Louis Armstrong, Blues Music, and the Artistic, Political, and Philosophical Debate During the Harlem Renaissance

Louis Armstrong, Blues Music, and the Artistic, Political, and Philosophical Debate During the Harlem Renaissance PDF

Author: Dr. Michael Decuir

Publisher: Page Publishing Inc

Published: 2022-05-24

Total Pages: 212

ISBN-13: 166244169X

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In Louis Armstrong, Blues Music, and the Artistic, Political, and Philosophical Debate During the Harlem Renaissance, Dr. Michael Decuir explores the interrelationship of the literary, visual, and performing arts; politics; and opposing philosophies during the Harlem Renaissance. His research documents the West African roots of blues and jazz music to New Orleans and Louis Armstrong. Drawing on his own experiences growing up in New Orleans, Decuir details the related cultural behaviors and their manifestations during the Harlem Renaissance. Specifically, blues music’s importation to New Orleans and the incorporation of the West African stratified rhythmic and improvisational approach to its performance. Decuir connects historical events such as James Reese Europe’s creativity during World War I and its relevance to the events of the summer of 1919 and subsequent rebirth of the New Negro ideology. The research examines how the New Negro spirit helped infuse an examination and debate about the quality and validity of the period’s arts. Decuir expounds on the impact of the discussion in some of the period’s salient authors and essayists’ writings. They include Alain Locke, W. E. B. Du Bois, George Schuyler, and Langston Hughes, among others. Decuir discusses the correlation between the debate and the increasing popularity of blues music and Armstrong’s role as one of the arts’ principal aquifers. Specifically, Armstrong’s salient recordings, “Texas Moaner Blues,” “St. Louis Blues” (accompanying Bessie Smith), “Black and Blue,” “West End Blues,” and “Blue Yodel No. 9” (with Jimmie Rodgers). Decuir also explores blues music as an existential idiom indicative of the African American use of music for more than entertainment or aesthetic fulfillment. Specifically, the enslaved use of song texts to relay messages of escape and danger, the use of field songs to ease the burden of labor, and blues music’s role as a vehicle to identify and solve the ills of life in an oppressive existence.

Louis Armstrong, Blues Music, and the Artistic, Political, and Philosophical Debate During the Harlem Renaissance

Louis Armstrong, Blues Music, and the Artistic, Political, and Philosophical Debate During the Harlem Renaissance PDF

Author: Michael Decuir

Publisher:

Published: 2023-10-31

Total Pages: 0

ISBN-13:

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In Louis Armstrong, Blues Music, and the Artistic, Political, and Philosophical Debate During the Harlem Renaissance, Dr. Michael Decuir explores the interrelationship of the literary, visual, and performing arts; politics; and opposing philosophies during the Harlem Renaissance. His research documents the West African roots of blues and jazz music to New Orleans and Louis Armstrong. Drawing on his own experiences growing up in New Orleans, Decuir details the related cultural behaviors and their manifestations during the Harlem Renaissance. Specifically, blues music's importation to New Orleans and the incorporation of the West African stratified rhythmic and improvisational approach to its performance. Decuir connects historical events such as James Reese Europe's creativity during World War I and its relevance to the events of the summer of 1919 and subsequent rebirth of the New Negro ideology. The research examines how the New Negro spirit helped infuse an examination and debate about the quality and validity of the period's arts. Decuir expounds on the impact of the discussion in some of the period's salient authors and essayists' writings. They include Alain Locke, W. E. B. Du Bois, George Schuyler, and Langston Hughes, among others. Decuir discusses the correlation between the debate and the increasing popularity of blues music and Armstrong's role as one of the arts' principal aquifers. Specifically, Armstrong's salient recordings, "Texas Moaner Blues," "St. Louis Blues" (accompanying Bessie Smith), "Black and Blue," "West End Blues," and "Blue Yodel No. 9" (with Jimmie Rodgers). Decuir also explores blues music as an existential idiom indicative of the African American use of music for more than entertainment or aesthetic fulfillment. Specifically, the enslaved use of song texts to relay messages of escape and danger, the use of field songs to ease the burden of labor, and blues music's role as a vehicle to identify and solve the ills of life in an oppressive existence.

Louis Armstrong

Louis Armstrong PDF

Author: Scott Allen Nollen

Publisher: McFarland

Published: 2004

Total Pages: 248

ISBN-13:

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Louis Armstrong was not only a virtuoso musician, singer, composer and actor, but also a dedicated writer who typed hundreds of letters and reminiscences, carrying a typewriter with him on his constant travels around the globe. The man never stopped creating, and constantly communicated with friends and acquaintances. His unique verbal, musical and visual content and style permeated everything he touched. Included in this extensive career biography are the major events of his life, his artistic innovations and cultural achievements, a detailed survey of his recordings and live performances, and in-depth discussions of his screen performances not only his Hollywood feature film appearances, but his performances in short films, European concert films, and dozens of television shows broadcast from Hollywood, New York and Europe.

What Is This Thing Called Jazz?

What Is This Thing Called Jazz? PDF

Author: Eric Porter

Publisher: Univ of California Press

Published: 2002-01-31

Total Pages: 442

ISBN-13: 9780520928404

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Despite the plethora of writing about jazz, little attention has been paid to what musicians themselves wrote and said about their practice. An implicit division of labor has emerged where, for the most part, black artists invent and play music while white writers provide the commentary. Eric Porter overturns this tendency in his creative intellectual history of African American musicians. He foregrounds the often-ignored ideas of these artists, analyzing them in the context of meanings circulating around jazz, as well as in relationship to broader currents in African American thought. Porter examines several crucial moments in the history of jazz: the formative years of the 1920s and 1930s; the emergence of bebop; the political and experimental projects of the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s; and the debates surrounding Jazz at Lincoln Center under the direction of Wynton Marsalis. Louis Armstrong, Anthony Braxton, Marion Brown, Duke Ellington, W.C. Handy, Yusef Lateef, Abbey Lincoln, Charles Mingus, Archie Shepp, Wadada Leo Smith, Mary Lou Williams, and Reggie Workman also feature prominently in this book. The wealth of information Porter uncovers shows how these musicians have expressed themselves in print; actively shaped the institutional structures through which the music is created, distributed, and consumed, and how they aligned themselves with other artists and activists, and how they were influenced by forces of class and gender. What Is This Thing Called Jazz? challenges interpretive orthodoxies by showing how much black jazz musicians have struggled against both the racism of the dominant culture and the prescriptive definitions of racial authenticity propagated by the music's supporters, both white and black.

A History of the Harlem Renaissance

A History of the Harlem Renaissance PDF

Author: Rachel Farebrother

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Published: 2021-02-04

Total Pages: 453

ISBN-13: 1108640508

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The Harlem Renaissance was the most influential single movement in African American literary history. The movement laid the groundwork for subsequent African American literature, and had an enormous impact on later black literature world-wide. In its attention to a wide range of genres and forms – from the roman à clef and the bildungsroman, to dance and book illustrations – this book seeks to encapsulate and analyze the eclecticism of Harlem Renaissance cultural expression. It aims to re-frame conventional ideas of the New Negro movement by presenting new readings of well-studied authors, such as Zora Neale Hurston and Langston Hughes, alongside analysis of topics, authors, and artists that deserve fuller treatment. An authoritative collection on the major writers and issues of the period, A History of the Harlem Renaissance takes stock of nearly a hundred years of scholarship and considers what the future augurs for the study of 'the New Negro'.

Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists

Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists PDF

Author:

Publisher:

Published: 1959-02

Total Pages: 48

ISBN-13:

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The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists is the premier public resource on scientific and technological developments that impact global security. Founded by Manhattan Project Scientists, the Bulletin's iconic "Doomsday Clock" stimulates solutions for a safer world.

The New Negroes and Their Music

The New Negroes and Their Music PDF

Author: Jon Michael Spencer

Publisher: Univ. of Tennessee Press

Published: 1997

Total Pages: 204

ISBN-13: 9780870499678

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Spencer's discussion encompasses the music and writings of a wide range of important figures, including James Weldon Johnson, Harry T. Burleigh, Roland Hayes, Marian Anderson, Alain Locke, William Grant Still, R. Nathaniel Dett, and Dorothy Maynor. He argues that the singular accomplishment of the Harlem Renaissance composers and musicians was to achieve a "two-tiered mastery" promoted by Johnson, Locke, the Harmon award, and Crisis and Opportunity magazines.

Satchmo at the Waldorf

Satchmo at the Waldorf PDF

Author: Terry Teachout

Publisher: Dramatists Play Service, Inc.

Published: 2015-01-01

Total Pages: 40

ISBN-13: 0822231573

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THE STORY: SATCHMO AT THE WALDORF is a one-man, three-character play in which the same actor portrays Louis Armstrong, the greatest of all jazz trumpeters; Joe Glaser, his white manager; and Miles Davis, who admired Armstrong's playing but disliked his onstage manner. It takes place in 1971 in a dressing room backstage at the Empire Room of New York's Waldorf-Astoria Hotel, where Armstrong performed in public for the last time four months before his death. Reminiscing into a tape recorder about his life and work, Armstrong seeks to come to terms with his longstanding relationship with Glaser, whom he once loved like a father but now believes to have betrayed him. In alternating scenes, Glaser defends his controversial decision to promote Armstrong's career (with the help of the Chicago mob) by encouraging him to simplify his musical style, while Davis attacks Armstrong for pandering to white audiences.

Parodies of Ownership

Parodies of Ownership PDF

Author: Richard L. Schur

Publisher: University of Michigan Press

Published: 2009-06-04

Total Pages: 253

ISBN-13: 0472050605

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"Richard Schur offers a provocative view of contemporary African American cultural politics and the relationship between African American cultural production and intellectual property law." ---Mark Anthony Neal, Duke University "Whites used to own blacks. Now, they accomplish much the same thing by insisting that they 'own' ownership. Blacks shouldn't let them. A culture that makes all artists play by its rules will end up controlling new ideas and stifling change. Richard Schur's fine book explains why." ---Richard Delgado, Seattle University What is the relationship between hip-hop and African American culture in the post--Civil Rights era? Does hip-hop share a criticism of American culture or stand as an isolated and unique phenomenon? How have African American texts responded to the increasing role intellectual property law plays in regulating images, sounds, words, and logos? Parodies of Ownership examines how contemporary African American writers, artists, and musicians have developed an artistic form that Schur terms "hip-hop aesthetics." This book offers an in-depth examination of a wide range of contemporary African American painters and writers, including Anna Deavere Smith, Toni Morrison, Adrian Piper, Colson Whitehead, Michael Ray Charles, Alice Randall, and Fred Wilson. Their absence from conversations about African American culture has caused a misunderstanding about the nature of contemporary cultural issues and resulted in neglect of their innovative responses to the post--Civil Rights era. By considering their work as a cross-disciplinary and specifically African American cultural movement, Schur shows how a new paradigm for artistic creation has developed. Parodies of Ownership offers a broad analysis of post--Civil Rights era culture and provides the necessary context for understanding contemporary debates within American studies, African American studies, intellectual property law, African American literature, art history, and hip-hop studies. Weaving together law, literature, art, and music, Schur deftly clarifies the conceptual issues that unify contemporary African American culture, empowering this generation of artists, writers, and musicians to criticize how racism continues to affect our country. Richard L. Schur is Director, Interdisciplinary Studies Center, and Associate Professor of Interdisciplinary Studies at Drury University. Visit the author's website: http://www2.drury.edu/rschur/index.htm. Cover illustration: Atlas, by Fred Wilson. © Fred Wilson, courtesy Pace Wildenstein, New York.