Jazz + Social Context

Midterm Review

Types of Readings:
1. Material written by musicians:
2. W.C. Handy – “Father of the Blues”, 1941
-Experience with minstrelsy
-Diversity of the song styles, playing ragtime/classical
-Performed to different level to circuits, segregated audiences

Lionel Hampton – “Autobiography”, 1989

Ethel Waters – “Eye on the Sparrow”, 1950

3. Analytical writings:
Angela Davis – Blues Legacies and Black Feminism
-Strange Fruit debut at Cafe Society in Greenwich Village,
-Poem written 1937 by Abel Meeropole in response to double lynching of
Thomas Shipp and Abraham Smith in 1930.

Graham Lock on Duke

Robin Kelly on Randy Weston

4. Contemporary writings:
Ralph Ellison on Bebop, 1959

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Recorded era of Jazz begins in 1917 with Dixieland jazz band.

Gushy on Creole Band: 0 recordings, most important band as it pertains to spreading the
New Orleans style to North America (Canada included).

Afro-American set dances article: In understanding how the evolution of dance in

African American communities, directly affected to the music / strands of coincided with
music. / Rag time development with dance innovations (foxtrot, lindy hop, etc.)
Swing and the Lindy Hop:
-The integration of musicians on stage w/ Benny Goodman quartet (Teddy Wilson,
Lionel Hampton, Gene Krupa) --- big band was still all whitee @ Carnegie Hall jam
session, 1938
-Lindy Hop @ the Savoy, Harlem to swing music.
-Main innovation from old style: riffs, 4/4, guitar instead of banjo, walking bass

Zoot Zoot Riots, 1943: American servicemen beating down Mexicans, anti-patriotic in
response to rationing on clothing and will. Association with Bebop, politics of style, and
Afro-American adoption of movement --- separating jazz from popular dance music as a
more radically political genre

√ Black, Brown, and Beige – Suite by Duke Ellington: Experience of Black people in
US, performed at Carnegie Hall
-Spirituals and Work songs
-Black involvement in the wars
-Harlem in the ‘20s.

Listening:
Bessie Smith – “Pigfoot and a Bottle of Beer”,
Band: Frank Newton, Bobby Johnson, Billy Taylor, Buck & his Band
-The retention of Southern culture in the North, class politics, critique of high
brow society + Harlem Renaissance (--- i’m not with that gimme a pigfoot and a
bottle of beer)

The Sousa Band – “Creole Bell”, 1912

Songs to know:
February 3rd (all)
February 8th – eight/twelve/fourteen/fifteen
February 10th (all)
Uhuru Africa – Randy Weston
February 24th - Recognize Ethel Waters, Ma Rainey, Bessie Smith
Identify Foxtrot vs. Swing version of “King Porter Stomp”
February 29th – thirty seven through 40
Benny Goodman Big Band vs. Quartet
Strange Fruit - Billie Holiday, Josh White
March 7th – all
March 9th - all

SWING – Lindy Hop

DANZON - Quadrille

Chronology: History --- Dred Scott, Civil War, Emancipation Proclamation, Plessy vs.
Ferguson, Spanish American War, Great Migration, WWI, Russian Revolution, Double
lynching of Thomas Shipp + Abram Smith, Kristalnacht, Zoot zoot Riots
Music dates --- First black minstrel troops, Scott Joplin, Emergence of blues, Souls of
Black Folk, Creole Band touring, Beginning of recorded jazz -1907 , Mammy Smith
Crazy Blues, Caroline Shout—James P. Johnson, Afro-American Symphony, Carnegie
Hall concert, Billie Holiday Strange Fruit, Jump for Joy, Black Brown Beige