favor of a fairly abstract romanticism. This romanticism was combined with increasingly youthful lead singers whose visible immaturity assuaged white fears of black male sexuality. The most successful of these group was Frankie Lymon and the Teenagers, whose song ‘‘Why Do Fools Fall in Love’’ hit number six on the pop charts in 1955. The youthfulness of the Teenagers and many other groups established one of the core mythologies of doo-wop: that it arose organically out of amateur singing on urban street corners. It is difficult now to separate this mythology from the historical groups. As the history of earlier R & B vocal groups shows, many musicians were indeed amateurs, and, as in the case of the Orioles, they did literally sing on street corners. At the same time, many of these singers had considerable musical training—Billy Ward, the leader of the Dominoes, was in fact a graduate of Juilliard, and was not the only performer to have advanced musical training. In addition, the continuing popularity of pop standards among African American teenagers was a powerful counterbalance to the increasing trend toward grittier subject matter and driving rhythms that otherwise dominated the R & B charts.
Redirection and Revivalism By the late 1950s, the widespread craze for African American musical styles had ebbed slightly, as the major record labels reasserted control over the industry, and rock ’n’ roll performers, black and white, met with increasing political and personal obstacles. The R & B vocal groups succumbed to this trend as well, and many of the older groups began to break up, as did several of the important independent record labels that had sustained them. Concurrent with this decline, however, was the creation of a nostalgic market for early R & B vocal harmony. The year 1959 saw the first ‘‘oldies’’ compilation album, as well as a growing number of stores, most famously Slim Rose’s subway arcade shop in New York City, that collected early recordings of vocal harmony. This moment of nostalgia marks an important split. Put broadly, the African American performers of the early vocal harmony largely moved into the nascent genre of soul music, particularly as conceived by the important black-owned record label Motown. Conversely, the specific musical styles of R & B vocal harmony began to be performed by members of the urban white working class, especially Italian Americans, singing what was now often referred to as ‘‘doowop’’ after the nonsense syllables used to articulate backing harmonies. Unlike previous adaptations of African American musical traditions by white musicians, this particular transference was not motivated quite so obviously by commercial interests, nor structured entirely by unequal power dynamics. At a historical moment when the whiteness of Italian Americans and other working-class ethnic groups were still somewhat suspect, and where urban segregation occurred block
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by block rather than city by city, black and Italian cultures had long intermingled. In the early 1950s, some urban radio stations, such as WOV in New York City, even divided their airplay equally between R & B and traditional Italian music. The first major hit by a white group in this style came in 1958, with Dion and the Belmonts’ hard-driving version of the Cadillacs’ earlier ‘‘I Wonder Why.’’ The combination of new white groups performing in an older style with a new market for certain older R & B groups is largely responsible for contemporary notions of what constitutes doo-wop. In the ever-shifting world of 1950s R & B, vocal harmony groups had adapted to many different musical styles, in addition to creating some of their own. After the nostalgic revivals, however, certain groups and styles were seen as more emblematic of the genre then others. For instance, R & B vocal groups were not uniformly male. Women groups were in the minority, but performers such as the Chantels achieved widespread success in the mid-1950s. In the 21st century, however, doo-wop is seen in compilation albums and fan discussion as an almost exclusively male genre. If certain musical styles became privileged in this revival, the vocal group musicians themselves moved in a different direction. The man most emblematic of the shift from vocal harmony to Motown was Harvey Fuqua, the leader of the Moonglows. Although a capable singer in his own right, Fuqua also had a good eye for talent. When the original Moonglows disbanded in 1957, he formed a new version around the then-unknown Marvin Gaye. Fuqua’s organizational skill and connections to the national circuit of African American record labels and performance venues eventually led him to Motown Records, where as an inlaw of Berry Gordy, he assumed a prominent role in artist development. Fuqua was only one example, however, of how Motown continued the traditions of R & B vocal harmony. Cholly Atkins was again retained to choreograph dance routines, and some older groups, such as the Impressions, found new success in the Motown era. The numerous amateur vocal groups recruited by Gordy were largely inspired by their predecessors, and it can be difficult to draw a line between the era of the Drifters and the Teenagers on one the hand, and the Temptations and the Marvelettes on the other. See also
Rock ’n’ Roll; Soul Music. Further Reading
Goosman, Stanley. Group Harmony: The Black Urban Roots of Rhythm and Blues. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2005. Gribin, Anthony J., and Matthew M. Schiff. Doo-Wop: The Forgotten Third of Rock and Roll. Iola, WI: Krause Publications, 1992. Groia, Philip. They All Sang on the Corner: A Second Look at New York City’s Rhythm and Blues Vocal Groups. Port Jefferson, NY: Phillie Dee Enterprises, 1983. Melnick, Jeffrey. ‘‘ ‘Story Untold’: The Black Men and White Sounds of Doo-Wop.’’ In Whiteness: A Critical Reader, edited by Mike Hill, 134–150. New York: New York University Press, 1997. Pruter, Robert. Doo-Wop: The Chicago Scene. Champaign: University of Illinois Press, 1997.
Dorsey, Thomas A. | 303 Further Listening Various Artists. The Doo-Wop Box: 101 Vocal Group Gems from the Golden Age of Rock and Roll. Rhino Records 71463, 1994. Philip Gentry
Dorsey, Thomas A. (1899–1993) Known as the ‘‘Father of Gospel Music,’’ Thomas A. Dorsey ushered in a new style of black religious expression during the late 1920s and the 1930s, incidentally creating a huge gospel music industry as well. Once revered for his jazz and blues performances under the name ‘‘Georgia Tom,’’ Dorsey moved completely into church music—composing, arranging, performing, and teaching the music first called gospel blues and now known simply as gospel. Thomas Andrew Dorsey was the only child born to the union of Rev. Thomas Madison Dorsey and Etta Plant Spence Dorsey in Villa Rica, Georgia, on July 1, 1899. By age 10, he had moved with the family to Atlanta, where Dorsey studied music theory and piano. During the next decade, he made a name for himself as a rent-party pianist under the names ‘‘Barrelhouse Tom’’ and, most notably, ‘‘Georgia Tom.’’ In 1919, Dorsey relocated to Chicago where he maintained his stature as a composer and performer of jazz and blues. After suffering a mental breakdown in 1921, Dorsey attended that year’s National Baptist Convention, where he was taken aback by the powerful religious hymns that were sung. He began to write gospel music at that time, but because of a lack of marketability or interest in his compositions, he continued his blues and jazz career. A recording of his composition ‘‘Riverside Blues’’ by the King Oliver Creole Jazz Band in December 1923 quickly raised the stakes. In 1924, Dorsey began a lucrative job as Gertrude ‘‘Ma’’ Rainey’s pianist and musical director. He convened and led her backup band, the Wildcats of Jazz. Dorsey also performed and recorded with guitarist Husdon ‘‘Tampa Red’’ Whittaker. Suffering a second mental breakdown in 1928, Dorsey returned to gospel music and earned an invitation to perform at the 1930 National Baptist Convention. Dorsey eventually left his life in jazz and blues in 1932 and accepted a position as the choral director at Pilgrim Baptist Church. Actively composing, arranging, and selling his published gospel songs, he used all of his business expertise developed in the jazz and blues world and opened Dorsey’s House of Music in 1932, becoming the first independent publisher and distributor of black gospel music. The following year Dorsey served as the founding president of the National Convention of Gospel Choirs and Choruses. During the 1930s Dorsey’s compositions for gospel solo voice as well as his compositions for gospel choir added two new genres to black religious music. Many of the songs were taught at the National Convention of Gospel Choirs and Choruses and were distributed nationwide. Dorsey first hired Sallie Martin, then Mahalia Jackson to serve as the public voices for his music. His lament
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‘‘Precious Lord’’ has served as one of the most requested songs in gospel music history. His awards and commendations include an honorary doctorate of gospel music from Simmons Institute of South Carolina (1946) and a Grammy/ National Trustees Award (1992). He was the first black person elected to the Nashville Songwriter’s International Hall of Fame (1972) and the first black person elected to Gospel Music Association’s Living Hall of Fame (1982). Thomas A. Dorsey died in Chicago, Illinois, on January 23, 1993, at the age of 92. His life served as the inspiration for McKinley Johnson’s 2003 musical Georgia Tom: Thomas A. Dorsey, the Father of Gospel Music. He was inducted into the Gospel Music Association Hall of Fame in 1982. In 1992, he received the Grammy Trustees Award. His papers, including correspondence, photographs, and programs, are held at Fisk University. See also Black Church Music—History; Black Church Music—Hymnists and Psalmists; Blues; Gospel Music; Jackson, Mahalia. Further Reading Boyer, Horace Clarence. The Golden Age of Gospel. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2000. Harris, Michael W. The Rise of Gospel Blues: The Music of Thomas A. Dorsey in the Urban Church. New York: Oxford University Press, 1992. Heilbut, Anthony. The Gospel Sound: Good News and Bad Times. New York: Limelight Editions, 1985. Reagon, Bernice Johnson. We’ll Understand It Better By and By: Pioneering African American Gospel Composers. Washington, DC: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1992. Emmett G. Price III
Dre, Dr. (1965– ) A legendary rapper, super producer, and creator of the West-Coast G-Funk, Dr. Dre was born Andre Romelle Young on February 18, 1965. He was an early creator of the West Coast–based gangsta rap phenomenon. As a DJ at the Los Angeles nightclub, Eve After Dark, Dre made a huge name for himself and his World Class Wreckin’ Cru. After hooking up with Ice Cube, the two wrote songs for Easy E’s record company, Ruthless Records. After HBO, a group signed to Ruthless refused to record a song composed by the duo, they formed their own group in 1987 under the name, N.W.A. (Niggaz with Attitude). The group quickly struck gold with hits, such as ‘‘Straight Outta Compton,’’ ‘‘Nuthin’ But A ‘G’ Thing,’’ and ‘‘Let Me Ride.’’ In 1989, Ice Cube left the group to pursue a solo career. Despite the phenomenal success of the group, Dr. Dre left the group in 1992 after a dispute about compensation. After signing with Marion ‘‘Suge’’ Knight’s Death Row Records, his first solo release, The Chronic, revolutionized the progression of gangsta rap with ‘‘Nuthin’ But a ‘G’ Thang’’ and ‘‘Dre Day.’’ His unique approach to music creation and his clear understanding of how to
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Rap legend Dr. Dre. (AP/Wide World Photos)
connect with the crowd through music continues to serve as a model for contemporary producers. His trademark G-Funk sound, grounded on the P-Funk of George Clinton also created a source of admiration for many other musicians and producers. Dr. Dre’s work with Warren G. and Eminem further enshrined his contribution to hip hop. In 1996, Dr. Dre left Death Row Records to form his own label, Aftermath. In 2000, after warning the owners of Napster that he would sue them if they did not remove or ‘‘de-list’’ his music from the file-swapping site, he was one of a number of artists armed to take on the site. The court case was settled a year later. Dr. Dre has also made moves in to the film word through roles in Set it Off (1996), The Wash (2001), and Training Day (2001). In 2008, he embarked on an entrepreneurial venture with the release of his high-performance headphones by Monster called Beats by Dr. Dre. See also
Funk; Hip Hop Culture; Rap Music. Emmett G. Price III
Drifters, The This vocal group came from the gospel tradition and helped create soul music. Formed in New York City in 1953, the Drifters included Clyde McPhatter, David Baughan, William ‘‘Chick’’ Anderson, David Baldwin, and James
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Johnson. Although not the classic Drifters group, this lineup was the first to record as the Atlantic Drifters. Thereafter, numerous personnel changes occurred; no one stayed with the ensemble throughout its existence. In the Clyde McPhatter era, the Drifters consisted of McPhatter, Andrew and Gerhart Thrasher, Bill Pinkney, William Ferbie, and Walter Adams; these singers recorded ‘‘Money Honey,’’ ‘‘Such a Night,’’ ‘‘Honey Love,’’ ‘‘Bip Bam,’’ and ‘‘White Christmas.’’ The King-era Drifters included lead singer Ben E. King, Charlie Thomas, Dock Green, and Elsbeary Hobbs. They sang in a more pop-oriented style than the previous Drifters, one more in line with late 1950s rock ’n’ roll: ‘‘There Goes My Baby,’’ ‘‘Dance with Me,’’ ‘‘This Magic Moment,’’ ‘‘Save the Last Dance for Me,’’ ‘‘Up on the Roof,’’ ‘‘On Broadway,’’ and ‘‘Under the Boardwalk.’’ The Drifters, who were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1988, were McPhatter, King, Pinkney, Thomas, Rudy Lewis, Johnny Moore, and Gerhart Thrasher, spanning the group’s history. In 1987, Clyde McPhatter was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame as a solo artist. Atlantic record’s co-founder, Ahmet Ertegun, has claimed that the Drifters were the alltime greatest Atlantic Records group, having achieved number one singles with three different lead singers (McPhatter, Moore, and King) (Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Foundation 2010). The Drifters were also among the first inductees into the Vocal Group Hall of Fame, in Sharon, Pennsylvania, in 1998. See also
Rock ’n’ Roll. Further Reading
Allan, Tony, and Faye Treadwell. Save the Last Dance for Me: The Musical Legacy of the Drifters, 1953–1993. Ann Arbor, MI: Popular Ink Press, 1994. Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Foundation. ‘‘The Drifters.’’ http://rockhall.com/inductees/the-drifters/ (accessed 2009). Lisa Scrivani-Tidd
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Eckstine, Billy (1914–1993) Jazz singer William Clarence Eckstine was born July 8, 1914, in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. He sang as a child at local social events and in a church choir for a short period. He obtained his musical education in the public schools of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and Washington, D.C.; at Howard University in Washington, where he majored in physical education for a year; at Shaw University in Raleigh, North Carolina (bachelor’s degree, 1974); and at the University of Southern California in Los Angeles. Encouraged by winning prizes in amateur shows in Washington theaters, he dropped out of college to sing professionally with bands in nightclubs and theaters. During the mid-1930s he sang in various places, including Buffalo, New York, Detroit, Michigan, and Pittsburgh, and then went to Chicago, Illinois, to sing in the DeLisa Club (1937–1939). Thereafter he sang with Earl Hines (1939–1943), toured as a soloist, and then organized his own band (1944–1946), which included John Birks (‘‘Dizzy’’) Gillespie, Kenneth (‘‘Kenny’’) Dorham, Eugene Ammons, Art Blakey, Dexter Gordon, Albert (‘‘Budd’’) Johnson, Theodore (‘‘Fats’’) Navarro, John Malachi, Charlie Parker, Tommy Potter, and Sarah Vaughan, among others, with himself on trumpet. This band was important historically for its nurturing of the new bebop music and its encouragement of bebop innovators during the transitional period from swing to bop. After 1946 Eckstine toured widely as a soloist, appearing in theaters, in nightclubs, at festivals, and beginning in the 1970s on cruise ships and in theaters-in-the-round. He made his recording debut in 1939 with Earl Hines and thereafter recorded extensively as a soloist. He also recorded with others, among them, Duke Ellington, Maynard Ferguson, Quincy Jones, and the George Shearing Quintet. He was active in radio and television music and appeared in films, including Let’s Do It Again (1975). His best-known recordings were ‘‘Jelly, Jelly,’’ ‘‘Everything I Have Is Yours,’’ ‘‘Skylark,’’ ‘‘My Foolish Heart,’’ and ‘‘A Prisoner of Love.’’ He received numerous awards from the music industry. His longtime accompanist was Robert (‘‘Bobby’’) Tucker. Eckstine was a pioneer in defining the role of the black solo jazz singer (independent 307
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of association with an orchestra) and thereby paved the way for such singers as Nat King Cole and the ubiquitous black soloist with his piano or trio accompaniment. He is also a seminal figure for his role in the development of bebop. He did not record much after the 1970s, and his last album was Billy Eckstine Sings with Benny Carter, recorded in 1986. He died in 1993. Eileen Southern
Edmonds, Kenneth ‘‘Babyface’’ (1959– ) Songwriter, producer, multi-instrumentalist, and singer, Kenneth ‘‘Babyface’’ Edmonds was one of the most important popular music figures of the 1990s. His accomplishments during that decade are such of legends, and he continues to be a formidable force in the recording industry. His career in music began during his teenage years as a guitarist in Bootsy Collins’s band and continued into the 1980s with the band, the Deele. The Deele was formed by Babyface and his eventual long-term business partner and production collaborator Antonio ‘‘LA’’ Reid. During the 1980s, the Deele scored R & B hits, such as ‘‘Body Talk’’ and ‘‘Two Occasions.’’ Babyface also began ventures as a solo artist during that decade with two albums, Lovers (1986) and Tender Lovers (1989), which produced hits such as ‘‘It’s No Crime’’ and ‘‘Whip Appeal.’’ The commercial successes of Reid and Babyface with both the Deele and the solo projects established the duo as some of the top producers in the industry and led to projects with such notables as Bobby Brown, Karyn White, and Pebbles. The production duo co-founded the LaFace around 1989–1990 and throughout the 1990s boasted a roster of artists that included TLC, Toni Braxton, OutKast, and Usher (among others). Babyface turned his attention toward film during the middle years of the decade and produced a string of hits for the Waiting to Exhale (1995) soundtrack. His fourth and fifth solo albums, For the Cool in You (1993) and The Day (1996), also were produced during this prolific decade and featured singles such as ‘‘Never Keeping Secrets,’’ ‘‘When Can I See You,’’ and ‘‘Every Time I Close My Eyes.’’ His work as producer, songwriter, and performer has sold more than 100 million records and has earned a number of awards and honors, including three consecutive Grammy Awards for Producer of the Year (1995–1997). Not to be defined simply by one genre, Babyface has contributed as producer and songwriter to diverse projects by such artists as Madonna, Janet Jackson, Pink, Lil’ Wayne, and Eric Clapton. See also
Popular Music. Further Listening
Babyface. A Collection of His Greatest Hits. Epic EK 85132, 2000. Babyface. Face2face. Arista 07822-14667-2, 2001. Babyface. Playlist. Mercury B0009495-02, 2007. Horace J. Maxile, Jr.
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Kenny ‘‘Babyface’’ Edmonds performs during a taping of the NBC Today television program in New York in 2007. (AP/Wide World Photos)
Educators, Schools, Colleges, and Universities Musical instruction has occurred in many forms and in many contexts throughout the history of African American music. Whether through community-based vocal teachers, public school band programs, or graduate instruction at the university level, the teaching and learning of black music has undergone enormous changes during the last two centuries. In the 21st century, African American musical idioms, most notably jazz, are widely taught and disseminated within education institutions, and educators of African American music have risen to the highest levels of academia, producing seasoned, professional performers and brilliant scholars whose work enriches our historical understanding of the genre and opens up new possibilities for the future. Although most of the attention given to the study of African American music is given to postsecondary institutions (that is, colleges and universities), it should
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not be ignored that a substantial amount of teaching has occurred, and continues to occur, in community settings, with students and teachers forming mentor-apprentice relationships that draw on deep historical roots. The study of African American music has grown to become an accepted and even celebrated part of academic culture, but it has not lost touch with its historical roots as a vehicle for community expression and identity. Whether in the university, the middle school, or the private studio, teachers of African American music play an important role in expanding our knowledge of the music.
Educators in Community-Based Schools Community-based instruction, broadly defined, has been going on within African American communities since the first Africans were introduced into bondage in North America in 1619. The notion that music and musical learning, as traditionally practiced in African communities from which these individuals came, could not be neatly separated from everyday life, is well documented and much discussed in the literature of Diasporic music. During the course of the 17th and 18th centuries, however, as traditional institutions were altered, and in many cases eventually dismantled by the system of enslavement and deculturization, musical instruction within African American communities changed dramatically. Certainly, traditional practices continued in many contexts. But more formalized instruction would become important to the musical instruction of African Americans within the community setting. Since colonial times, music teachers within the community have served an important function, as a link between community-based oral traditions of their African forebears, and the increasingly professionalized class of musicians who emerged from the worlds of musical performance, composition, and pedagogy. What follows is by no means an exhaustive accounting of these practices; rather, it is intended to provide a sense of the contexts and methods that teachers of African American music have employed in various community settings.
Early Community Teachers An early example of community-based musical instruction can be seen in the case of Newport Gardner (1746–1826). Arriving in the Americas at age 14, Gardner showed great promise as a singer and was, as a slave in Rhode Island, given a relatively formalized instruction, no doubt a beneficiary of the singing school movement that was common in New England in the 18th century. Gaining his freedom in 1791, Gardner eventually would establish his own singing school and later would become deeply involved with the church. The case of Gardner is instructive in that it not only provides one of the first fully documented cases of an African American music teacher in a community setting, but also demonstrates the link to the church, long a center of community social organization for African Americans, North and South. Black churches, whether in the form of established congregations such Richard Allen’s African Methodist Episcopal (AME) church in Philadelphia, to more informal ‘‘bush’’ churches formed by slaves in the South, to the revival camp meetings of the early 19th
Educators, Schools, Colleges, and Universities | 311 century, were important community institutions that also served as sites of musical instruction and learning. During the 19th century, a number of prominent African American professional musicians would begin to gain significant prestige in urban musical communities. Following a general trend among professional performers of the day, many also developed reputations as outstanding teachers. Francis ‘‘Frank’’ Johnson (1792–1844), the famed Philadelphia-based performer and composer, had a number of students, black and white, under his tutelage during the peak of his career in the 1830s and 1840s. Though not associated with specific schools or institutions, figures such as Johnson undoubtedly had a profound influence on the development of African American concert musicians in years to come.
Educators in Public Schools Unlike their white counterparts, however, aspiring African American musicians often found themselves shut out from studying with master teachers and at prestigious institutions of musical study. Thus, community institutions again would prove crucial. In particular, public school teachers would provide an important avenue for musical instruction in black communities across the country. Music educators in the public schools have long served an important mentoring role for African American students, as Hamann and Walker point out in a 1993 study. Like black churches, public schools in predominantly black areas have served as sites of community pride and socialization, to say nothing of their pedagogical functions. Music teachers in such institutions have a long history of mentoring and nurturing many future musicians and music teachers. One of the first important African American music teachers in American public education was Nathaniel Clark Smith (1877–1935), who taught students in Kansas City, Chicago, and St. Louis in the early 20th century. Also an active composer, Smith would, during his career, mentor both aspiring musicians, as well as teachers who would carry on his work. Eileen Southern, in her seminal work The Music of Black Americans, devotes significant attention to Smith and other public school teachers as important to African American music learning through the middle of the 20th century in communities throughout the United States. Among the notable educators she cites are Wendell Phillips Dabney (1865–1952) in Virginia and Ohio, Jesse Gerald Tyler (1879–1938) in Washington, D.C., and St. Louis, and W. Llewellyn Wilson (1887–1950) of Baltimore, to name just a few. A number of important jazz musicians were mentored by public school teachers as well. In New Orleans, for example, public school music programs were long an important site for the development of jazz. Such teachers were critical to the training of young musicians, such as Buddy Bolden and Louis Armstrong (whose education at the Colored Waifs’ Home for Boys is well documented), sharpening and focusing their musical skills and preparing them for professional musical life. In later years, public schools experiences would remain important to many students’ professional development. Jazz educator and composer David Baker, for example, credits Russell Brown, then band director at Indianapolis’s
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Crispus Attucks High School, with inspiring him to pursue music as a career. Individuals like Walter Dyett, a famed public school music teacher in Chicago, influenced musicians such as Johnny Griffin, Clifford Jordan, Richard Davis, and Johnny Hartman, to name a few.
Education and Mentorship in the Jazz Community In jazz performance, mentorship has long formed a crucial aspect of the relationship between veteran and novice performers. Although nearly all established artists would, at some level, teach younger musicians, some would develop reputations as teachers, unattached to formalized education institutions that would rival their reputations as performers. Two prominent examples can be seen in the careers of Mary Lou Williams (1910–1981) and Barry Harris (1929– ). Raised in Pittsburgh, but best known for her work in Kansas City and New York, Mary Lou Williams mentored numerous young jazz musicians in the 1930s and 1940s, working with artists such as Dizzy Gillespie, Charlie Parker, Tadd Dameron, and others who would shape the development of modern jazz. Barry Harris, meanwhile, developed his own structured method for instruction in jazz. Famed for his workshops in which students are exposed to a detailed, meticulous method for understanding jazz harmony and improvisation, Harris’s place as a pioneering figure in jazz pedagogy is often overlooked in historical narratives that focus squarely on academic institutions. Individuals like Harris and Williams form an important link between professional performance and community-based instruction.
The Boys’ Choir Movement In the 21st century, no single movement in African American community music has gained as much attention as the boys’ choir. These organizations, serving to provide both musical instruction and an alternative for at-risk urban youth, have gained fame on the national and in many cases international level. The best known of such organizations is the Boys Choir of Harlem, established in 1968 by Walter Turnbull (1944–2007), then a doctoral student at the Manhattan School of Music. Under Turnbull’s direction, the choir grew from modest beginnings into a universally acclaimed performing group, and eventually into a full-fledged education institution. Another such organization is the (Washington) D.C. Boys Choir, established in 1993 by Eleanor Stewart, a D.C. public school music teacher. Yet another aspect of the boys’ choir movement can be seen in the case of the AfroAmerican Music Institute (AAMI) in Pittsburgh. Founded by Dr. James Johnson, the institute is a community music school in the truest sense, offering not only performance opportunities in the boys’ choir, but also instruction in jazz, popular music, and other areas. With the choir as its centerpiece, Johnson has constructed a detailed curriculum for instruction in African American music, which he detailed in his doctoral dissertation at the University of Pittsburgh. Community-based musical instruction of African American music has ranged from the informal mentor-apprentice relationship, as seen in jazz and likely every
Educators, Schools, Colleges, and Universities | 313 other genre, to its place within community institutions such as churches and public schools, to more formalized, structured approaches, whether the master teacher model utilized by Barry Harris, or the community school approach epitomized by Pittsburgh’s AAMI. In every case, the community has formed, and continues to form, an important site for the transmission and instruction of musical knowledge, forming clear, tangible links to both African and earlier African American traditions of community-based music-making. The richness of approach and method reflects the diversity of perspective among its practitioners, both teachers and learners, as well as the diversity of musical expression with African American communities nationwide.
Educators at Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) Although most postsecondary musical instruction, whether performance, composition, or scholarship, is associated with predominantly white institutions, the role of historically black colleges and universities (hereafter referred to as HBCUs) should not be overlooked in discussions of the development of African American music teaching. HBCUs have played an integral role in not only training generations of African American musicians, composers, scholars, and perhaps most notably, educators, but also have advanced African American music. Not always a central facet of these institution’s curricula, music has long been a significant activity on campus. Musical instruction often has balanced the need for formal instruction in the canons of the Western music with exposure to and experience in vernacular and popular traditions. HBCUs have been particularly adept at transforming cultural institutions, such as the concert choir or the marching band, into uniquely African American expressions.
HBCU Choral Groups The story of the Fisk Jubilee singers provides us with perhaps the best narrative of the role of music, and of teachers, in the context of the HBCUs in the 19th century. Musical instruction was not a major part of the curriculum, and instruction in music, under the auspices of George L. White, was what might now be deemed ‘‘extracurricular.’’ Encouraging students to sing music that was familiar to them, White’s choral group began to sing arrangements of spirituals. In the early 1870s, the university, facing a financial crisis, sent the group out to tour as a fundraising activity. Eventually, the group would achieve success for their efforts, and adopted the name ‘‘Fisk Jubliee Singers,’’ establishing themselves in the pantheon of African American music. What is instructive is that, while not diminishing the role of their faculty director, the Fisk Jubilee Singers were largely a student-led organization, selecting their repertoire and performing in their own manner. The group was not, at first, an ‘‘official’’ organization of the university. Nevertheless, their role cannot be overstated, either in terms of its impact on choral singing in the United States or on musical instruction at other HBCUs.
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Following Fisk’s model, other HBCUs followed suit, such as Hampton University (Virginia) and Fairfield Normal (South Carolina). Fisk’s role in the shaping of African American song was not limited to the Jubilee Singers, however. Fisk professor John Wesley Work II worked as a collector of African American folksongs in the 20th century and published editions of songs popularized by the Jubilee Singers. The momentum of the Jubilee Singers was carried into the 20th century, as more college choirs developed, realized the potential of promotions and tours, and became the vital components of music departments. Robert N. Dett is as revered for his work with the Hampton Institute (now Hampton University) choirs as he is for his accomplishments as composer, arranger, and pianist. When he joined the faculty in 1913, Dett inherited the choir, a few smaller vocal ensembles, and chamber groups. He inherited a rich tradition of fine vocal groups that began in 1872 when Hampton’s choir was organized. Under Dett’s direction, the choirs were featured in a number of concerts and tours that attracted national and international audiences. Among the notable concerts are the concert given in the chamber auditorium of the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C. (1926) and the European tour (1930), which visited seven countries. William Levi Dawson’s (1899–1990) choir at Tuskegee Institute was also a well-known choir that frequently toured frequently during the 1930s. One of their most prestigious invitations came from Radio City Music Hall in 1932, as they were asked to sing at the opening festivities for the venue. Dawson’s spiritual arrangements were staples in their repertoire and his reputation as a composer and arranger flourished through his work in the choral idiom and the Tuskegee choir. Similar to Dawson, Undine Smith Moore’s (1904–1989) choral arrangements contributed to the musical life of the Virginia State University Choir. Moore served the Virginia State music department in teaching and administrative capacities, but her compositional collaborations with the vocal ensembles produced a number of choral works that, at times, expanded on the spiritual traditions of Dawson and Hall Johnson. Her works during the 1940s through the 1970s were featured by Virginia State and other HBCUs in the region, including Norfolk State University, Virginia Union, and Morgan State University. Thus, Moore contributed to the development of the black college choir through her compositional craft and her regional influence as a musical leader. The Morgan State University Choir, under the leadership of Nathan Carter (1936–2004), became one of the nation’s most prestigious choirs. While known for their interpretations of spirituals, they also include classical, popular, and gospel tunes in their repertoire. Boasting an impressive list of toured cities and world-renowned artists with whom they have collaborated, Morgan State’s choir continues the artistic legacy of Carter by maintaining high performance standards and a strong national profile.
HBCU Jazz The narrative of jazz education’s history gives little mention to the role of HBCUs, focusing instead on institutional developments at institutions such as
Educators, Schools, Colleges, and Universities | 315 the Schillinger House (now Berklee College of Music) and North Texas State College (now the University of North Texas). Jazz was long a tradition at the HBCU, however, and recent scholarship has sought to reassert the role of such institutions and educators with this narrative. References to professional African American musicians teaching in HBCUs can be traced to the early 1900s. W. C. Handy was engaged for two years as a faculty member at Alabama A&M, and even though ‘‘jazz’’ was still in its formative years, Handy’s experiences with vernacular and popular music were sure to have made their way into his teaching. Len Bowden is said to have led jazz groups at Tuskegee Institute and Georgia State in the 1920s, and would later go on to direct the training program for African American musicians at the Great Lakes Naval Center during World War II, which included instruction in dance and swing music. HBCU big bands have begun to receive a substantial amount of attention with respect to their place in the training of professional musicians, and for their high level levels of musicianship. Often, such bands were, as with the Fisk Jubilee Singers, outside the ‘‘regular’’ curriculum. For example, a band organized at Alabama State Teachers College was led by trumpeter Erskine Hawkins while he was a student. While not a faculty member in the strictest sense, Hawkins’ mentorship of the band in the 1920s would pay dividends later, as members of the group would form the core of his professional big band. In some cases, however, faculty and administrators would offer more tangible support to jazz-oriented groups. One example of this was the Tennessee State Collegians, under the direction of band director J. D. Chavis, who in the late 1940s was sent by the president of the university to recruit a group of young, talented African American musicians for his band, which was widely acclaimed in the African American press, winning a number of polls in publications such as the Pittsburgh Courier. While performing groups have a long history at HBCUs throughout the 20th century, jazz instruction in the curriculum has not always enjoyed the same level of inclusion. Degree programs at such institutions were relatively unusual through the 1970s. Two notable exceptions have been the jazz programs at Southern University and Howard University. Avant-garde jazz clarinetist Alvin Batiste (1932–2007) accepted a position as jazz instructor at Southern University in 1965. His work with the jazz program produced jazz notables such as Branford Marsalis. Following a semiretirement that began in 1986, Batiste returned to Southern University as director of the Jazz and Louisiana Music Institute in 1990 and remained there until the turn of the century. Inspired by Donald Byrd in the early 1970s, the program was brought into prominence by Dr. Arthur Dawkins, who oversaw the formation of undergraduate and graduate degree programs in jazz studies, and under whose leadership Howard produced a number of renowned jazz artists. More recently, HBCU jazz programs have been established at North Carolina Central University, under Ira Wiggins, and at Jackson State University, directed by Russell Thomas. The growth of HBCU jazz ensembles has resulted in the establishment of an all-star big band, in conjunction with the African American Jazz Caucus of the International Association for Jazz Education.
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HBCU Marching Bands Marching bands at HBCUs draw on a long history of marching bands in American culture, with roots as far back as the Revolutionary War. The incorporation of marching bands into HBCU campus life began in the early 20th century and were, like the Fisk Singers, often used in a fundraising role for the university. At Tuskegee, early military style bands were led by N. Clark Smith (a famed public school music educator), and later by Frank Dye, a veteran of James Reese Europe’s ‘‘Hellfighters’’ band. Such bands likely played for both ceremonial and social functions, and were predecessors to the dance bands of the 1920s and 1930s. Through the 1940s and 1950s, spurred on by the increasing popularity of college football, HBCU marching bands continued to develop a unique style and tradition that endures to this day. The contemporary HBCU marching band has developed in a way that might be described as a ‘‘parallel’’ to traditions of predominantly white schools, infusing performances with unique elements of African American music and dance. Bands from Grambling State, Prairie View A&M, and Florida A&M have gained widespread praise for their energetic performances. The story of one such band, Grambling, can be traced to the 1920s, when Ralph Waldo Emerson Jones formed the first incarnation of the group. The band would grow throughout the next two decades, until Conrad Hutchinson, Jr. assumed the directorship in 1952. It was under Hutchinson’s leadership that the Grambling Tiger Band would develop its reputation for its extravagant performances, setting the standard to HBCU bands across the nation. In the 21st century, marching bands form an integral part of the identity for many HBCUs, with halftime band contests garnering nearly as much attention as the football games.
Major Figures in African American Music Scholarship Many leading educators of African American music performance, composition, and research gained professional experience as faculty members at HBCUs. David Baker, longtime director of jazz studies at Indiana University, was a member of the faculty at Lincoln University in the early 1960s, mentoring students such as Julius Hemphill. Former University of California professor Olly Wilson was, early in his teaching career, on the faculty at Florida A&M University. T. J. Anderson’s credentials, before his appointment at Tufts University, included stints at West Virginia State, Morehouse, and Tennessee State. And Eileen Southern, recognized as perhaps the most significant figure in black music scholarship of the 20th century, taught at Prairie View A&M and Southern University before her move to the East Coast, and eventual appointment at Harvard.
Educators of African American Music in Predominantly White Institutions The place of African American music within the curricula of predominantly white universities has changed dramatically over the last half century. Virtually
Educators, Schools, Colleges, and Universities | 317 ignored until the late 1960s, courses on African American musical idioms can be found in most major music departments in the 21st century. Although the most visible example is the massive growth of jazz studies since the 1970s, gospel, hip hop, classical forms, and folk music are all beginning to receive attention. A single article is not sufficient to capture the breadth of activities among scholars of African American music at America’s major research universities, but this overview provides some insight into the major professional and intellectual trends.
The Place of African American Music Faculty Historically the hiring of African American faculty has lagged in music schools and generally has followed similar trends in other areas of higher education, namely, that African Americans are profoundly underrepresented. In a 2003 study in the Journal of Blacks in Higher Education, African American faculty are shown on average to account for less than 5 percent of music faculty at selected institutions. Similarly, of the more than 700 doctoral degrees awarded in music in 2000, according to the same article, only seven were awarded to African Americans. Of course, two qualifications must be made. First, black faculty do not necessarily teach black music. This was a significant issue for many teachers in the 1970s when many African American faculty members whose primary expertise was in other areas often were assumed to be able to teach such courses. Second, not only African Americans have taught and are teaching African American musical topics. Many non–African American faculty, for example, are active as jazz educators in leading programs across the nation (in fact, the lack of African American faculty in such programs has sometimes been a point of criticism). A number of individuals have established themselves as seminal scholars in the area, such as Ingrid Monson, Quincy Jones Professor of African American Music at Harvard University. Nevertheless, relative paucity of black faculty members is of concern with respect to the growth of African American music in the university curriculum.
Jazz Studies Nowhere has the entry of African American music into the academy been more readily apparent than in the growth of jazz studies. The first significant institutional developments occurred in the 1940s at what are now the Berklee College of Music and the University of North Texas. A watershed for the development of jazz studies was the entry into the academy of artist-teachers whose backgrounds as jazz educators provided both essential professional experience and a degree of artistic credibility. Artists such as Max Roach, Archie Shepp, Billy Taylor, Nathan Davis, and Jackie McLean, to name just a few, all held (or continue to hold) teaching positions in American universities (Roach, Shepp, and Taylor at the University of Massachusetts; Davis at the University of Pittsburgh; McLean at the University of Hartford/Hartt School). Best known among this generation of performer-educators (at least in academic contexts) is David Baker (1931– ), who after his graduation from Indiana University in the 1950s was
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highly regarded as a trombonist and composer. In the early 1960s, Baker returned to Bloomington to take the reins of the university’s jazz studies program, and under his leadership, it has developed into a major center for jazz education. An outspoken critic of the neglect of African American topics (especially jazz) in the university music curriculum, Baker has been a tireless champion of jazz studies, and African American musical studies in general, mentoring numerous student jazz artists, educators, and scholars.
Musicology In addition to its jazz studies activities, Indiana University’s programs in Folklore and Ethnomusicology have played an important role in the development of African American musical scholarship. Portia Maultsby, professor of ethnomusicology and current director of Indiana University’s Archive of African American Music and Culture, specializes in African American popular and religious music, and has become, over the course of her three decades at the university, an internationally recognized scholar of black music. No single individual has had a profound an impact on black music scholarship, however, as Eileen Southern (1920–2002). Recognized as the ‘‘mother’’ of black music scholarship, her seminal 1971 work The Music of Black Americans remains among the most authoritative texts on the subject. An accomplished pianist in addition to her scholarly endeavors, Southern joined the faculty of Harvard University in 1976, teaching music and Afro-American Studies (a department she would chair for several years), and retiring in 1987 as the first African American women tenured as a full professor at the university. Southern’s scholarly output laid the groundwork for much, if not most, of the scholarship in African American music since the 1970s. Her published works included bibliograph