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Record: "Billie Holiday" by Billie Holiday, 1944
Despite a lack of technical training, Billie Holiday was the outstanding
jazz singer of her day. She wrote in her autobiography: "Singing
songs like the 'The Man I Love' or 'Porgy' is no more work than sitting
down and eating Chinese roast duck, and I love roast duck."
Record: "Erskine Hawkins
Plays W.C. Handy" 1940
By the time he began playing trumpet at the age of 13, Hawkins had
already mastered drums and trombone. It was on trumpet, however, that
he established his name as a flamboyant player with an astonishing range.
He performed well into the 1980s before his death in 1992.
Record: "Paul Robeson
in Shakespeare's Othello" by Paul Robeson, 1940
Record: "Blues by Baise"
by Count Baise, 1940
A famous pianist and bandleader, William Basie grew up in New Jersey
where he took piano lessons. Young Willie did chores at a local theater
so that he could get in for free and one day the theater's piano player
didn't show up. After the manager declined his offer to fill in, Basie
waited until the picture had started, then snuck into the pit and accompanied
the film anyway. He was invited back to play the evening show.
Record: "Porgy and
Bess" by George Gershwin, 1940
Porgy and Bess is an opera that Gershwin based on the play by Dubose
Heyward about the crippled Porgy's love for Bess. However, the songs from
the opera have made it much more famous than the play. At its premiere
in 1935 its future was not certain; Porgy and Bess was too jazzy for opera
fans and too symphonic for Broadway fans. Duke Ellington was one of many
who criticized its "lampblack Negroisms." However it remains
one of the most successful operas by an American composer, and Gershwin's
stipulation that it be performed only by African Americans has ended up
launching many careers.
Program: "Louis Armstrong
and His Concert Group" 1940
Louis Armstrong, a trumpet player and singer, is often regarded as
the "founding father" of jazz.
Record: "Songs and
Spirituals by Marian Anderson" by Marian Anderson, 1940
Marian Anderson was born in Philadelphia, and the first instrument
she studied was the violin, but she soon realized that her greatest instrument
was her voice. She found it difficult to find voice teachers willing to
teach a poor black child, but eventually found an Italian instructor who
trained her and sent her on tour. However, in the 1920s, the United States
was not a friendly place for the contralto. She moved to Europe and spent
10 years traveling and performing there. She returned to the United States
and in 1939 she was to give a concert at Constitution Hall, a large auditorium
owned by the Daughters of the American Revolution. The DAR refused to
let Anderson sing there because she was black, so in response first lady
Eleanor Roosevelt arranged for an outdoor concert on the steps of the
Lincoln Memorial. The concert drew over 75,000 people and millions more
tuned in on the radio. The controversy was actually beneficial because
of the attention it drew to the injustices suffered by African Americans.
Record: "Duke Ellington
at Carnegie Hall" by Duke Ellington, 1940
A composer, bandleader, and pianist Edward Kennedy ("Duke")
Ellington was recognized in his lifetime as one of the greatest jazz composers
and performers. He experimented with new jazz sounds at the famous Cotton
Club in New York City in the 1920s later earned fame as a pianist and
bandleader.
Mr. Hicks: "All of these
records I picked up at Sharpless."
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