harlem renaissance - bso. · pdf filethe man who composed the immortal “st. louis...

Music of the

Harlem Renaissance

B O S T O N

S Y M P H O N Y

O R C H E S T R A

Arts-integrated lesson

plans for students in

grades 8-12.

E D U C A T I O N A N D C O M M U N I T Y P R O G R A M S

Credits

Director of Education and Community ProgramsMyran Parker-Brass

Coordinator of Research and Curriculum DevelopmentShana Golden

© 2006 Boston Symphony Orchestra.

CoverJazz Musician © Corbis

The Boston Symphony Orchestra’s Department of Education and Community Programs has a variety of curriculum kits that are available for teachers and educators for grades K-12. For more information on our educational materials and programs, please contact the Education Office at: 301 Massachusetts Ave, Boston, MA 02115, (617) 638-9373.

Music BSO Harlem Renaissance Kit 3

Table of Contents

Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5

Poetry and the Blues

Lesson Plan . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7

Supplementary Materials . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10

W.C. Handy, “Beale Street Blues” . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14

W.C. Handy, “St. Louis Blues” . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15

Langston Hughes, “The Weary Blues” . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17

Sterling A. Brown, “Southern Road” . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18

What is the Blues? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19

Great Blues Singers

Lesson Plan . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21


Carl Van Vechten, “Negro Blues Singers” . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24

Duke Ellington at the Cotton Club

Lesson Plan . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29


Geoffrey C. Ward and Ken Burns, “Duke Ellington at the Cotton Club” . 33

R.D. Darrell, on Ellington’s “Black and Tan Fantasy” . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34

Langston Hughes, “Elements of Jazz” . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35

4 BSO Harlem Renaissance Kit Music

The Afro-American Symphony

Lesson Plan . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37


William Grant Still, on the “Afro-American Symphony” . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41

Additional Resources . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 43

Massachusetts Arts Curriculum Framework . . . . . . . . . 45


Introduction

THE BOSTON SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA’S Harlem Renaissance kit was created in order to raise awareness about the rich artistic heritage of African-Americans. These materials

are intended for use by classroom teachers to supplement exist-ing curriculum. The kit is divided into three series: Foundations, Great Artists, Musical Figures.

This kit is a production of the Boston Symphony Orchestra De-partment of Education and Community Programs. Feedback is welcomed, please contact the BSO with any comments or ques-tions.

Shana GoldenBSO Education DepartmentBoston Symphony Orchestra


Poetry and the Blues

Objectives Students will:Learn about the characteristics of a blues songAnalyze a poem(s) inspired by blues musicExamine a contemporary social issue

Materials Recordings and lyrics (by W.C. Handy): “Beale Street Blues”“St. Louis Blues” (Note: A CD of these works is included with this kit.)

Hughes, Langston, “The Weary Blues”

Brown, Sterling A., “Southern Road”

Introduction Give the students some biographical information on W.C. Handy and his blues tunes. Tell them that W.C. Handy (b. 1873 in Alabama) was the first person to collect and write down blues melodies. In 1907, he and Harry Pace formed a music publishing company. After publishing “Memphis Blues” in 1912 he became known as “The Father of the Blues.” He spent his life transcribing and composing blues tunes, which he published in a book called Blues: An Anthology in 1926. His songs were performed and recorded by all the major blues singers of the early 20th century.

Have the class listen to a recording of the W.C. Handy blues song “Beale Street Blues.”

Development Pass out copies of lyrics for the W.C. Handy blues song “Beale Street Blues.”

Identify the basic elements of a Blues Song: What is the subject of this song? (Blues songs often comment on the social climate of the time. Is there symbolism in the text? Allusions to historical events? Are figures of speech used?)

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What is the mood of the song?(The word “blues” was a slang term used in the mid-19th century to describe sadness and misery. The blues were sung by one person, and often spoke of personal or social prob-lems. ) What is the form of the song?(Blues songs are usually written in AAB form, which means that the first line often presents an idea or issue, the second line repeats it, and the third line responds to the idea pre-sented in the first and second lines.) What are the poetic elements? (Organized into stanzas (strophic); uses rhyme, repetition, or assonance; often has symbolism or figures of speech)

Play another W.C. Handy blues song called ”St. Louis Blues”, and pass out copies of the song text. Discuss the “blues” char-acteristics of this song: subject, mood, form, poetic elements.

Pass out copies of “The Weary Blues” by Langston Hughes, and “A Southern Road” by Sterling A. Brown.

Discuss the “blues” characteristics of each poem.

What is the subject matter? Does this poem have a “blues” subject?What is the mood?What is the form? Is the poem strophic (organized by stanzas like a blues poem) or strichic (organized by lines)? How does the poem incorporate the blues form?What voice is used? What kind of language?How does the poem sound like a blues song? Does Langston use rhyme? Repetition? Assonance?

Activity Assign students to write a blues song about a contemporary

social issue. Students should share their work with the class.

Students should use:

The 12-bar blues (AAB form)Colloquial language Poetic elements such as rhyme, repetition, assonance

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Activity Extension Poetry “Slam.” Set aside a day or evening for students to read their poems. Students can also read their own poems with in-strumental music.


Supplementary Materials

The next few pages include materials that may be used with the Poetry and the Blues lesson plan. Included are photos and biographical information on the artists, lyrics for the “St. Louis Blues” and the “Beale Street Blues,” Langston Hughes’ poem “The Weary Blues,” Sterling Brown’s poem “Southern Road,” and an introduction to Blues music called “What is the Blues?”

Biographies of W.C. Handy • Langston Hughes • Sterling Brown

W.C. Handy (1873-1958)

The title of W.C. Handy’s autobiography, Father of the Blues, is an accurate assessment of his contribution to American music. The man who composed the immortal “St. Louis Blues,” written in 1914, and other classics—such as “Beale Street Blues,” “Memphis Blues,” “Careless Love,” and “Yellow Dog Blues”—forever changed the course of American music by integrating a blues idiom with ragtime.

William Christopher Handy was born on Nov. 16, 1873, in Florence, Ala., the son of former slaves. As a 15-year-old he

left home to work in a traveling minstrel show, but he soon returned when his money ran out. He attended Teachers Agricultural and Mechanical College in Huntsville, Ala., and worked as a schoolteacher and bandmaster. In 1893, during an economic depression, he formed a quartet to perform at the World’s Columbian Exposition in Chicago. For several years afterward he drifted around the country working at different jobs. Eventually he settled in Memphis, Tenn.

Handy wrote music during the period of transition from ragtime to jazz. The music he had absorbed during his youth consisted of spirituals, work songs, and folk ballads. His own work consisted of elements of all of these in addition to the popular ragtime and the blues notes that he inserted. His work developed the conception of blues as a harmonic framework within which it was possible to improvise. His own chosen instrument was the cornet. Although he lost his eyesight at age 30, he conducted his own orchestra from 1903 until 1921. His sight partially returned, but he became completely blind after a fall from a subway platform in 1943.

Composing the blues began in 1909 when Handy wrote an election campaign song for the mayor of Memphis, Edward H. “Boss” Crump. With some changes, the song was published in 1911 as “Memphis Blues.” In all he wrote some 60 compositions. Handy spent his last years in New York City, where he died on March 28, 1958.

-from “W.C. Handy”, The Brittanica Student Encyclopedia 2006, http://www.brittanica.com.


Langston Hughes (1902-1967)

James Langston Hughes was born February 1, 1902, in Joplin, Missouri. His parents divorced when he was a small child, and his father moved to Mexico. He was raised by his grandmother until he was thirteen, when he moved to Lincoln, Illinois, to live with his mother and her husband, before the family eventually settled in Cleveland, Ohio. It was in Lincoln, Illinois, that Hughes began writing poetry. Following graduation, he spent a year in Mexico and a year at Columbia University. During these years, he held odd jobs as an assistant cook, launderer, and a busboy, and travelled to Africa and Europe working as a seaman. In November 1924, he moved to Washington, D.C.

Hughes’s first book of poetry, The Weary Blues, was published by Alfred A. Knopf in 1926. He finished his college education at Lincoln University in Pennsylvania three years later. In 1930 his first novel, Not Without Laughter, won the Harmon gold medal for literature.

Hughes, who claimed Paul Lawrence Dunbar, Carl Sandburg, and Walt Whitman as his primary influences, is particularly known for his insightful, colorful portrayals of black life in America from the twenties through the sixties. He wrote novels, short stories and plays, as well as poetry, and is also known for his engagement with the world of jazz and the influence it had on his writing, as in “Montage of a Dream Deferred.” His life and work were enormously important in shaping the artistic contributions of the Harlem Renaissance of the 1920s. Unlike other notable black poets of the period—Claude McKay, Jean Toomer, and Countee Cullen—Hughes refused to differentiate between his personal experience and the common experience of black America. He wanted to tell the stories of his people in ways that reflected their actual culture, including both their suffering and their love of music, laughter, and language itself.

Langston Hughes died of complications from prostate cancer in May 22, 1967, in New York. In his memory, his residence at 20 East 127th Street in Harlem, New York City, has been given landmark status by the New York City Preservation Commission, and East 127th Street has been renamed “Langston Hughes Place.”

In addition to leaving us a large body of poetic work, Hughes wrote eleven plays and countless works of prose, including the well-known “Simple” books: Simple Speaks His Mind, Simple Stakes a Claim, Simple Takes a Wife, and Simple’s Uncle Sam. He edited the anthologies The Poetry of the Negro and The Book of Negro Folklore, wrote an acclaimed autobiography (The Big Sea) and co-wrote the play Mule Bone with Zora Neale Hurston.

- from “Langston Hughes”, Poets.org, http://www.poets.org.


Sterling Brown (1901-1989)

Sterling Brown was born in Washington, D.C., in 1901. He was educated at Dunbar High School and received a bachelor’s degree from Williams College. He studied the work of Ezra Pound and T. S. Eliot, but was more interested in the works of Amy Lowell, Edgar Lee Masters, Robert Frost and Carl Sandburg. In 1923, he earned a master’s degree from Harvard University and was employed as a teacher at the Virginia Seminary and College in Lynchburg until 1926. Three years later, Brown began teaching at Howard University and in 1932 his first book, Southern Road, was published.

His poetry was influenced by jazz, the blues, work songs and spirituals and, like Langston Hughes, Jean Toomer, Countee Cullen, and other black poets of the period, his writing expresses his concerns about race in America. Southern Road was well received by critics and Brown became part of the artistic tradition of the Harlem Renaissance, but with the arrival of the Depression, Brown could not find a publisher for his second book of verse. He turned to writing essays and focused on his career as a teacher at Howard, where he taught until his retirement in 1969. He finally published his second book of poetry, The Last Ride of Wild Bill, in 1975. Brown is known for his frank, unsentimental portraits of black people and their experiences, and the incorporation of African-American folklore and contemporary idiom into his verse. He died in 1989 in Takoma Park, Maryland.

- from “Sterling Brown”, Poets.org, http://www.poets.org.


“Then one night in Tutwiler, as I nodded in the railroad station that had been delayed nine hours, life suddenly took me by the shoulder and wakened me with a start. A lean, loose-jointed Negro had commenced plunking a guitar beside me while I slept… as he played he pressed a knife on the strings of the guitar in a manner popularized by Hawaiian guitarists. The effect was unforgettable. His son, too, struck me instantly. ‘Goin’ where the Southern cross’ the Dog.’ The singer repeated the line three time, accompanying himself on the guitar with the weirdest music I had ever heard.”

-W.C. Handy, Father of the Blues (1903).


Beale Street Bluesby W.C Handy

I’ve seen the lights of gay Broadway, Old Market Street down by the Frisco Bay, I’ve strolled the Prado, I’ve gambled on the Bourse; The seven wonders of the world I’ve seen, And many are the places I have been, Take my advice, folks, and see Beale Street first!

You’ll see pretty browns in beautiful gowns, You’ll see tailor-mades and hand-me-downs, You’ll meet honest men, and pick-pockets skilled, You’ll find that business never ceases ‘til somebody gets killed!

If Beale Street could talk, if Beale Street could talk, Married men would have to take their beds and walk, Except one or two who never drink booze, And the blind man on the corner singing “Beale Street Blues!”

I’d rather be there than any place I know, I’d rather be there than any place I know, It’s gonna take a sergeant for to make me go!

I’m goin’ to the river, maybe by and by, Yes, I’m goin’ to the river, maybe by and by, Because the river’s wet, and Beale Street’s done gone dry!


“Music did bring me to the gutter. It brought me to sleep on the levee on the Mississippi River, on the cobblestones, broke and hungry. And if you’ve ever slept on cobblestones or had nowhere to sleep, you can understand why I began [‘The St. Louis Blues’] with ‘I hate to see the evening sun go down.’” –W. C. Handy

St. Louis Bluesby W.C. Handy

I hate to see that evening sun go down, I hate to see that evening sun go down, ‘Cause my lovin’ baby done left this town.

If I feel tomorrow, like I feel today, If I feel tomorrow, like I feel today, I’m gonna pack my trunk and make my getaway.

Oh, that St. Louis woman, with her diamond rings, She pulls my man around by her apron strings. And if it wasn’t for powder and her store-bought hair, Oh, that man of mine wouldn’t go nowhere.

I got those St. Louis blues, just as blue as I can be, Oh, my man’s got a heart like a rock cast in the sea, Or else he wouldn’t have gone so far from me.

I love my man like a schoolboy loves his pie, Like a Kentucky colonel loves his rocker and rye I’ll love my man until the day I die, Lord, Lord.

I got the St. Louis blues, just as blue as I can be, Lord, Lord! That man’s got a heart like a rock cast in the sea, Or else he wouldn’t have gone so far from me.

I got those St. Louis blues, I got the blues, I got the blues, I got the blues, My man’s got a heart like a rock cast in the sea, Or else he wouldn’t have gone so far from me, Lord, Lord!


At any rate, when I was a kid in Kansas City very often I used to hear the blues. There were blind guitar players who would sing the blues on street corners. There were people plunking the blues on beat up old pianos. That was of course before the days of the jukebox and the radio. In those days, almost everybody who could afford to have a piano had one, and played them in their homes. And so you heard a lot of music. Well, at any rate, I was very much attracted to the blues. I remember even now some of the blues verses that I used to hear as a child in Kansas City. And so I, in my early beginnings at poetry writing, tried to weave the blues into my poetry.

- Langston Hughes (1959)


The Weary BluesLangston Hughes

(1923)

1 Droning a drowsy syncopated tune, 2 Rocking back and forth to a mellow croon, 3 I heard a Negro play. 4 Down on Lenox Avenue the other night 5 By the pale dull pallor of an old gas light 6 He did a lazy sway .... 7 He did a lazy sway .... 8 To the tune o’ those Weary Blues. 9 With his ebony hands on each ivory key 10 He made that poor piano moan with melody. 11 O Blues! 12 Swaying to and fro on his rickety stool 13 He played that sad raggy tune like a musical fool. 14 Sweet Blues! 15 Coming from a black man’s soul. 16 O Blues! 17 In a deep song voice with a melancholy tone 18 I heard that Negro sing, that old piano moan-- 19 “Ain’t got nobody in all this world, 20 Ain’t got nobody but ma self. 21 I’s gwine to quit ma frownin’ 22 And put ma troubles on the shelf.” 23 Thump, thump, thump, went his foot on the floor. 24 He played a few chords then he sang some more-- 25 “I got the Weary Blues 26 And I can’t be satisfied. 27 Got the Weary Blues 28 And can’t be satisfied-- 29 I ain’t happy no mo’ 30 And I wish that I had died.” 31 And far into the night he crooned that tune. 32 The stars went out and so did the moon. 33 The singer stopped playing and went to bed 34 While the Weary Blues echoed through his head. 35 He slept like a rock or a man that’s dead.


Southern RoadSterling A. Brown

Swing dat hammer--hunh-- Steady, bo’; Swing dat hammer--hunh-- Steady, bo’; Ain’t no rush, bebby, Long ways to go.

Burner tore his--hunh-- Black heart away; Burner tore his--hunh-- Black heart away; Got me life, bebby, An’ a day.

Gal’s on Fifth Street--hunh-- Son done gone; Gal’s on Fifth Street--hunh-- Son done gone; Wife’s in de ward, bebby, Babe’s not bo’n.

My ole man died--hunh-- Cussin’ me; My ole man died--hunh-- Cussin’ me; Ole lady rocks, bebby, Huh misery.

Doubleshackled--hunh-- Guard behin’; Doubleshackled--hunh-- Guard behin’; Ball an’ chain, bebby, On my min’.

White man tells me--hunh-- Damn yo’ soul; White man tells me--hunh-- Damn yo’ soul; Got no need, bebby, To be tole.

Chain gang nevah--hunh-- Let me go; Chain gang nevah--hunh-- Let me go; Po’ los’ boy, bebby, Evahmo’ . . .


What is the Blues?

Harmony and Structure

The 12-bar blues has twelve measures, or bars, divided into three groups of four bars each. The structure is supported by a fixed harmonic progression that all blues performers know, and could play almost automatically. Such a progression can be played in any key, though blues musicians favor E or A and jazz musicians B-flat.

When this pattern is repeated in performance, the V (five) chord is used in bar 12; called the turn-around, it is used as a preparation for going back to the beginning. The I (one) chord is used in bar 12 during the final passage through the 12-bar sequence.

Meter and Rhythm

The blues generally uses a 4/4 time signature and there are four beats to each of the 12-bars. Characteristic of the blues style is the rhythmic momentum described as “swing”, a relationship between long and short note durations that may be represented (although not exactly) by triplet subdivisions.


The Blues Scale

Improvides melodies often incorporate “blues notes,” which are lowered 3rd, 7th, and to a lesser extent, 5th degrees of the major scale. These inflected pitches are among the most distinctive features. The “blues scale” is a chromatic variant of the major scale and suggests the notes that a musician might use in performance.

Lyrics

The 12-bar blues usually has two successive lines of text forming a pair known as a single couplet. The second line generally repeats the first; enabling a blues singer time to improvise a rhyming third line, while singing the second.

- adapted from “What is the Blues?”, BSO Online Consevatory, http://www.bso.org.


Objectives Students will:Learn about two prominent Harlem Renaissance blues singers: Bessie Smith and Clara Smith Analyze the lyrics of two Blues songsLearn techniques for analyzing vocal and musical style

Materials Recordings:Smith, Bessie, “Down Hearted Blues’” Smith, Clara, “Broken Busted Blues” (Note: A CD of these works is included with this kit.)

Van Vechten, Carl, “Negro ‘Blues’ Singers: An appreciation of Three Coloured Artists Who Excel in an Unusual and Native Medium.”

Introduction Tell the students that they are going to learn about two singers from the Jazz Age: Bessie Smith and Clara Smith. Provide brief biographical accounts of each singer.

Bessie Smith (1894-1937) b. Tennessee. Blues singer, known as “The Empress of the Blues”. Began touring in her teens. At the age of 29 her Columbia recording “Down-Hearted Blues/Gulf Coast Blues” sold 780,000 copies in six months. Played almost entirely in all-black theaters. Died in 1937 after a car accident.

Clara Smith (1894-1935) Blues singer who was the second best-selling artist after Bessie Smith on the Coumbia label. Moved to New York in 1923. Died in 1935.

Development Listen to the recording of Bessie Smith, “Down Hearted Blues.”

Discussion:

What is the mood of the music?What is this song about?How does Bessie Smith convey the mood and meaning of the text?

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Great Blues Singers


Tell the students that Bessie Smith was known for her voice. She made no attempts to sound “pretty”. Her direct, forceful, growling voice and her songs reflected her working class back-ground.

Listen to the recording of Clara Smith, “Broken Busted Blues.”

Discussion (from worksheet):

What is this song about?What is the mood of the music? How does the singer convey the mood and meaning of the text?

Read excerpts from the article, “Negro Blues Singers” by Carl Van Vechten.

Tell the class that Van Vechten was a writer who was born in 1880 (d. 1964). He moved to New York in 1906 where he worked as a music and dance critic. He was of Caucasian de-scent, but he was very interested in promoting the work of black artists. In 1926 he wrote a controversial novel entitled “Nigger Heaven.” Throughout his life he photographed and wrote about life in New York, and often visited Harlem.

Discussion: What does Van Vechten say about Bessie Smith and Clara Smith?How does he describe their voices? Their performances?What are the factors that he says contributed to their popu-larity?Do you agree with his observations?

Activity Have students plan a 30 minute radio show for a musician from

the Harlem Renaissance, including:

A brief introduction to the performer, including back-ground, musical style, and importance A playlistA written script to introduce each work on the show

Activity Extension Have students record their “radio shows” on tape or CD, featuring themselves as the host.

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The next few pages include materials that may be used with the Great Blues Singers lesson plan. Included are photos and biographies of the artists, and an essay by Carl Van Vechten: “Negro ‘Blues’ Singers.”

Bessie Smith (1894-1937)

Bessie Smith began her professional career in 1912, performing in various touring minstrel shows and cabarets. By the 1920s, she was a leading artist in black shows on the TOBA circuit and at the 81 Theatre in Atlanta. Her first recording, Down-Hearted Blues, established her as the most successful black performing artist of her time. She recorded regularly until 1928 and toured throughout the US, performing to large audiences. In 1929, she appeared in the film St. Louis Blues. By then, however, alcohol-ism had severely damaged her career, as did the Great Depres-sion. She died in 1936, following an automobile accident.

Smith was unquestionably the greatest of the vaudeville blues singers and brought the emotional intensity, personal involvement, and expression of blues singing into the jazz repertory with un-excelled artistry. Her broad phrasing, fine intonation, blue-note inflections, and wide, expressive range made hers the measure of jazz-blues singing in the 1920s. She made almost 200 recordings, of which her remarkable duets with Armstrong are among her best. Her voice had coarsened by the time of her last session, but few jazz artists have been as consistently outstanding. - adapted from “Bessie Smith”, The New Grove History of Jazz, Oxford University Press.

Clara Smith (1834-1935)

Little is known about Clara Smith’s early life other that that she was from Spartanburg, South Carolina. She worked in vaude-ville in the late Teens and early 1920s and eventually became a popular performer. In 1923 she moved to Harlem where she worked in cabarets and theaters and began recording exclu-sively for Columbia. Many critics consider her late 1920’s Blues recordings to be second only to Bessie Smith’s records in qual-ity. She was billed as the Queen of the Moaners and the World’s Greatest Moaner.

She recorded three duets “Far Away Blues” and “I’m Going Back To My Used To Be” and “My Man Blues” with Bessie Smith. Bessie and Clara were not re-lated, but they were close personal friends until Bessie got drunk one evening in 1925 and beat up Clara. Clara Smith continued to record until 1932 and performed live until she died of a heart at-tack in Detroit in 1935. -adapted from “Clara Smith”, Red Hot Jazz, http://www.redhotjazz.com.


Negro “Blues” Singers (1926)An Appreciation of Three Coloured Artists

Who Excel in an Unusual and Native Medium by Carl Van Vechten

Editor’s notes—New York is celebrated for its transitory fads. For whole seasons its mood is dominated by one popular

figure or another, or by a racial influence. We have had Chaliapin winters, Moscow Art Theatre winters, Jeritza winters,

Jazz winters, Russian winters, and Spanish winters. During the current season, indubitably, the Negro is in the ascen-

dancy. Harlem cabarets are more popular than ever. Everybody is trying to dance the Charleston or to sing Spirituals,

and volumes of arrangements of these folksongs drop from the press faster than one can keep count of them. Since Sep-

tember, at least four white fiction writers have published novels dealing with the Negro, while several novels and books

of poems by coloured writers are announced. Paul Robeson, Florence Mills, Taylor Gordon and Rosamond Johnson,

Roland Hayes, and Bill Robinson are all successful on the stage or concert platform. Soon, doubtless, the homely Negro

songs of lovesickness known as the Blues, will be better known and appreciated by white audiences.

A trip to Newark is a career, and so I was forced to rise from the dinner table on Thanksgiving night shortly after eight o’clock if I wished to hear Bessie Smith sing at the Orpheum Theatre in that New Jersey City at a quarter of ten. I rose with eagerness, however, and so did my guests. Bessie Smith, the “Queen of the Blues,” whose records sell into figures that compete with the cir-culation of the Saturday Evening Post, was to sing in Newark arid Bessie Smith, who makes long tours of the South where her rich voice reaches the ears of the race from which she sprang, bad not been heard in the vicinity of New York, save through the horn of the phonograph, for over a year. The signs and tokens were favorable. When we gave directions to the white taxicab driver at Park Place, he demanded, “Going to hear Bessie Smith?” “Yes,” we replied. “No good trying,” he assured us. “You can’t get in. They’ve been hanging on the chandeliers all the week.” Never-theless, we persevered, spurred on perhaps by a promise on the part of the management that a box would be reserved for us. We arrived, however, to discover that this promise had not been kept. It had been impossible to hold the box; the crowd was too great. “Day jes’ nacherly eased into dat box,” one of the ushers explained insouciantly. However, Leigh Whipper, the enterprising manager of the theatre, eased them out again. Once seated, we looked out over a vast sea of happy black faces—two comedians were exchanging jokes on the stage. There was not a mulatto or high yellow visible among these people who were shouting merriment or approval after every ribald line. Where did they all come from? ln Harlem the Negroes are many colors, shading to white, but these were all chocolate browns and “blues.” Never before had I seen such an audience save at typical Negro camp-meet-ings in the far South. The comedians were off. The lights were lowered. A new placard, reading BESSIE SMITH, appeared in the frames at either side of the proscenium. As the curtain lifted, a jazz band, against a background of plum-coloured hangings, held the full stage. The saxophone began to moan; the drummer tossed his sticks. One was transported involuntarily, inevitably, to a Harlem cabaret. Presently, the band struck up a slower and still more mournful strain. The hangings parted and a great brown woman emerged—she was the size of Fay Templeton in her Weber and Fields days, and she was even garbed similarly, in a rose satin dress, spangled with sequins, which swept away


from her trim ankles. Her face was beautiful, with the rich, ripe beauty of southern darkness, a deep bronze brown, like her bare arms. She walked slowly to the footlights. Then, to the accompaniment of the wailing, muted brasses, the monotonous African - beat of the drum, the dromedary glide of the pianist’s fingers over the responsive keys, she began her strange rites in a voice full of shoutin’ and moanin’ and prayin’ and sufferin’, a wild, rough Ethiopian voice, harsh and volcanic, released between rouged lips and the whitest of teeth, the singer swaying slightly to the rhythm.

“Yo’ treated me wrong; I treated yo’ right; I wo’k fo’ yo’ full day an’ night. Yo’ brag to women I was yo’ fool, So den I got dose sobbin’ h’ahted Blues.”

And now, inspired partly by the lines, partly by the stumbling strain of the accompani-ment, partly by the power and magnetic personality of this elemental conjure woman and her plangent African voice, quivering with pain and passion, which sounded as if it had been developed at the sources of the Nile, the crowd burst into hysterical shrieks of sorrow and lamen-tation. Amens rent the air. Little nervous giggles, like the shivering of venetian glass, shocked the nerves. “It’s true I loves yo’, but I won’t take mistreatments any mo’.”

“Dat’s right,” a girl cried out from under our box.

“All I wants is yo’ pitcher in a frame; All 1 wants is yo’ pitcher in a frame; - When yo’ gone I kin see yo’ jes’ duh same.”

“Oh, Lawdy! Lawdy!” The girl beneath us shook with convulsive sobbing.

“Use gwine to staht walkin’ cause I got a wooden pah o’ shoes; Gwine to staht walkin’ cause I got a wooden pah o shoes; Gwine keep on walkin’ till I lose dese sobbin’ h’ahted Blues.”

The singer disappeared, and with her her magic. The spell broken, the audience relaxed and began to chatter. The band played a gayer tune. Once again, Bessie Smith came out, now clad in a clinging garment fashioned of beads of silver steel. More than ever she was like an African empress, more than ever like a conjure wom-an. “I’m gwineter sing dose mean ornery cussed Wo’khouse Blues,” she shouted.


“Everybody’s cryin’ de wo’khouse Blues all day All ‘long, All ‘long.

A deep sigh from the gallery.

“Been wo’kin’ so hard—thirty days is long, long, long, long, long...

The spell once more was weaving its subtle sorcery, the perversely complicated spell of Af-rican voodoo, the fragrance of china-berry blossoms, the glimmer of the silver fleece of the cotton field under the full moon, the spell of sorrow: misery, poverty, and the horror of jail.

“I gotta leab heah, Cotta git duh nex’ train home..

Way up dere, way up on a long lonesome road; Duh wo’khouse ez up on a long lonesome road... Daddy used ter be mine, but look who’se got him now; Daddy used ter be mine, but look who’se got him now; Ef yo’ took him keep him, he don’t mean no good nohow.”

II

If Bessie Smith is crude and primitive, she represents the true folk-spirit of the race. She sings Blues as they are understood and admired by the coloured masses. Of the artists who have communi-cated the Blues to the more sophisticated Negro and white public, I think Ethel Waters is the best. In fact, to my mind, as an artist, Miss Waters is superior to any other woman stage singer of her race. She refines her comedy, refines her pathos, refines even her obscenities. She is such an ex-pert mistress of her effects that she is obliged to expend very little effort to get over a line, a song, or even a dance. She is a natural comedienne and not one of the kind that has to work hard. She is not known as a dancer, but she is able, by a single movement of her body to outline for her public the suggestion of an entire dance. In her singing she exercises the same subtle skill. Some of her songs she croons; she never shouts. Her methods are precisely opposed to those of the crude coon shouter, to those of the authentic Blues singer, and yet, not for once, does she lose the veridical Ne-gro atmosphere. Her voice and her gestures are essentially Negro, but they have been thought out and restrained, not prettified, but stylized. Ethel Waters can be languorous or emotional or gay, according to the mood of her song, but she is always the artistic interpreter of the many-talented race of which she is such a conspicuous member.


III When we listen to Clara Smith we are vouchsafed another manifestation of the genius of the Ne-gro for touching the heart through music. Like Bessie Smith—they are not sisters despite the fact that once, I believe, they appeared in a sister-act in vaudeville—Clara is a crude purveyor of the pseudo-folksongs of her race. She employs, however, more nuances of expression than Bessie. Her voice flutters agonizingly between tones. Music critics would say that she sings off the key. What she really does, of course, is to sing quarter tones. Thus she is justifiably billed as the “World’s greatest moaner.” She appears to be more of an artist than Bessie, but I suspect that this apparent artistry is spontaneous and uncalculated. As she comes upon the stage through folds of electric blue hangings at the back, she is wrapped in a black evening cloak bordered with white fur. She does not advance, but hesitates, turning her face in profile. The pianist is playing the characteristic strain of the Blues. Clara begins to sing:

“All day long I’m worried; All day long I’m blue; I’m so awfully lonesome, I don’ know what to do; So I ask yo’, doctor, See if yo’ kin fin’ Somethin’ in yo’ satchel To pacify my min’.

Doctor! Doctor!

(Her tones become poignantly pathetic; tears roll down her cheeks.)

Write me a prescription fo’ duh Blues Duh mean ole Blues.”

(Her voice dies away in a mournful wail of pain and she buries her head in the curtains.)

Clara Smith’s tones uncannily take on the colour of the saxophone; again of the clarinet. Her voice is powerful or melancholy, by turn, it tears the blood from one’s heart. One learns from her that the Negro’s cry to a cruel Cupid is as moving and elemental, as is his cry to God, as ex-pressed in the Spirituals.

- Reprinted from Vanity Fair, Vol. 26, no. 1 (1926): 67, 106, 108.


Duke Ellington at the Cotton Club

Objectives Students will: Listen to the music of the Duke Ellington OrchestraLearn to identify the general characteristics of jazz musicLearn about “trade clubs” from the 1920’s, such as the Cotton Club

Materials Recordings: Duke Ellington Orchestra, “Black and Tan Fantasy” (Note: A CD of this work is included with this kit.)

Ward, Geoffrey C., and Burns, Ken, “Duke Ellington at the Cot-ton Club” from Jazz: A History of America’s Music

Quote from R.D. Darrell, a NY music critic

Hughes, Langston, Ten Basic Elements of Jazz

Background The Cotton Club Located on 133rd st. in Harlem, NY. One of the three largest nightclubs, or “trade clubs” in Harlem that catered to an exclusively white clientele during the 1920’s.

The Cotton Club featured all-black entertainers such as Ethel Waters, Duke Ellington and Cab Calloway. It was known for its two hour “floor shows”, which included a band, dancer, comedian, and other stars. Patrons sat at elegant tables and were served by black waiters.

The club was owned by white mobsters, charged high prices, and maintained strict divisions between the performers and audience.

Duke Ellington Orchestra The Duke Ellington Orchestra played at the Cotton Club for twelve years, beginning in 1928. It was founded by Duke Ellington (b.1899), a composer/arrang-er/pianist who lived in Harlem from 1922-74. During this time he arranged/composed over 1,000 pieces. Ellington’s music is known for its originality, spontaneity, and orchestration. He chose his band members for their dis-tinctive styles, and wrote individual parts for them. His music explored the very high and very low registers of the instruments, paired unusual combinations for melodies, and experimented

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with changes of mood. The band quickly became famous from making recordings and radio broadcasts, which ensured its survival during the Great Depression.

Introduction Provide students with some background information on the Cotton Club and the Duke Ellington Orchestra. If there is time, have students read the excerpt “Duke Ellington at the Cotton Club,” from Jazz: A history of America’s Music.

Discussion:

The Cotton Club provided a “comfortable” environment for whites in Harlem. How did the Cotton Club help black musicians such as Ellington to receive recognition for their work? How did it hurt?

Pass out and read the 10 Basic Elements of Jazz by Langston Hughes.

Development Listen to the recording of “Black and Tan Fantasy” by Duke Ellington.

Use the 10 Basic Elements of Jazz guide to discuss this music. How many of the “basic elements” can the students identify?

Pass out/read quotation about the “Black and Tan Fantasy” by R. D. Darrell, a New York critic who lived during the Harlem Renaissance.

Discussion:

What was Darrell’s initial reaction to the music? Was his overall impression negative or positive?What jazz elements did Darrell write about?How does Darrell’s description of this piece help explain the popularity of jazz at the Cotton Club?

Activity Design a scene from the Cotton Club. Have students sketch or paint the scene in the Cotton Club and write a description of what is happening.


Students should do one or more of the following:

Choose a piece by Ellington to feature on the program Listen to the piece and write an analysis using the 10 Basic Elements of JazzWrite a review of the piece, noting any interesting or innovative sounds

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The next few pages include materials that may be used with the Duke Ellington at the Cotton Club lesson plan. Included is biographical information on Duke Ellington and his band, an ex-cerpt from the book Jazz: A History of America’s Music, a quotation by New York music critic R.D. Darrell, and the “Ten Basic Elements of Jazz” by Langston Hughes.

Duke Ellington (1899-1974)Edward Kennedy Ellington was born in Washington, D.C., in 1899 and began piano lessons as a young boy. He soon learned ragtime piano and began his professional career organizing bands to play for dances and social gatherings. In 1923 he moved to New York, where an African-American cultural revo-lution known as the Harlem Renaissance was under way. El-lington immersed himself in the musical life of the city, playing and studying alongside many of his heroes, including composer Will Marion Cook and pianists James P. Johnson and Wil-lie “The Lion” Smith. Johnson and Smith played a style called stride: a complex, often rapid form of piano playing in which the left hand quickly moves between bass notes and chords while the right hand creates a series of variations on the melody.

Drawing on these and numerous other influences, Ellington fashioned his own distinctive piano style, a rich blend that went beyond anything that had come before.

In 1927, Ellington’s ten-piece outfit landed the important job of house band at Harlem’s Cotton Club, where he developed skills as a composer and arranger that would lay the foundation for his legendary swing orchestra a few years later. “The music,” Duke said, “must be molded to the men,” and, accordingly, the Cotton Club band’s handpicked members each had an immeasurable impact on the group sound In his compositions for the nightly floor shows, Ellington drew on every type of music available, from sentimental songs and classical melodies to the blues and West Indian folk dances.

It was Duke’s special ability to create utterly new music from these traditional forms that set him apart from the other musicians of his time. The celebrated African-American writer Ralph Ellison, still a high school student in the 1920s, recalled the Cotton Club days: “It was as though Elling-ton had taken the traditional instruments of Negro American music and modified them, extended their range and enriched their tonal possibilities ... It was not until the discovery of Ellington that we had any hint that jazz possessed possibilities of a range of expressiveness comparable to that of classical European music.” Indeed, over the next 40 years Ellington would reach audiences around the world, filling concert halls and ballrooms alike, playing music that was as popular among the masses as it was revered by great musicians. He had created a music that was, as Duke himself would say, “beyond category.”- from “Lesson 2: The Jazz Age and the Swing Era”, NEA Jazz in the Schools, http://media.jalc.org/nea/.


Duke Ellington at the Cotton Club-excerpt from Jazz: A History of America’s Music, by Geoffrey C. Ward and Ken Burns.

Duke Ellington and his orchestra opened at the Cotton Club on December 4, 1927, and stayed for almost four years. “When I began my work,” Ellington recalled, “jazz was a stunt, something dif-ferent. Not everybody cared for jazz and those who did felt that it wasn’t the real thing unless they were given a shock sensation of loudness or unpredictability, along with the music.” American popular music had always exploited the “exotic”- Oriental-sounding dances, songs with Hawaiian or American-Indian or African-American themes- anything that seemed to add novelty and spice. Cotton Club audiences now thought they heard in Ellington’s new music, with its array of growls and moans and cries, its novel voicings and pervasive sensuality, echoes of Africa- which was just what they had trooped up from Harlem to hear.

Ellington fully understood the absurdity of much that went on at the Cotton Club. “That part was degrading and humiliating to both Negroes and whites,” he said. “But there was another part of it that was wonderful.” The Cotton Club was “a classy spot,” he remembered: unruly guests were politely asked to be quiet and if they failed to take the hint were gently and firmly removed. (At the Kentucky Club they’d been given Mickey Finns.) He loved all the elegance, enjoyed meeting celebrities and getting to know the women in the chorus, even came to like playing cards with the mobsters who ran the place. The club provided him with a priceless training ground, taught him how to produce on deadline, how to showcase talented people, even how to disguise the limita-tions of those less talented. “A lot of people worked as hard as hell to put those shows togehter,” he remembered. “That was the Cotton Club spirit. Work, work, work. Rehearse, rehearse, re-hearse. Get it down fine... We knew we had a standard of performance to match every night. We knew we couldn’t miss a lick. And we rarely did.” In any case, nothing could demean Duke Elling-ton because he refused ever to be demeaned.

Even in the jittery old film of him enjoying his success at the Cotton Club, surrounded by danc-ers wearing some white choreographer ludicrous notion of African costume, he remains somehow set apart at the piano in his white tails, invincibly dignified, in on the joke that is being played on everybody else. In 1929, when he appeared in a short called “Black and Tan,” in which two black comedians performed stereotyped roles-stumbling, shiftless, illiterate, overly fond of alcohol- he was portrayed precisely as what he already was, a handsome, elegant, hardworking composer.

And, while the “jungle music” tag would remain with him for a time, neither distant Africa nor the perverse version of it that helped lure hites to Harlem was ever his source of inspiration. For that, he would always draw upon what he called “the everyday life and customs of the Negro,” as the titles of the tunes that seemed to pour effortlessly from his pen during his Cotton Club years attest: “Black Beauty”, “Jubilee Stomp”, “New Orleans Low Down”, “Swampy River”, “Stevedore Stomp”, “Dicty Glide”, “Parlor Social Stomp”, “Harlem River Quiver”, “Harlem Flat Blues”, “Memphis Wail”, “Mississippi Moan”, “The Breakfast Dance”, “Rent Party Blues”, “Saturday Night Function”. Like his mother and father, like his teachers at William Lloyd Gar-rison High School in segregated Washington, Duke Ellington continued to manifest what he called “pride... the greatest race pride” no matter what else was going on around him. His goal was to write “Negro music,” he said, to express “Negro feelings put to rhythm and tune.” “I am not playing ‘jazz’,” he told one of his first interviewers. “I am trying to play the natural feelings of a people.” He was, in the admiring parlance of the time, A Race man.


NY music critic R.D. Darrell, on Ellington’s “Black and Tan Fantasy”:

“With the majority I did not recognize it when it first came to my ears in the form of the ‘hottest, funniest record you ever heard.’. . . I laughed like everyone else over its intrumental wa-waing and garbling and gobbling, the piteous whinnying of a very ancient horse, the lugubrious reminiscence of the Chopin funderal march. But as I continued to play the record for the amusement of my friends I laughed less heartily and with less zest. In my ears the whinnies and wa-was began to re-solve into new tone colors, distorted and tortured, but agonizingly expressive. The piece took on a surprising individuality and entity as well as an intensity of feeling that was totally incongruous in popular dance music. Beneath all its oddity and perverseness there was a twisted beauty that grew on me more and more and could not be shaken off.

A work like this was alien to all my notions of jazz. It had nothing of the sprightly gusto of Ger-shwin, . . . nothing of the polish of the Whiteman school, nothing of the raoucous exuberance of the Negro jazz I had known. Nor was it in the heavily worked “spiritual” tradition except in that it sounded an dqual depth of poignance. For all its fluidity and rhapsodic freedom it was no imprvisation, tossed off by a group of talented virtuosi who would never be able to play it twice in the same way. It bore the indelible stamp of one mind, resourcefully inventive, yet primarily oc-cupied not with the projection of effects or syncopated rhythms, but the concern of great music- tapping the inner world of feeling and experience . . . seizing the human heart.”

-from Jazz: A History of America’s Music, by Geoffrey C. Ward and Ken Burns. © 2000 The Jazz Project, Inc.


TEN BASIC ELEMENTS OF JAZZ

From The First Book of Jazz by Langston Hughes

SYNCOPATION This is a shifting of the normal rhythmic stress from the strong beat to the weak beat, accenting the offbeat, and playing one rhythm against another in such a way that listeners want to move, nod heads, clap hands, or dance. Syncopation is basic and continuous in jazz, and upon it are built very complex rhythms.

IMPROVISATION This is composing as one plays, or making up variations on old themes directly on the instrument being played rather than from written notes. The interest and beauty of improvisation depends on the talent and the ability of the individual per-former.

PERCUSSION The drums provide jazz with its basic beat, but the banjo or guitar, the string bass or tuba, and the piano also pro-vide percussion. Any or all of these instru-ments may make up the rhythm secton of a jazz band. Chords may be used as a beat to create harmonized percussion.

RHYTHM In jazz this is not limited to per-cussion beats alone. The variations of vol-ume, tone, and pitch may also be used in such a way as to give to a jazz performance additional accents of sound-rhythm, played against a variety of counter-rhythms sup-plied by the percussion.

BLUE NOTES These are glissando or slurred notes, somewhere between flat and natural, derived from the blues as sung, and slid-ing into intervals between major and minor

Blue notes are impossible to notate exactly, but when written down on paper they are frequently indi cated by the flatted third or seventh notes of the scale.

TONE COLOR Jazz instruments may take on the varied tones of the singing or speak-ing voice, even of laughter or of groans, in a variety of tonal colorations. At one time dif-ferent instruments may be playing different melodies.

HARMONY In jazz, harmony makes fre-quent use of the blue note, the blue scale, the seventh and ninth chords, and the “close” harmony of the old barbershop style or chromatic singing, which is carried over into instrumentation.

BREAK This is a very brief syncopated inter-lude, usually of two to four bars, between musical phrases — often improvised in unwritten jazz. Armstrong is famous for his breaks.

RIFF This is a single rhythmic phrase repeat-ed over and over. usuaily as a background to the Lead rrelody. A riff may be used also as a melodic theme in itself.

JOY OF PLAYING This is the element that gives jazz its zest and verve, its happy danc-ing quality, that brings musicians of all races together in impromptu jam sessions. Here new musical ideas are born as the musicians play together for hours without written mu-sic — just for fun.


Objectives Students will:Learn about the life and work of Harlem Renaissance artist William Grant Still Analyze the use of the “blues” idiom in a piece of modern American classical musicWrite a critical review of the “Afro-American Symphony”

Materials Recording: Still, William Grant, “Afro-American Symphony” (Note: A CD of this work is included in this kit)

Quotes from William Grant Still, on the “Afro-American Symphony”

Introduction Have students listen to the first part of the “Afro-American Symphony.”

Give the students some biographical information on the composer, William Grant Still.

born 1895 in MississippiAward-winning African-American composerWrote serious American classical music Went to school at Wilberforce, Oberlin, and New England ConservatoryLived and worked in New York in the twentiesMoved to LA in the 30’s, died in 1978

Accomplishments:

First African-American composer to have a work per-formed by a major symphonyFirst African-American to conduct a major symphony (LA Phil 1936)

Discuss the historical context of the piece:

What did the music of the times reflect?

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The Afro-American Symphony


Post World War I, spirit of nationalismThe race issues which dominated the social and political landscape

The early 20th century saw the birth of three new kinds of music that all had African-American roots: Ragtime, Blues, and Jazz. These genres featured mainly black performers, but were becoming more popular with white listeners; because of black (nightclubs)“speakeasies”, availability of recordings, and increased recognition in arts for African-Americans.

Classical music was an imported European tradition which was just starting to find an American voice. It had a history of being patronized by the aristocracy, and associations with the upper-class were still prevalent in the 1920’s.

How did Grant Still fit into the American musical scene in the 20’s?

He was a serious classical composer who sought to write a uniquely American brand of classical music He integrated a recognizable modern American musical idiom (blues) into a classical European form

Development Tell students about the Afro-American Symphony: The Afro-American Symphony is a piece in four parts, written for a full symphony orchestra. It is based on a 12-bar blues tune that Still composed.

Listen to the tune. (Oboe)

Discussion:

How is this recognizable as a blues tune?Rhythm, same length (12 bars), melody

Why would Still have wanted to write his own tune?To avoid associations or messages inherent in other songs (lyrics)

How does this blues tune sound “classical”?It’s played by an orchestral instrument called the oboe, and doesn’t have any lyrics

Discuss the use of traditional classical form in this piece…it uses a symphony orchestra

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it has three or more sections that divide the pieceit uses themes/motives as a basis for the structure

…and the way Still modernized the symphony and departed from tradition:

he called the sections “parts” instead of “movements”he prefaced each section with a poem by Lawrence Dunbarhe based the entire symphony on a “blues” tune that he wrote he arranged some parts in the style of popular music

Read the excerpts from Grant Still’s speech, “A Composer’s Viewpoint.”

Discussion:

Why did Grant Still integrate the blues into his symphony?He wanted to change the way people thought about African-American music, and make it more accessible to everyone

What are the political/social implications of this piece?By fusing (what had previously been considered) a “high-art” and a “low-art”, Grant Still helped to break down ste-reotypes about music and art in terms of race and ethnicity

Activity Have students listen to part of the “Afro-American Symphony” by William Grant Still, and write a review as if they are a music critic hearing the premiere of this piece.

Students should:

Describe the piece: What instruments? How many? What does it sound like?Point out any interesting characteristics: new sounds, familiar tunes, unusual rhythms;Comment on whether they like the piece, and the rea-sons why or why not: Is this music they would normally listen to? Is it enjoyable? Does it evoke any images or emotions?

Activity Extension Have students attend a classical music concert and write a re-view of one of the pieces.

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The next few pages include materials that may be used with the William Grant Still and the Afro-American Symphony lesson plan. Included is a photo of William Grant Still, and quotations from his written works.

William Grant Still was an American composer and conductor, and the first black to conduct a professional symphony orchestra in the United States. Though a prolific composer of operas, bal-lets, symphonies, and other works, he was best known for his Afro-American Symphony (1931). Still was brought up by his mother and grandmother in Little Rock, Ark., and studied medicine at Wilberforce University, Ohio, before turning to music. He first studied composition at Oberlin Conservatory of Music in Oberlin, Ohio, then under the conservative George W. Chadwick at the New England Conservatory of Music, Boston, and later under Edgard Varèse during the latter’s most radical avant-garde period. The diversity of Still’s musical education was extended when, in the 1920s, he worked as an arranger for the dance-band leader Paul Whiteman and for the blues composer W.C. Handy. In 1939 he married and settled in Los Angeles. Early orchestral works include Darker America (1924) and From the Black Belt (1926) for chamber orchestra. Still’s concern with the position of the blacks in U.S. society is reflected in many of his works, notably the Afro-American Symphony; the ballets Sahdji (1930), set in Africa and composed after extensive study of African music, and Lenox Avenue (1937); and the operas The Troubled Island (1938; produced 1949), with a libretto by Langston Hughes, and Highway No. 1, U.S.A. (produced 1963 and 1977). Still’s compositions from the mid-1930s show the jazz band as a major influence on his eclectic musical style. He made considerable use of material in the Negro style—though rarely borrowing actual melodies—and preferred simple, commercial harmonies and orchestration, the use of which, however, was characterized by the highest professionalism and seriousness of purpose.

- adapted from “William Grant Still”, The Encyclopedia Brittanica Online 2006, http://www.brittanica.com.

William Grant Still (1895-1978)

Composer, conductor, arranger. Born in Little Rock, AK. The first African-American to conduct a major symphony orchestra, and also the first African-American to have his works performed in concert by a major symphony orchestra. Died in 1978.


William Grant Still on the “Afro-American Symphony”:

“I knew I wanted to write a symphony; I knew that it had to be an American work; and I wanted to demonstrate how the Blues, so often considered a lowly expression, could be elevated to the highest musical level.”1

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“Long before writing this symphony I had recognized the musical value of the Blues and had decided to use a theme in the Blues idiom as the basis for a major symphonic composition. When I was ready to launch this project I did not want to use a theme some folk singer had already cre-ated, but decided to create my own theme in the Blues idiom.”2

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“I had chosen a definite goal, namely, to elevate Negro musical idioms to a position of dignity and effectiveness in the fields of symphonic and operatic music… American music is a composite of all the idioms of all the people comprising this nation, just as most Afro-Americans who are “official-ly” classed as Negroes are products of the mingling of several bloods. This makes us individuals, and that is how we should function, musically and otherwise.”3

1W.G. Still, from liner notes for a recording of the “Afro-American Symphony”, made by Karl Krueger and the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra of London, 1965.

2 W.G. Still, from a speech to a Composer’s Workshop, annual convention of National Association of Ne-gro Musicians, Los Angeles, CA, August 17, 1967.

3W.G. Still, from “A Composer’s Viewpoint”, Black Music in Our Culture. Ohio: Kent State University Press, 1970.


The Blues Anderson, Paul Allen. “Beneath the Seeming Informality,” Deep River: Music and Memory in Harlem Renaissance Thought, Duke University Press, Durham/London, 2001, 179-84.

Davis, Angela Y. Blues Legacies and Black Feminism, Vintage Books, NY, 1998.

*Handy, W.C. Father of the Blues: An Autobiography by W.C. Handy, Da Capo Press, NY, NY, 1941.

Guralnick, Peter, Robert Snatelli, Holly George-Warren, Christopher John Farley, ed. Martin Scorcese Presents The Blues: A Musical Journey, Harper Collins/Amistad, NY, NY, 2003.

Tracy, Steven, ed.Write Me a Few of Your Lines: A Blues Reader, University of Massachusetts Press, Amherst, MA, 1999.

W.C. Handy’s Memphis Blues Band, CD, 1994. Memphis, TN: Memphis Archives.

Heroes of the Blues: The Very Best of Ma Rainey, CD, 2003. New York, NY: Shout! Factory.

Bessie Smith: The Collection, CD, 1989. New York, NY: CBS Records.

Clara Smith: Complete Recorded Works, Vol. 3, CD, 1995. Document Records (USA).

Duke Ellington Anderson, Paul Allen. “Saving Jazz from Its Friends” in Deep at the Cotton Club River: Music and Memory in Harlem Renaissance Thought, Duke University Press, Durham/London, 2001, 219-256.

Floyd, Samuel A. “The Renaissance Education of Duke Ellington”, Black Music in the Harlem Renaissance, Greenwood Press, NY, NY, 1990, 11-128.

Hill, Laban Carrick. Harlem Stomp!: A Cultural History of the Harlem Renaissance, Little, Brown, and Co., NY, NY, 1993.

Additional Resources*Not included in this kit


Huggins, Nathan Irvin. “Afro-American Art: Art or Propaganda?”, Voices from the Harlem Renaissance, Oxford University Pres, NY, NY, 1995.

Locke, Alain, ed. “Negro Youth Speaks: Music”, The New Negro, Touchstone, NY, NY, 1997, 199-227.

Watson, Steven. The Harlem Renaissance, Pantheon Books, NY, NY, 1995.

The Best of Ken Burns Jazz, CD, 2000. New York, NY: Sony Music Entertainment.

Afro-American *Floyd, Samuel A. “William Grant Still, Florence Price, andSymphony William Dawson: Echoes of the Harlem Renaissance”, Black

Music in the Harlem Renaissance, Greenwood Press, NY, NY, 1990, 71-86.

William Grant Still: Afro-American Symphony, CD, 2005. Canada: Naxos.


Massachusetts Arts Curriculum Framework

This packet has been designed with the following organizational structure from the Massachusetts Arts Curriculum Frameworks as a guide.:

CORE CONCEPT: Learning in, through and about the arts develops understanding of the creative process and appreciation of the importance of creative work.

Strand I: Creating and Performing Lifelong learners: LS 1. Use the arts to express ideas, feelings, and beliefs. LS 2. Acquire and apply the essential skills of each art form.

Strand II: Thinking and Responding Lifelong learners: LS 3. Communicate how they use imaginative and reflective thinking during all phases of creating and performing. LS 4. Respond analytically and critically to their own work and that of others.

Strand III: Connecting and Contributing Lifelong learners: LS 5. Make the connections between the arts and other disciplines. LS 6. Investigate the cultural and historical contexts of the arts. LS 7. Explore the relationship between arts, media and technology. LS 8. Contribute to the community’s cultural and artistic life.

It was our goal to provide examples that will help you begin exploring the Harlem Renaissance through an interdisciplinary approach. We hope that you will build upon each of the suggested ideas and activities as you introduce the Harlem Renaissance to your students.

harlem renaissance - bso. · pdf filethe man who composed the immortal “st. louis...

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