Thursday, September 27, 2007

Week Four Key Terms

W.C. Handy
Mamie Smith, "Crazy Blues", 1920
Prohibition
Bessie Smith, "Summertime" 1926
Bessie Smith, "Down Hearted Blues", 1923
Ma Rainey
Elizabeth Johnson, "Empty Bed Blues", 1927
Alberta Hunter, "Beale Street Blues", 1927
Theater Owners Booking Association (TOBA)
Ma Rainey, "Farewell Daddy Blues, " 1924
Bessie Smith, "Any Woman Blues", 1923
Bessie Smith, "Nobody Knows You When You're Down and Out", 1929
Billie Holiday, "Summertime", 1936
Billie Holiday, "Strange Fruit", 1939

Wednesday, September 19, 2007

Week Two Key Terms

Reconstruction 1866-1876
Black Codes
Ku Klux Klan
The Compromise of 1877 (Rutherford B. Hayes)
Lynching
Jim Crow Laws
Miscegenation
Poll Taxes
Accomodation ("Living behind the veil." - DuBois)
Sambo
Uncle Tom
Birth of a Nation
Blackface Minstrelsy

"All Coons Look Alike To Me", Arthur Collins, 1902
"A Coon Band Contest", Arthur Pryor's Band, 1906
"A Coon Band Contest", Earl Fuller's Famous Jazz Band, 1917

Griots (West Africa)
"Jangali Famata", Ali Farka Toure
"Longa Nakryse", Said Chraibi

"Trouble So Hard", Dock Reed, Henry Reed and Vera Hall, (recorded 1957)
"Oh Mary, Don't You Weep," Georgia Field Hands, 1929

Djerma Dundun Drummers, Niger, recorded 1976
"Long John", Lightning and Group, 1934

"Hard Times Come Again No More", published 1850, Stephen Foster (Thomas Hampson)
"Pretty Polly", Dock Boggs

Elder Lightfoot Solomon Michaux & Congregation, 1935
"Sometimes I Feel Like A Motherless Child", 1926, Paul Robeson

Vaudeville
"Nobody", Bert Williams, 1906
"Tiger Rag", Jack Johnson's Jazz Band, 1929

"Foldin' Bed", Whistler's Jug Band, 1930

Wednesday, September 12, 2007

Week One Outline

Key elements in Black Music
1. Call and response

2. Polyrhythm

3. Improvisation

4. Vocalization

5. Functionality

The Three Impulses

The Blues Impulse
1. Fingering the jagged grain of the brutal experience

2. Finding a near-tragic, near-comic lyricism

3. Reaffirming your existence

Example: "Making Love (At The Dark End of the Street)", Clarence Carter

The Gospel Impulse
1. Acknowledging the burden

2. Bearing Witness

3. Finding Redemption

Example: "No Hiding Place", Dorothy Love Coates

The Jazz Impulse
The constant process of redefinition

Example: "In The Ghetto", Eric B. & Rakim