Jazz dance dates all the way back to 5,000 – 9,000 years ago. Although many people believe that jazz dance originated from United States, it actually came from early African cultures. In Africa, natives danced to celebrate cycles of life such as birth, puberty, marriage, and death. Child, adults, and the elderly depended on jazz dance to express their culture and beliefs.…
Smooth Jazz is a genre of music. As you can tell by its name, the music is quite smooth, cool. You can also tell that it doesn’t really use swingy rhythms. Some people call it Cool Jazz and it can also be called Contemporary Jazz, they’re all the same thing.…
When Duke Ellington was fifteen years old he played the piano at the Philadelphia club. He learned about Brooks when he was with his uncle from a waiter. One accomplishments he was known for is that he was the first jazz player. Another accomplishment is…
Ellington was known for his ability to choose members for his band who possessed very unusual talents while playing their instruments. These talents included Bubber Miley, who used a plunger to make the "wa-wa" sound, and Joe Nanton, who was known for his trombone "growl." It was for this quality to find such unusual players and his ingenious ability to compose beautiful music that lead to Ellington’s huge success.…
Edward Kennedy Ellington, American jazz composer, orchestrator, bandleader, and pianist, is considered to be the greatest composer in the history of jazz music and one of the greatest musicians of the 20th century. He composed over 2000 works and performed numerous concerts during his musical career. A compilation of some of his most popular music is collected on a CD called, “The Popular Duke Ellington.” Duke Ellington can be considered important for numerous things. To choose a few reasons, Duke Ellington is important for his music, influence on people, and being a superfluous composer in his century and now.…
Charles Mingus, an icon in the Jazz world “only second to Duke Ellington (CHARLES MINGUS BIO). Mingus played a very important role in the development of jazz music, he left his mark on the world that got him a lot of recognition. Along with a plethora of grants that were donated to him and the different organizations that were centered on him. He was also honored in New York City by having a “Charles Mingus Day” dedicated to him and many other dedications and assortments of honoring’s (CHARLES MINGUS BIO). Charles Mingus was a phenomenal musician that has not only inspired those of his time, but a number of musicians even today.…
The Harlem Renaissance(Negro Movement) was during 1919-1929 in Harlem, New York. It was a time when African-Americans where able to express themselves through the arts. African-Americans fled from the south to the north because of unfair treatment. This “culture explosion” let African-Americans share their culture through music, literature, and art. A key figure during this time period is Duke Ellington. Duke Ellington was born April 29, 1899, in Washington, D.C. He was a famous jazz composer that played an important role in jazz history. He composed many songs on stage and performed at many night clubs. During the Harlem Renaissance African expressed themselves for the first time and Ellington helped in the music area. “Ellington created a blend of melodies, rhythms, and subtle sonic movements it was a complex yet accessible jazz.” As Ellington was conveying his own culture he was putting his own twist on the music.” Ellington became famous in the 1940s for the songs Concerto for Cootie “ , “ Cotton Tail” , and “Ko-Ko”. He also toured Europe twice in the 1930s.” Duke Ellington was part of the Harlem Renaissance because he was a jazz composer and he became famous for his wonderful music he created. He showed others his customs and culture through music. He wasn’t the only one their were many other jazz players during the Harlem Renaissance that wanted to express themselves.…
Louis Armstrong, an influential figure in the Jazz world, once said, “If you have to ask what jazz is, you’ll never know.” Over time, jazz has kept its essential elements and original style, even as new styles have developed. Jazz, in its most basic form, is defined as “music that includes qualities such as swing, improvising, group interaction, developing an 'individual voice', and being open to different musical possibilities,” by Travis Jackson, a Professor of American Music. Improvisation, being the key element in every type of jazz, must be present for a piece to be considered jazz music. This element turns jazz musicians into composers and is essential to jazz styles of music. Another thing unique to jazz is its approach to rhythm. The…
I am doing my end of the semester paper on Jazz music. Jazz was created in the twentieth century and was said that it was, “created to bring people together.” Jazz was also known in many cities around the time of the jazz age, but the city that was known as the birthplace of jazz was New Orleans. There are many important names that people still know today from the jazz ages. One important name during the jazz age was Louis Armstrong is known for many Jazz songs like “What a Wonderful World”, “When the Saints Go Marching In” and “Go down Moses.” Another name was Billie Holiday and she was known for “God Bless the Child” and “Billie’s Blues.” The other name was Duke Ellington, who have many recordings like “Take the A Train”, “Black and Tan Fantasy”,…
Jazz flourished widely in the 1920’s, which was considered the Jazz age. In the 1920’s Jazz was a lifestyle to most people. Some fell in love with Jazz, while others hated it. People who liked Jazz were the passionate and urban people. Many white young boys and girls fell in love with jazz. Jazz was a way for them to be freed from the rural America. Jazz had originally come from New Orleans but job opportunities had opened up elsewhere causing many musicians to move out of New Orleans. This is what helped spread jazz throughout America.…
The birth of jazz music is often accredited to African Americans but both black and white Americans are responsible for its immerse rise in popularity. It is present in black vocals, music-spirituals, work songs, field hollers, and the blues. Jazz united people across the world and had powerful meanings about their lives. Jazz music was completed with a trumpet, clarinet, trombone and section of drums. The music was created with passion inspired by people’s lives. Ragtime was a musical style emerged from St. Louis in the late 1890s. The swing was the new style for Jazz. Benny Goodman was the “king of swing.” and he was the first white bandleader to feature black and white musicians playing together in public. There were other different styles…
Duke Ellington brought some specific innovations to jazz in the 1930’s and 1940’s. Ellington was in time known as the greatest composer in jazz, he wrote roughly 2,000 compositions that had arranged from solo piano pieces, to works for orchestra’s, to highly symphonic concert music, etc. Ellington made a lot of changes to make the perfect sound, he used a variety of mutes on brass instruments to achieve more interesting tonal effects, often gave melodies to instruments that were not typically melodic instruments, and he used cross-sectional voicing. Ellington created an orchestra in the early 1940’s which later became known as his “Favorite Orchestra”.…
Langston Hughes was a predominant figure during the Harlem Renaissance. In Joplin, Missouri on February 1st of 1902, James Mercer Langston Hughes was born. His mother and father had separated, so the majority of his early life was spent with his Grandmother until she died. Langston’s passion for poetry began when he and his mother moved to Cleveland, Ohio. He would occasionally send in pieces of his poetry to many magazines, including his school’s magazine. After graduating from high school, Langston would then study at Columbia University for 1 year and would study poetry in many places such as Mexico and Paris. Through his poetry, Mr. Hughes wanted to highlight the black communities concerns and challenges that they faced during…
by DukeEllington. The song can be found in Section 1: Basic Musical Concepts, "FolkMusic, Art Music, and All That Jazz."As a referential listener, two things come to mind as I listen to this easy go jazz song by Duke. The first, I remember the first time really hearing jazz musicwas when I was at a dinner banquet for my great grandmother. Since then, Ihave always associated Jazz with a fine dining background music or elevatormusic at a nice hotel or business. The second, is a reference to Duke Ellingtonhimself. I had to a little project on Ellington for Black History month as a gradeschooler. So I am fairly familiar with his music and his life. In respect to my firstcorrelation,…
The “Globalization of Jazz” is occurred when musicians from all around the world that were assimilating bebop and post-bop styles into the music of their culture in interesting and creative ways and creating new hybrid styles. Jazz had absorbed musical influences from other cultures and the reciprocal absorption of jazz into other parts of the world was…