Harlem Renaissance

Harlem Renaissance: Jazz and Blues Brian K Jin K Kevin O Jon Y

Jazz and Blues: The Origin • African American music existed long before the term “jazz” was ever made. • African American music started when the slaves from the West Africa brought their musical traditions with them to the United States.

Development of Jazz • When the African Americans were introduced to European Instruments, they added their own traditional hymns and rhythms to form Blues. • The first instruments that they were introduced to were the violins. Gradually, African Americans were introduced to more instruments • Jazz came from Blues and Jazz immediately became popular in cites just as Chicago and New York during the Great Migration after World War I

Reason Jazz Formed • The African Americans had to create a new identity for themselves in the New World. • So, they created Jazz to show how unique their culture was to the world. • However, jazz music became popular worldwide. • Black music provided the root of the Harlem Renaissance • Black writers such as Langston Hughes valued the blues as an indigenous art form of the country’s most oppressed people, and a secular equivalent of the spirituals.

Jazz in Harlem Renaissance • Jazz and Blues only existed in the South. • However, after World War I, during the Great Migration, many jazz players ended up at Harlem in New York City. • There, they performed at the bars and cabarets of Harlem • Jazz orchestras traveled across the country and Jazz was soon recognized as a form of high art.

Jazz: The Significance • Jazz introduced African American from the South and Midwest to bars in Harlem. • Ranged from Marriage of blues to instrumentation and orchestration

Apollo Theater • The world famous Apollo Theater is so much more than a historic landmark • It is a source of pride and a symbol of the brilliance of American artistic accomplishment. • With its rich history and continued significance, the Apollo Theater, is considered the bastion of AfricanAmerican culture and achievement.

•The theater is located at 253 W . 125th Street in the New York City, specifically in Harlem.

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•Originally, it was named Hurtig and Seamon’s New Burlesque Theatre and African-Americans were not allowed in the audience.

• In 1935 the Apollo Theater quickly became known the place “Where Stars are Born and Legends are Made” and “home” to thousands of major performance artists, fans, and patrons of the arts from around the world.

•Popular arena for emerging and established African-American and Latino performers.

Regal Theater in Chicago

Howard Theater in Washington D.C.

Joe “King” Oliver

Biography • Born in 1885 in New Orleans • Died in 1938 in Savannah • Was mentor and teacher to Louis Armstrong • Known to be the starter of the Harlem Renaissance Jazz

Examples of Work • • • •

I Must Have It Jackson Blues Buddy’s Habit Weatherbird Rag

Music • Mentor and teacher of Louis Armstrong • Hot Jazz is King Oliver’s style of collective improvisation instead of solos • He used his mutes, derbies, bottles and caps to make a range of different sounds through his horn • Started to play around 1908 • Ended as a janitor

Fletcher Henderson

Biography • Henderson was born in to a stable, middle class family. • When Henderson was young, he wanted to have a job in chemistry. • However, he found out that finding a job in chemistry would be nearly impossible because of his race. • He became manager of Harry Pace's Black Swan Record Company, playing piano on many of the company's record dates.

• He then organized a band to support Blues singer Ethel Waters. • In 1922, he was leading a band at the Little Club near Broadway. • In 1924, he hired Louis Armstrong from Chicago. • While Louis was in his band, Henderson was the first to acquire a wide reputation in Jazz. • Henderson led the most commercially successful of the African-American Jazz bands of the 1920s.

Louis Armstrong • Born in New Orleans 1901 • Shot a pistol on New Year’s Eve when 11 years old – Went to Juvenile court – Stayed for 18 months

Louis Armstrong • Mentor was Joe “King” Oliver • American Jazz trumpeter and singer • Also skilled at “scat singing” which is wordless vocalizing

Louis Armstrong • He played with many other musicians. Including Joe Oliver, he played with Fletcher Henderson, Bessie Smith, and more

Louis Armstrong • Traveled a lot • Went from New Orleans to Chicago to New York back to Chicago back to new York for Broadway • Most significant artist by late 30s and created a sensation in Europe

Louis Armstrong • In 1957, Armstrong publicly condemned violence in Little Rock • Called President Eisenhower “two-faced” and “gutless”

Billie Holiday • Billie Holiday was born Eleanora Fagan on April 7, 1915, in Baltimore, Maryland. (She borrowed the name "Billie" from one of her favorite movie actresses, Billie Dove. ) • Holiday suffered from poverty in her childhood years.

Life in New York• Holiday auditioned for a singing job and was hired. For the next few years she sang in Harlem clubs,. • Through a series of recordings made between 1935 and 1939, her international reputation was established.

•Worked with the group Count Basie, Artie Shaw. •Young named her "Lady Day and that title became her jazz world name from the mid-1930s on.

•Holiday's relationship with Basie's star tenor saxophonist Lester Young (1909–1959) is the stuff of legend.

•Then, in 1939, she began an engagement at Cafe Society , and she recorded for a song about the lynching of blacks called Strange Fruit. • •She started to have success with slow, melancholy songs ,particularly Gloomy Sunday (1941), a suicide song, and Lover Man (1944).

• Holiday’s career went down with the use of drugs. • Holiday is often considered the foremost female singer in jazz history. • On March 6, 2000, Holiday was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in the Early Influences category.

Duke Ellington

Biography • Duke Ellington’s real name is Edward Kennedy Ellington • Born April 29, 1899 in Washington D.C. • Died May 24, 1974 in New York City • He was an American pianist who was the greatest Jazz composer and bandleader. • Ellington led his band for more than half a century, composed thousands of records, and created one of the most unique cohesive sounds in all of Western music

Examples of Work • • • •

New World a-Comin’ Black, Brown and Beige Suite Three Black Kings Harlem, For Jazz Band and Orchestra

Music • Ellington is known for being daring with his music and inserting new types of sounds into his songs • Ellington’s most significant works were written specifically for his own band members and soloists • His arrangements of music have been remarkable and have achieved a blend of individual and cohesive qualities • However, since Ellington’s most significant works were for his band members and soloists, the works were interpreted by others as satisfactory and sometimes lower.

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