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21 Feb 24 - 08:20 PM (#4197683) Subject: Black History Month: African American From: Joe Offer Mark Johnson has been posting very interesting histories of Black musicians for Black History Month. Take a look: Nice work, Mark! -Joe Offer- INTRODUCTION -=- BLACK HISTORY MONTH TURNS 98! -=- The celebration was founded by Prof. Carter G. Woodson in 1926, before many of the events we get asked to remember even took place. Leaning into the 2024 theme "African-Americans & the Arts," I've written and posted a short biographical piece every day in February. I chose individuals who had an impact on American music, are not widely-remembered today, and were active in the 19th Century. Despite claims made by the State of Mississippi, black music was NOT born in the Delta. Before Mississippi came into being, even before the United States united, there were African-American musicians. From the 1740s to the 1980s, there was NO period when at least one subject of my little histories was not living. The story of black music in America is rich, complex, and full of real people - each one AN AMERICAN MUSICIAN! Source materials for these early musicians is often based on recorded personal recollections; where sources contradict each other, I've chosen those which make narrative sense to me. There are many, many more of these stories I wish I could bring you - below are a few more. I hope their portraits pique your interest enough to learn on your own about the people they portray. Understanding the world they lived-in, and how they faced it, will only enrich our appreciation of what they did. To see all twenty-eight of my earlier 2024 Black History Month posts, click on the # link below to search Facebook for: #anamericanmusician |
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21 Feb 24 - 08:28 PM (#4197684) Subject: RE: Black History Month: Ella Sheppard From: Joe Offer AN AMERICAN MUSICIAN In early 1850s Nashville, Ella Sheppard’s free father Simon purchased the little girl from her mother’s owner for $350 (about three years earnings for a white farm-laborer then). Ella's mother, however, was sold to a Mississippi plantation. After an 1856 riot by whites against free blacks in the town's "Black Bottom" riverfront ward, Simon abandoned his livery stable and with his daughter moved to Cincinnati where he restarted his business. He was successful enough to send Ella to school, buy a piano, and pay a German immigrant to give her lessons. Simon died of cholera in 1866, leaving 15-year old Ella to support her stepmother and half-sister by giving piano lessons in Cincinnati. She enrolled at the Fisk Free Colored School in 1868, giving piano lessons in Nashville to pay her school-fees, as well as to support her family. Fisk treasurer (and choir director) George White offered her the piano-teaching post at Fisk; she became the first black member of the faculty (and the only black instructor for seven more years). In 1871, White began taking the choir on tour to raise funds for a new and larger facility. Ella became assistant music director in addition to being accompanist, a new position that she held for ten years. Early in their first tour, the Singers concluded the mostly-white audiences preferred their versions of “negro spirituals,” rather than the classical material they initially performed. Ella was tasked with finding and arranging more of these pieces, making folk melodies and impromptu verses common on Southern plantations into polished concert numbers. Her efforts and sensibilities largely created the catalog of spirituals which continues to be heard a hundred and fifty years later. The original group of Singers stopped touring in 1878. Sheppard continued to teach at Fisk until she married George Moore in 1882; they moved to Washington, D.C. where Moore was a leader in the American Missionary Association, and a professor at Howard University. The couple were active in the local temperance movement, and were close friends of Frederick Douglass and Booker T. Washington. Ten years later, they returned to Nashville, where Ella regularly assisted the choir, researched and arranged songs, and wrote articles on African-American and women's issues. Fisk Jubilee Singers recorded in 1909: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GUvBGZnL9rE |
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21 Feb 24 - 08:30 PM (#4197685) Subject: RE: Black History Month: Ernest Crowdus From: Joe Offer AN AMERICAN MUSICIAN Reuben Ernest Crowdus was born in the ‘Shake Rag’ district of Bowling Green KY, likely in 1865. His father (also Reuben) had served in both the Confederate and Union armies, getting a pension from the latter; Kentucky claims him as their first black sheriff. We find young Ernest playing a clown - Boneless Man - in a circus the local children put on; he first got on a professional stage as a black child in William H. Crane’s touring production of ‘Uncle Tom’s Cabin’ when it came to town. He joined Pringle's Georgia Minstrels as a singer/dancer, learned to play banjo. Around 1880 he joined another youngster named Hogan, and toured from Washington D.C. to San Francisco as the comic singing ‘Hogan Brothers.’ By 1889, again a solo act (but retaining the Hogan name), he had become a featured artist, closing shows at S.F.’s Bella Union as a comic. He also was a major draw on-stage as a singer and dancer, and excelled in cakewalk competitions. He had a lengthy relationship with Lillian E. Todhunter, the white daughter of a Sacramento rancher, and they married in Chicago in 1895. He began writing music with Billy Kersands, who introduced him to publishing sheet music with their popular "What am You Gwine to Tell Massa Peter When You Meet Him at de Gate?" In 1895 he published the music he used for a dance number as ‘La Pas Ma La’; in 1896 he came out with ‘All Coons Look Alike to Me.’ Along with Ben Harney’s ‘You’re A Good Old Wagon’, these are the earliest documented ragtime music. ‘Coons’ was included in the Broadway success ‘The Widow Jones’, reputedly sold a million copies of the sheet music, and was among the first wax-cylinder records. His songwriting success was extremely welcome, coming during the four year long economic depression that followed the Panic of 1893. In an interview a dozen years later, Hogan discussed ‘All Coons Look Alike to Me,’ saying it "caused a lot of trouble in and out of show business, but it was also good for show business because at the time money was short in all walks of life. With the publication of that song, a new musical rhythm was given to the people. (Ragtime's) popularity grew and it sold like wildfire..." Hogan spent a season with the Black Patti Troubadours, billed as ‘the Unbleached American,' then some months appearing in Cole & Johnson plays. In 1898 he was the star in ‘Clorindy: The Origin of the Cakewalk’ written by classical violinist Will Cook and poet Paul Laurence Dunbar - the first African-American show on Broadway. The play ran in New York for three months, and another three on tour; many of the songs were published and sold well to whites. Over the next decade he starred in several other popular shows, even leading an African American troupe on a tour of New Zealand, Australia, and Hawaii (where they were stranded after the steamship company refused to let them board to return to the States and wouldn't refund their prepaid reservations). Returning to New York, his marriage deteriorated; he and Lillian divorced in 1900. In August, he was among the targets of a crowd of rioters as he left the theatre near Times Square. After marrying again, Ernest continued to write, produce, and appear in successful shows with other members of New York's black enetertainment world, but before 1907 he began a battle with tuberculosis. In 1908, he collapsed on stage on several occasions. His progress toward recovery was reported in the NY press, but he succumbed to the disease early in 1909, and after a funeral in the Bronx was buried in Bowling Green. #anamericanmusician Ramona Baker performs "La Pas Ma La" https://youtu.be/8R16RopwyvE |
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21 Feb 24 - 08:31 PM (#4197686) Subject: RE: Black History Month: Andy Razaf From: Joe Offer AN AMERICAN MUSICIAN The Andriana Manantena Paul Razafinkarefo was a prince of the 350-year old kingdom of Imeria - a great-nephew of the ruling queen - as well as the grandson of the US consul. His newly-widowed and pregnant teenage mother fled the brutal 1894 invasion of Madagascar by the Army of France during the partition of Africa. She escaped to her native USA after her father was captured by the French and imprisoned in Marseille. The young Andy Razaf grew up in Harlem. In 1912 he left school to write songs, working as an elevator operator in a West 28th St building which housed music publishers. He began writing lyrics for nightclub singers, as well as for the U.S. Treasury's War Bonds drive. At the same time, he wrote poems which appeared in the Voice, an African-American newspaper run by the early black radical Hubert Harrison. Razaf soon took an editorial job with Marcus Garvey's 'Negro World,' at the time the world's largest black newspaper. After the war, he resumed working with pianists Eubie Blake, James P. Johnson, and Fats Waller (among many others). He was a featured vocalist on a number of recordings by Fletcher Henderson and others. During the early 1920s, Razaf associated with the gangsters operating out of nightclubs, including the notorious Dutch Schultz. He continued, however, to write about racial injustice. His 1929 song "Black and Blue" (from the musical revue Hot Chocolates) was recorded by Louis Armstrong and Ethel Waters. It concludes with the lines: "My only sin is in my skin | What did I do to be so black and blue?" Quite a few of his hundreds of songs were big hits for Fats Waller, Glenn Miller, Louis Armstrong, Cab Calloway, Benny Goodman, Ella Fitzgerald, Dinah Washington and others. His catalog includes many Tin Pan Alley favorites: “In The Mood,” “Gee, Baby, Ain’t I Good To You,” “Honeysuckle Rose,” “Knock Me A Kiss,” “Mr. Christopher Columbus,” and “Ain’t Misbehaving.” His work appeared on Broadway and in the movies. In 1951, Razaf suffered a serious stroke which caused moderate physical disability for the rest of his life, although he continued to write song lyrics and articles for black media. He was married four times. He became a member of the Songwriters Hall of Fame in 1972, a year before his demise from kidney-failure. #anamericanmusician https://youtu.be/2IuwmfDMabo |
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21 Feb 24 - 08:33 PM (#4197688) Subject: RE: Black History Month: Rev. Charles A. Tindley From: Joe Offer AN AMERICAN MUSICIAN Rev. Charles A. Tindley (Jul 1851 - Jul 1933) was an African-American Methodist minister, sometimes referred to as 'The Prince of Preachers.' He composed many gospel songs, among them the earliest version of the anthem "We Shall Overcome." He created one of the largest Methodist congregations in the US, building it from 130 members in 1902 to more than 12,500 people before he died. Born in Maryland, Charles moved to Philadelphia after the Civil War to work as a construction laborer. He also volunteered as unpaid sexton for the East Calvary Methodist Episcopal church, and taught himself to read by the evening firelight. Next, he enlisted the rabbi at nearby Congregation Keneseth Israel to teach him Hebrew, and followed with a correspondence course in New Testament Greek from the Boston Theological School. Now ready, he undertook the examination for ordination, and became a deacon in the Delaware Conference in 1887, and elder in 1889. He was assigned to parishes in New Jersey, Delaware, and Maryland. At last, in 1902, he became the pastor of the congregation where he had formerly swept the floors. Tindley published several collections of gospel hymns, which eventually included 46 of his own compositions. But, though his music is historic and important, the main topic of this biography is his family tree. Researchers at the Edward H. Nabb Center have given us a look at his family story of slavery and freedom over a century that make his efforts to attain the ministry look pedestrian. In 1799, the will of Rev. Samuel Tingley of Maryland left his property - including ten enslaved people - to his wife, instructing her to free them upon her own death. One of these was 2-year old Isaac, he later (in 1835) - as a free black man - sold his own 11-year old son Charles (Rev Charles' father) into a ten-year indenture. Meanwhile, Arnold Miller (born a slave in 1795 but given his freedom in his master Joseph Miller's will in 1813), took to wife the slave Rachel, who was owned (along the children she had by Arnold) by Zadock Purnell. In 1826, Arnold purchased his wife and children (but did not free them) for $275. Among those chidren was Hester, who married the free Charles (senior) in 1850. In 1858, Arnold Miller wrote a deed of manumission which detailed the birthdates and relationships of his eight children and seven grandchildren - including the child Charles - and a schedule of when each was to be freed (usually after attaining thir mid-20s). The future minister Charles spent his childhood with his father Charles (senior), but was legally owned by his mother's father Arnold MIller. During that period, Charles senior re-married and provided the young Charles with half-siblings (who may have been free, or not). Young Charles was due to be manumitted in 1879 (on his 28th birthday), but was actually emancipated in 1864 or 1865. With such confusing family circumstances, it is difficult to imagine how he developed the force of will he exhibited throughtout his life. #anamericanmusician https://youtu.be/DnUdQLAj1_g?si=Mc3V1tR9sBLpOslQ |
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21 Feb 24 - 08:35 PM (#4197689) Subject: RE: Black History Month: J. Rosamond Johnson From: Joe Offer AN AMERICAN MUSICIAN John Rosamond Johnson was a descendant of a prominent black Bahamian family which originated among Haitians fleeing the 1790s revolutionary wars. His mother taught school in the colored schools of Jacksonville FL, while his father was headwaiter at a resort hotel; Rosamond and his brother learned English literature, Spanish, and classical music. He graduated from New England Conservatory, studied in London, and briefly taught in Jacksonville. He set to music the words of his older brother (poet James Weldon Johnson); “Lift Ev’ry Voice and Sing” was first performed in 1900 by a choir of 500 in their hometown of Jacksonville. The brothers moved to NYC and joined established “coon-song” writer Bob Cole as a serious songwriting team. The trio published popular sheet-music (including ‘Under the Bamboo Tree’ - sung by Judy Garland nearly a half century later), wrote several musicals for white vaudeville troupes, and produced two very popular Broadway operettas for black casts. Rosamond had on-stage roles in these latter shows; his character as the love interest with an Indian maid was awarded public honors by the Iroquois of Montreal. The brothers and Cole were founding members of "The Frogs" organization of professional African-American musicians, along with vaudevillians George Walker and Bert williams, and compser James Reese Europe. They were all active in the NAACP, as well. After Cole retired, Johnson wrote the 1911 Broadway musical “Hello Paris” with William le Baron and J. Leubrie Hill, and did a vaudeville tour with his own jazz band ("The Inimitable Five"). He then worked in London for several years as a composer, and later as musical director for the British stage. Back in the USA, he led several touring bands, was director of the New York Music School Settlement for Colored, and was Deputy Marshal for 1917’s Negro Silent Protest Parade. He worked in Hollywood, and sang baritone in the original stage production of Gershwin's “Porgy and Bess.” Rosamond also joined his brother collecting and editing several important compilations of African-American traditional songs. His harmonizations of these traditional poems preserve their original melodies and rhythmic character #anamericanmusician https://youtu.be/oWXuOtUjUXI |
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21 Feb 24 - 08:36 PM (#4197690) Subject: RE: Black History Month: James Reece Europe From: Joe Offer AN AMERICAN MUSICIAN James Reece Europe was born fourth of five children to a former slave and a "free-colored" woman in Mobile, Alabama in 1881. His parents and all the siblings played music, so he learned to play both violin and piano. The family moved when his father took a job with the Post Office in Washington D.C., where ten-year old James began more advanced violin lessons with Enrico Hurlei, assistant director of the Marine Corps Band. At 14, James placed second in a music composition contest (his younger sister was the winner). He graduated from Washington's Preparatory High School for Negro Youth, a contemporary of pianist Ford Dabney and playwright Mary P. Burrill. At twenty-one, Europe went to look for orchestra work in New York City. Jobs for African-American violinists in 1901 were scarce, so he started playing piano in cabarets - where customers' musical tastes ran to ragtime. Always a quick-study, James soon absorbed the fundamentals of the genre, and began to 'improve' the often-basic repertoire. Living in Harlem, he joined 'The Frogs,' an informal club of black musicians whose aim was both social and educational (many needed help to read scores). By 1910, this association had been incorporated by Europe into the midtown all African-American 'Clef Club,' with a labor exchange, concert hall, and an orchestra. In 1912, 31 year old Europe led the club's orchestra at a Carnegie Hall concert; likely the first performance of jazz music at any whites-only venue in New York. All music was written by black composers, while the 125-piece orchestral arrangements were by Europe. In the same year, James was hired to direct and arrange music for shows by dancers Irene and Vernon Castle at the Cafe de Paris and on Broadway, pioneering the Fox-trot. Victor Records signed him to a contract with his 'Society Orchestra' (mostly Clef Club members). He married Willie Starke in 1913. The New York National Guard asked Europe to organize a brass band for the colored 15th Infantry Regiment. In 1917, they were mobilized as the 369th Infantry, and sent to France. Europe took an officers' test, and accepted a commission as lieutenant commanding a machine-gun company. They were assigned as a unit to the French Army command, because white American troops refused to serve with blacks. German soldiers named the 369th "Die Höllenkämpfer" (or Hellfighters). Europe was also appointed to lead the regimental band - soldiers who both fought and performed. They were often asked to play for military parades and civilian events; they introduced jazz to British, French, and other European audiences. After the Armistice, the 369th was one of the earliest units to be returned home. On February 17, 1919, Europe and the band led the much-decorated Harlem Hellfighters on a parade from Washington Square to Harlem as thousands lined the sidewalks to cheer them. Europe re-organized his Society Orchestra and made several post-war recordings, but his plans were cut short. Less than three months after his return from the war, he was stabbed to death in an argument with one of his musicians. #anamericanmusician https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=de6vX1U6xHw |
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21 Feb 24 - 08:37 PM (#4197691) Subject: RE: Black History Month: William Grant Still From: Joe Offer AN AMERICAN MUSICIAN On its way from Natchez to Baton Rouge, Highway 61 runs through Woodville (MS), ten miles north of the state line. Jefferson Davis grew up on a cotton plantation and attended school in Woodville. William Grant Still, Jr. was born there in 1895. His parents were both college graduates, teachers, and owned a share in a grocery; his father died three months after young William's birth. With her infant son, Carrie Still left to join her mother in Little Rock, AR. She taught at Union School, organized student programs to raise funds for a library, and remarried to postal clerk Charles Shepperson. Charles encouraged the boy's interest in music; William took violin lessons and taught himself to play oboe, clarinet, and cello. His mother, however, wanted him to study medicine; so after he graduated from Gibbs Highs School, he attended Wilberforce University in Ohio. At Wilberforce, though, Still got involved with the school's band, playing several instruments and learning conducting and arranging in the style of his musical idol black English composer Samuel Coleridge-Taylor. He left Wilberforce in his final year to get married, move to Columbus to work as a janitor for Oberlin Conservatory, and occasionally work as arranger/performer for midwestern bands (including W.C. Handy's touring band, where he made his first published arrangements). He took classes in music theory at Oberlin, and was allowed to join the composition class for free. Still briefly served in the US Navy during WW1, and on his discharge made his way to NYC. He resumed arranging for Handy, as well as for recordings of Fletcher Henderson, Paul Whiteman, and James P. Johnson, meanwhile playing in the Harlem Symphony. He joined the orchestra for "Shuffle Along," playing in NYC and Boston for almost a year, until it closed. When Harry Pace later started Black Swan Records, he hired Still as musical director. That position also led to study with Edgard Varèse Throughout the 1920s, Still composed and arranged music for many Broadway musicals and radio shows, he performed in bands and orchestras, and was a member of the Clef Club. At the same time, he was beginning to write concert works in the classical tradition. In 1930, he went to Los Angeles to work on orchestrations for Paul Whiteman's weekly radio show while the bandleader was making the movie "King of Jazz;" he made a number of connections with musicians there. William moved to Los Angeles in 1934, scoring for films including ‘Lost Horizons’ and ‘Pennies From Heaven’. He conducted excerpts from two of his compositions at Hollywood Bowl in 1936, and by 1939 his classical works were being broadcast nationally from that venue on the Standard Oil School Broadcasts. Still composed nine operas, five symphonies, four ballets, and nearly 200 other works. He was three times a Guggenheim fellow, and received nine honorary doctorates. Still was the first African-American to conduct a major US orchestra, the first to have a symphony performed by a major US orchestra, the first to have an opera televised. As well, he was the arranger and composer of more than a thousand works for popular bands and musical shows. He passed away in 1978. The City of Los Angeles created and operates the William Grant Still Arts Center. #anamericanmusician https://youtu.be/vcCrGsvXXQY |
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21 Feb 24 - 08:38 PM (#4197692) Subject: RE: Black History Month: William Alexander Brown From: Joe Offer AN AMERICAN MUSICIAN In 1816, William Alexander Brown (a 26 year old free West-Indian ship steward) immigrated to New York, settling in Manhattan's Fifth Ward community of free people of color - who had just two years earlier volunteered their services in the war against the British. Slavery had declined in the city after Congress legislated manumission of slaves who fought for the Continental Army during the Revolution; and also an act of the state Assembly declaring all children of slaves born after July 4, 1799 to be free (although required to be indentured into their 20s). The city was also one of the centers of the rising ablitionist organizations - although historians note that movement conicided with an increase in demonstrations of nationalist white supremacy. In the area now called Tribeca, Brown bought a Thomas Street property where he opened a ‘tea garden’ he named ‘The African Grove.’ Such gardens had then been popular London for almost a century, and several had been established in New York for a number of years. The owners sold iced beverages and pastries while offering musical recitals, poetry-readings, and fireworks shows to bring custom. The African Grove was unique because it was open only to black audiences. After several successful summers running the tea garden, Brown offered in 1821 first presentation of the ‘African Company’ (with an entirely black cast, orchestra, and crew) in which he played Shakespeare's King Lear. He was soon joined in the company by another black Shakesperean, James Hewlett, who later was lead in the company's Richard III. Brown moved his business to a larger property (the present address is 165 Mercer St) which held space for the tea garden and also contained a building he converted to a year-round theater for off-season music and and especially for plays. While his daily amusements continued to flourish, he worked to produce classic plays, and also wrote and produced his own works. Although much of his work appears to have been comic interludes performed before the curtain between acts, in 1823 he wrote and produced "King Shotaway," a drama depicting the Carib War on St. Vincent. The theatre audience soon began to include white members, as many New Yorkers were attracted to the entertainment his company provided. Stephen Price owned the Park Theatre, which for years had been the only theater in the city. In the 1820s, rivals began to appear - including the Bowery Theater, Chatham Gardens, and the African Grove. Price hired rowdies to disrupt his competitors’ shows, and encouraged nearby residents to complain to city officials. The African-American community was particularly susceptible to this harassment, and Brown’s theater was closed in 1824. #anamericanmusician https://youtu.be/jmbCxF7sPfY?si=j4xjn7e59tTYQK3u |
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21 Feb 24 - 08:39 PM (#4197693) Subject: Black History Month: Jenkins Orphanage Band From: Joe Offer AN AMERICAN MUSICIAN English settlers arrived in the coastal South Carolina Lowcountry in the 1670s, initially planters coming from Bermuda and the Barbados who brought African slaves with them. By 1690, most local Indians had perished, been chased-away, or enslaved; and Charles Town was the fifth largest European settlement in North America. But the climate was unhealthy for Europeans - malaria, hurricanes, and pirates all were common, while neither cotton nor tobacco flourished. The colony's early economy was based on the trade of enslaved Indians to the West Indies; during 1680-1720, forty thousand were sold in the town (now spelled Charleston). Meanwhile, after experimenting with several crops, the planters settled on growing rice. They imported thousands of West African blacks from the area of modern-day Guinea, Sierra Leone, and the Ivory Coast - skilled farmers from a part of the world where rice was grown and the climate was similar By the late 1700s, South Carolina had a mostly-black population, people who had originated in 3.5 million square miles of West Africa, speakers of hundreds of different tongues; all captured, transported thousands of miles in horrid conditions, and forced to labor. They were feared, isolated, forbidden - not only their own cultures, but the white man's as well. They never assimilated into American culture the way slaves in Virginia and Arkansas did. They developed a creole tongue to speak among themselves. It was called Gullah, and so they were named. In 1891, African-American businessman, former slave, and minister Rev. Daniel Jenkins founded a group-home for some of the many Gullah street-children then living in Charleston. The number of children seeking shelter at the Jenkins Orphanage quickly grew to 500; the orphanage moved to the city's Old Marine Hospital. Needing to keep so many children occupied after school, Jenkins sought donations of musical instruments and hired local musicians to teach the kids. By 1864, Jenkins received permission from the city to have musical performances on the streets, after each of which the boys passed a collection-box. The funds were used to feed, clothe, and educate the children, whose needs far outpaced the ability of Jenkins' congregation to support them. But the boys not only played the music they were taught - they transformed it with their young experience of Gullah rhythms and songs from the 'praise-houses' throughout the Lowcountry and the Georgia Sea-Islands. Within two years, what began on street-corners turned into tours of the US, and then the world. Jenkins' Orphans bands (clad in cast-off uniforms from the Citadel) marched in presidential parades, they performed for King George, at the St. Louis Worlds' Fair and at London's 1914 Anglo-American Exposition. The 1920s Charleston dance is reported to have begun with the band. Graduates of the band could be found in the ensembles of Cab Calloway, Duke Ellington, Count Basie, Harry James, Lionel Hampton, and many others. Despite financial problems caused by world wars, the Great Depression, and changes in regulation of group homes, the bands continued after the demise of Rev. Jenkins in 1937, and into the 1950s. The school continues today, though it has moved to North Carolina, and no longer trains a band. #anamericanmusician HTTPS://YouTube.be/bopD0Ud75RU |
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21 Feb 24 - 08:40 PM (#4197694) Subject: RE: Black History Month: America W. Robinson From: Joe Offer AN AMERICAN MUSICIAN America W. Robinson was born in 1855 to Patrick and Elizabeth (both slaves of "mixed-race") in Murfreesboro, Tennessee. It was remarked that all their children had notably pale skin. Her father was sold by his own half-brother some years earlier when that family experienced financial difficulties. The new master trained Patrick as a carpenter, then during the Civil War put him to work in a munitions factory making musket-stocks for the Confederate army. During the battle of Stones River, the master's house was used as a field hospital, filled with wounded soldiers. America's father hid his family in wagons used to transport wounded, and escaped to Union-occupied Nashville, where they were legally free. In 1866, when the New York-based American Missionary Association opened the Fisk Free Colored School in Nashville, ten year-old America became a student on opening day. At thirteen, she started teaching school during summer sessions to earn money for her fees. When Fisk opened a college in 1867, America was among the first to be enrolled, and was among the four men and women who matriculated as Fisk College's initial 1875 graduating class. In 1871, "financial difficulties' again make an appearance in Robinson's story. Moving the campus to the former Fort Gillem proved more costly than anticipated - Fisk was facing bankruptcy. The treasurer and music professor George White offered to have the school chorus (four men and five women) give concerts to raise money. At first they performed locally in Nashville, Franklin and Murfreesboro, but soon appeared in Cincinnati, and then Chicago, New York, Washington D.C. and across the Eastern states. After their Cincinnati performance, the group donated their $30 takings to victims of the 1871 Chicago fire; the story of their generosity was reported by national newspapers bringing notice to the chorus. Now calling themselves the Fisk Jubilee Singers, their first US tour eventually raised $40,000 for the school. White arranged a British tour for the Singers in late 1872, and the chorus now included contralto America Robinson. This five-year tour raised $200,000 to retire debt and enable construction of the Jubilee Hall During her final years at Fisk, America became engaged to fellow-student James Burrus (another mixed-race former slave); they planned to be married after graduation, going with James while he took his Masters at Dartmouth. But for her 1875 graduation, America was touring Europe - although she was the only one of the early Jubilee Singers to graduate from Fisk. A noted beauty, she remained in Strasbourg for several years after the tour disbanded in 1877, studying French and German as well as music. But eventually America returned to America. In 1890 she earned a Masters degree from Fisk. She married schoolteacher Edward Lucas, and opened a school to prepare African-American teachers in Macon, Mississippi. Despite a number of lynchings in this tiny (2,000 population) town during her residence, America continued to live there until her death in 1920. #anamericanmusician https://youtu.be/ylD4zvvN79Y?si=L0_Xl59uns9swjyt |
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21 Feb 24 - 08:41 PM (#4197695) Subject: RE: Black History Month: Sissieretta Jones From: Joe Offer AN AMERICAN MUSICIAN The drama and spectacle of grand opera - by Gounod, Meyerbeer, Donizetti, later by Verdi and Wagner - took over the stages of Paris, London, and Milan from the 1820s through the 1890s. Cities around the world vied to form their own opera companies, while performers became international stars and toured the world. Pierre Michot, Jenny Lind, Victor Maurel, and Nellie Melba were among the best known, while Verdi called the "stupendous artist" Adelina Patti (1843-1919) the very finest. Matilda "Sissy" Joyner was born to AME minister and former slave Jeremiah and his wife, choir-singer Henrietta, in 1869. Seven years later, the family moved to Providence RI, where Sissy began voice-training at the Providence Academy of Music. At 18 - now married to hotel bellman David R. Jones - she joined established singer Flora Batson at the New England Conservatory in Boston to develop her operatic repertoire. In 1887 Matilda (using the name "Sissieretta Jones") appeared at a Parnell Defense benefit at Boston's Music Hall, and a few months later in New York at Steinway Hall and the Wallack theatre. At the latter she was introducer to the manager of Madame Patti, who encouraged her to join a West Indies tour by the Fisk Jubilee singers. Her individual success on this tour led to an appearance at Madison Square Garden and further touring engagements, where she was almost always billed as a top act. Her coloratura voice was so notable that a reporter dubbed her the "Black Patti," a description thereafter used (to her own chagrin) by her promoters. Over a 10-year period, Jones performed several times at the White House for Presidents Harrison, Cleveland, McKinley, and Roosevelt (being the first black performer to enter the building through the front door), for the British royal family, at Worlds' Fairs in Pittsburgh and Chicago. She toured the Americas, Europe, Africa, Australia, and India. Antonin Dvorak asked her to perform several pieces, and she was invited to perform a lead role for New York's Metropolitan Opera - that invitation rescinded when board members objected to her race. In 1896, Jones returned to Providence to live with her sick mother. She was frustrated by limited US access to major performance venues, as she was used to around the world - limits imposed by white racism. Her managers Rudolph Voelckel and James Nolan proposed a touring company (which they would own) featuring her, with collaborators including vaudeville composer Bob Cole, performers Sam Lucas and Ernest Hogan, and opera singers. Volckel promised a forty-week season, guaranteed her the use of a Pullman car, annual income of twenty thousand (more than $750,000 today) for the use of her name, and to devote the final section of each show to her performance of opera and operetta excerpts. The "Black Patti Troubadors" (later the Black Patti Musical Comedy Company) toured for eighteen years, offering (both black and white) audiences a musical skit, followed by a a collection of vaudeville acts, and ending with Jones. Around 1900, Voelckel hired writers to organize the show around a story-line, adding costumes and scenery to Sissieretta's numbers and incorporating them into the plot. After the 1913 season, Jones' health caused her to cancel most of her appearances. Without her, the company was no longer viable and disbanded. In 1915, Jones appeared for two solo engagements (Chicago and Harlem), then retired completely at age 46. She had divorced her husband in 1899 for gambling and financial abuse. She owned her home and rental real-estate in Providence, and possessed a collection of valuables - by selling these, she supported herself and her mother until she died of cancer in 1933. Neighbor (and NAACP chapter-president) William Freeman helped her financially in her last years, and was her executor. She is buried in Grace Church Cemetery in Providence. “I love to sing; singing is to me what sunshine is to the flowers. The flowers absorb the sunshine because it is their nature. I give out melody because God filled my soul with it.” #anamericanmusician |
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21 Feb 24 - 08:42 PM (#4197696) Subject: RE: Black History Month: William Henry Lane From: Joe Offer AN AMERICAN MUSICIAN There is no doubt Master Juba was a real person; but - like John Henry - it’s possible his legend has transcended anything William Henry Lane could have accomplished in his short twenty-seven year life. Lane was born a free person in Providence RI during the mid-1820s. At the time, the “free-colored” population of the two dozen US states and their territories was about 320,000 (there were 2 million black slaves), with about 45% living in the 12 Northern free states. We next hear of Lane as an adolescent saloon-dancer in the Five-Points slum of New York, using the name “Juba”. During 1841, he was hired by PT Barnum to replace popular white dancer John Diamond in a blackface act. Over the next few years, the two dancers met for at least a half-dozen “championships” - one was witnessed by writer Charles Dickens (nickname "Boz"), who immortalized Juba in his book American Notes: “Single shuffle, double shuffle, cut and cross-out: snapping his fingers, rolling his eyes, turning in his knees, presenting the backs of his legs in front, spinning about on his toes and heels like nothing but the man's fingers on the tambourine; dancing with two left legs, two right legs, two wooden legs, two wire legs, two spring legs — all sorts of legs and no legs — what is this to him? And in what walk of life, or dance of life, does man ever get such stimulating applause as thunders about him, when, having danced his partner off her feet, and himself too, he finishes by leaping gloriously on the bar-counter, and calling for something to drink..." In 1845, Lane began touring American cities as the top-billed act in minstrel stage-shows. In 1848, a black American dancer identified as “Boz’ Juba” toured Great Britain with a white minstrel troupe for a year and a half. His was the most-acclaimed act of the London theater season. He returned to the US in 1850, was reported in New York in August. November saw him back in England; a report of his death in Dublin in late 1851 was followed a half-year later by another of Juba dying in London. Finally, in February 1854, his demise from cholera was registered in Liverpool. His dancing efforts left their legacy. A hundred years after his death “Juba dance” was still a popular variety act in the British Isles, France, and the Low Countries. In America, it was ancestor to the hambone, cakewalk, and a major influence on tap-dance. Lane's own pioneering work in American dance, though, was ignored. Only after WW2 was his significance as the “link between the white world and authentic black source material”(Eileen Southern) acknowledged. #anamericanmusician Dramatization of Juba dancing in a competition: https://youtu.be/hpNdQDWgy7I?si=n2UX8dJpaW22_REQ |
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21 Feb 24 - 08:43 PM (#4197697) Subject: RE: Black History Month: Harry Pace From: Joe Offer AN AMERICAN MUSICIAN Harry Herbert Pace was born in Georgia in 1884. Nineteen years later he was the valedictorian of his graduating class from Atlanta University, where he’d studied with W.E.B. Du Bois. Work as a printer's apprentice had enabled him to pay for school; so it seemed only natural for Harry to start a printing business with his former teacher in the thriving timber- and cotton-market town of Memphis. A short time later he joined Du Bois to publish 'Moon's Illustrated Monthly,' a short-lived pulpit for the Niagara Movement which opposed the accomodation policies of Booker T. Washington; they insisted on full civil rights, due process of law, and increased political representation for African Americans. Pace was a founding member of the Atlanta branch of the NAACP in 1917, as well. After the demise of Moon's, Pace busily looked for printing work. He learned that his neighbor - established songwriter and bandleader W.C. Handy - had sold the rights to “Memphis Blues” for just $100. Pace approached him about starting a sheet-music publishing firm. During the thirty-years from 1885 through 1915, Americans had purchased more than 200,000 pianos each year, and each one of those six million pianos needed a stock of the latest popular music for their owners. Pace and Handy Music Company licensed the rights to print and distribute popular songs in the mid-South, but the twin engines of their growth were the compositions of Handy and the business acumen of Pace. In 1918, Pace moved their company offices to New York City. Pace and Handy soon became a nationally-successful sheet-music publisher, with offices in the Gaiety Theatre Building on Broadway at Times Square - often described as 'the black Tin Pan Alley'. They published the work of black artists including Fletcher Henderson, James P. Johnson, and James Berni Barbour, as well as white jazz composer W. Benton Overstreet - even the poetry of Langston Hughes. Pace soon insisted they begin producing player-piano rolls, and hired several pianists (including James Lawrence Cook), and then looked at a new technology - phonograph recordings! Pace sold his interest in the sheet-music business to Handy (the business continues to thrive today), because he considered records had the greatest potential for growth. He started NYC-based company, Black Swan Records (named after singer Elizabeth T. Greenfield at the request of du Bois), employing Henderson as the recording manager and composer William Grant Still as music director. Investors included Harlem luminaries James Weldon Johnson and Bert Williams, while artists included pianist James P. Johnson and singers Alberta Hunter and Ethel Waters. Pace also insisted on equitable publishing deals and paid all the musicians a fair wage. The label was modestly successful, but Pace contended that distribution was crippled by white-managed companies like Victor and Columbia, who encouraged store-policies of not marketing or selling records by black artists. At the end of 1923, Black Swan declared bankruptcy. Pace disbanded the production company and sold the label and its masters to Paramount Records, which soon moved the Black Swan recordings to its own "race-records" label. After settling the affairs of his record company, Harry returned to school to study law. He received his law degree from Chicago-Kent Law School in 1933; while in school, he also founded the Northeastern Life Insurance Company in New Jersey - it soon became the biggest African-American owned company in the North. Late in his life, his racial heritage was not generally known among friends and other contacts in his Chicago business and social circles. Many of descendants only learned he was an African-American after his death in 1943. #anamericanmusician https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T5u97CHSYIo |
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21 Feb 24 - 08:43 PM (#4197698) Subject: RE: Black History Month: African American Musicians From: Stilly River Sage You're generous with your time to put those up, Joe. I asked him to do it himself and he didn't show much interest in posting here as well. |
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22 Feb 24 - 03:05 AM (#4197705) Subject: RE: Black History Month: Fate Marable From: Joe Offer AN AMERICAN MUSICIAN New Orleans' "Storyville" district was legislated into being in 1897, just as ragtime music was sweeping the US. The young black musicians who found tenuous employment in the bordellos there were typically looking for extra money to supplement poorly-paid day work. Many would also work playing music at the plantations on paydays, travelling by train with companies that put on evening picnics and dances. Buddy Bolden regularly worked Yazoo & Mississippi Valley trains between New Orleans and Baton Rouge The Acme Packet river-boats started transporting freight and passengers out of Rock Island IL in the early 1880s, and soon could be seen along the Mississippi from St. Paul to New Orleans. By 1900, though, they couldn't compete with the speedier railroads, so owner John Strekfus began transitioning his business to passenger "excursions". His riverboat JS (launched in 1901) was the first Mississippi riverboat outfitted to provide day-trips to customers who wanted scenery, dancing, and dining; there were no staterooms, while a large dance salon occupied the main cabin. Danny Barker claimed musical entertainment on riverboats began with passengers gathering to hear songs of the roustabouts. Strekfus began modestly on the JS with a piano while he played violin himself; the boat was also equipped with a steam-calliope operated from the main boiler which could be heard for miles, advertising the arrival of the steamer. Strekfus hired black pianist Charlie Mills in 1903 to lead a four-piece band. Mills took a job in New York in 1907 and was replaced by the calliope player, Fate Marable. Marable (1890-1947) was born in Paducah KY to formerly-enslaved parents; he learned to play piano and to read music from his mother. When he was hired to lead the dance-band by Strekfus, he was given the responsibility of hiring band members. Over the years Fate scouted talent at the Storyville clubs, hiring clarinetist Johnny Dodds and his brother, Warren "Baby" Dodds, Johnny St. Cyr, "Pops" Foster, and young Louis Armstrong. Marable was known as a demanding taskmaster, musicians (many of them joined his band with no ability to read music) used to jokingly refer to working with Marable as "going to the Conservatory" because he insisted on reading skills and flawless performances. Every day the band practiced for two hours, and he had the boat-captain time the songs during rehearsal. According to Foster, every night they started playing at 8:00, going until 11:30 with two brief intermissions. The program was always fourteen songs; the selection would change but "those fourteen numbers just had to be up there..." But Marable also recognized talented players and gave them scope to show their ‘stuff’ during performances. Many young performers who worked for him went on to prominent careers, crediting Fate for their musical development. Employment on riverboats offered these musicians one of their most stable engagements and was a milestone in many careers. Armstrong later described life on the road in the South: "Lots of times we wouldn't get a place to sleep. So we'd cross the tracks, pull over to the side of the road and spend the night there. We couldn't get into hotels. Our money wasn't even good. We'd play nightclubs and spots which didn't have a bathroom for Negroes." It was very different on the river, where they had meals, facilities for hygiene and sleep, and a new town every day. If "jazz came up the river" during the post-WW1 Great Migration, it was Fate who brought it. Local musicians in St. Louis, Chicago, and other towns where the riverboats stopped jumped at the chance to listen to the New Orleans band perform (and even to rehearse). The Marable band's exciting music, talented performers, and the meticulous performances set new standards. It was spoken of as the "best dance band in the U.S.A." Fate Marable remained on the riverboats until 1940. He settled in St. Louis, playing solo piano at the city's Victorian Club. He died of pneumonia at the beginning of 1947. #anamericanmusician |
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22 Feb 24 - 05:33 AM (#4197706) Subject: RE: Black History Month: African American Musicians From: Gibb Sahib >he’s (Billy Kersands) credited with the song ‘Old Aunt Jemima’ There's evidence that Billy Kersands did not write the song, but was rather a later performer of it. The originator was more likely a white minstrel named Joe Lang. (I think the idea that it originated it comes from Toll's book _Blacking Up_ [1974].) >Dramatization of Juba dancing in a competition: This is unclear. The link appears to conflate "patting juba" with the dancing by the individual, Master Juba. The word "Juba" is there in both cases, but as far as I was aware they are not the same. Patting juba is the performance of body percussion (rarely referred to as a "dance," in my experience) whereas Master Juba was a dancer... who danced... but didn't pat juba. (Clear as mud?) |
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25 Feb 24 - 03:33 PM (#4197997) Subject: RE: Black History Month: African American Musicians From: GUEST,Felipa Rhiannon Giddens has been featuring many Aftican American banjo players on her Facebook page this month |
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25 Feb 24 - 08:02 PM (#4198015) Subject: RE: Black History Month: African American Musicians From: GUEST,.gargoyle End of an Age. Hispanic, Black, Yugoslavian. Forget, the newer term, "tossed salad bowl" unique identified components that replaced "soup bowl/stew" that implied an an amalgen. AMERICAN - period! Just American Some of us were born through our blood, some of us crossed through the mud, but all of us here ... Sincerely, Gargoyle $15/ hour house-cleaner room provided |
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27 Feb 24 - 09:39 PM (#4198178) Subject: RE: Black History Month: Pat Chappelle From: Joe Offer AN AMERICAN MUSICIAN The three Chappelle brothers were slaves in rural South Carolina until after the Civil War, when the local economy (severely disrupted by war and all the men lost to it) finally collapsed. The brothers took their families and sought construction work in the booming Florida town of Jacksonville, which had been held by a Union garrison throughout the war and attracted a community of free black people. Pat Chappelle was born January 1869, in the LaVilla section. Although not a prodigy, Pat had musical talent for the piano and banjo; he left school after the fourth grade to join a string band. He was soon employed by B. F. Keith, who was forming an agency for signing variety acts to appear at museums and theatres in Boston and New York. Keith was one of the originators of America's vaudeville circuits, and we may surely assume Chappelle closely observed how talent was scouted and shows were developed over the dozen years they were associated. In 1898, Chappelle returned to Jacksonville. He bought a pool-hall and turned it into a theatre. He organized the 'Famous Imperial Minstrels' travelling show, featuring comedians, dancers, and musical acts (both black and white); it often appeared at his theatre. But after a dispute with the pool-hall's landlord, in 1899 Pat moved his business to Tampa, where he opened several new venues. In 1900, Chappelle and his partners launched a new troupe to put on the variety show "A Rabbit's Foot," hiring established colored performers and touring four southern states from private train-cars. They performed in theatres in cities and under tents at smaller places. By their third season, they were the dominant (but not the only) African-American vaudeville business, employing 75 performers for a three-month season each year. And Pat claimed to have "accomplished what no other Negro has done - he has successfully run a Negro show without the help of a single white man." The Rabbit's Foot business continued to grow, soon deploying several African-American companies touring at the same time over a circuit which enccmpassed a third of the country, including New York, Boston, and Washington. Shows now featured a parade to the theatre whenever a company arrived in a town, and an all-black baseball team which played the local teams at each stop. He launched the "Funny-Folks Comedy Company", featuring comedians and playing in tents in smaller villages. Even though the budget for each troupe grew each year, Chappele's profits let him invest in commercial buildings and apartments - mostly around Jacksonville. In 1910, Chappelle announced he was retiring from business due to health issues. His brothers continued to operate the Rabbit's Foot businesses, and Pat moved to Georgia. With his wife, Rosa, he travelled in Europe and attended the coronation of King George V. He died in late 1911 - just 42 years old - and his business was sold to white entrepreneur Fred Wolcott. #anamericanmusician https://youtu.be/KUOQIIowCXQ?si=aDGZbpYzC-3epTzr |
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27 Feb 24 - 09:40 PM (#4198179) Subject: RE: Black History Month: Barzillai Lew From: Joe Offer AN AMERICAN MUSICIAN The entire population in 1750 of the thirteen colonies which became the US was less than 1.2 million people. About 240,000 of them were black; with almost 90% of those in the seven Southern colonies (South Carolina was well on its way to a majority-black population). In the six Northern colonies, more than 8,000 of the 25,000 black residents were free; the South had fewer than 5,000 free blacks. While free, black men were generally not allowed in militias during the frontier wars, nor during the Revolution until General Washington approved enlistment of black soldiers so Rhode Island might make its quotas. Black men who did enlist were generally assigned as "musicians" (fife and drum provided signals, kept time on the march, and bolstered morale) and rarely bore armaments. In the Massachusetts town of Groton (a farm community of roughly 1,100 people thirty miles northwest of Boston) there was a free black family headed by former servants Primus and Margret Lew. Primus had served as both a militia soldier and musician in the Hoosac River campaigns after the disastrous siege of Fort Massachusetts in King George's War (Primus had likely been manumitted as a result). The oldest of their four children was Barzillai (b.1743), who grew up to be "big and strong with an extraordinary talent as a musician.” At seventeen, Barzillai spent a year with the Farrington Company of Groton militia as a fifer, and saw fighting in the Montreal campaign of the French & Indian War After he returned, he moved to Chelmsford at the juncture of the Merrimack and Concord rivers - a town with growing timber and lime-kiln industries - opening a business as a cooper. In 1766 he purchased the mulatto slave Dinah Bowman for $400 from Major Abraham Blood; he gave her freedom, and then married her. She was a fine pianist, and has been mentioned as possibly the earliest African-American to play the instrument. The Lew family grew by 1793 to seven boys and six girls, all of whom seem to have inherited their parents' abilities for music. They formed a family orchestra which frequently performed for occasions throughout Massachusetts (then including Maine) and New Hampshire. The cooperage was also successful, contracting to build tubs and casks for the Middlesex Canal Company. Wealth enabled Barzillai to own a large farm in what is now Lowell, build a big home, and keep a coach and fine horses that brought them each Sunday to the Pawtucket Society Church. In 1775, Lew enlisted in the Capt. Ford's Chelmsford Militia Company and fought at Bunker Hill as a soldier, fifer, and drummer, one of three dozen African-Americans to participate in the battle. His fife-playing during the battle was noted as a spark for American morale. Two years later, Barzillai rejoined the militia to fight at Fort Ticonderoga; after the battle he was selected to play both fife and fiddle during the ceremony in which British General Burgoyne surrendered. Lew died in 1822, his wife Dinah received a pension from Massachusets for her husband's service in the Revolutionary War. Their family continued to flourish, one grandson building a house in Derry NH (which still stands) used by the Underground Railroad. Another grandson served as music advisor for the Cambridge school district, and led a popular dance-band in that city. Descendent Harry 'Bucky' Lew was recruited to join the Pawtucketville Athletic Club of the New England Professional Basketball League League - the first African-American to play professional baketball. Barzillai was remembered by Duke Ellington in a 1932 piano piece. #anamericanmusician https://youtu.be/Z3p-uo03CtE?si=oxVZrV42kRxkuhwc |
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27 Feb 24 - 09:42 PM (#4198180) Subject: RE: Black History Month: Elizabeth T. Greenfield From: Joe Offer AN AMERICAN MUSICIAN Elizabeth Taylor Greenfield was born a slave in Natchez, then capital of the Territory of Mississippi, at an undetermined date before 1817. Some time afterwards, however, her mistress moved to Philadelphia and emancipated all her slaves, sending most of them (including young Elizabeth’s family) to the Liberia colony of the American Emancipation Society in 1831. But the youngest girl Elizabeth (named after her mistress) remained in Philadelphia. Greenfield was sent to Clarkson Quaker school and, showing a talent for music, was also provided training in that area. In 1836 she returned to to care for Mrs. Greenfield, and was paid a wage for her services. When the mistress died in 1845, Elizabeth moved to Buffalo NY and established herself as a music teacher. With a vocal range encompassing tenor to soprano, her singing began to attract notice. In 1851 she debuted as a singer with a concert in Buffalo, and (promoted by Col. J.H. Wood) toured the East Coast and Midwest for the next two years. In all of these concerts, Wood allowed only whites in the audience; he was also accused of embezzling her concert earnings and keeping her isolated in mean conditions. Newspapers gave her the moniker "the Black Swan," but also circulated rumors she was a white woman in blackface. In 1853, she made her appearance in front of 4,000 at New York’s Metropolitan Hall; afterwards she apologized for keeping her "own people" from the concert and from that point arranged benefit concerts for "colored" causes. Later that year, Harriet Beecher Stowe sponsored a concert series for Greenfield in London; it was so successful that she also performed by the command of Queen Victoria at Buckingham Palace in 1854. Her patrons included the Duchesses of Sutherland, Argyle, and Norfolk. Her material included works by Stephen Foster as well as Mozart, Handel, and Rossini . She also studied under George Smart, the Chapel Royal organist. Returning to Philadelphia, she established a studio to train voice students - especially young blacks. She became a member of the Shiloh Baptist Church. She also toured American cities. By the 1860s, her studio had trained enough colored students for her to form an opera troupe, which she directed. During the Civil War she gave concerts to benefit black Union soldiers. Greenfield died in 1876. #anamericanmusician https://youtu.be/IJJo0pKYYuc?si=TKR7guD38bLRW9IF |
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27 Feb 24 - 09:43 PM (#4198181) Subject: RE: Black History Month: Walter F. Craig From: Joe Offer AN AMERICAN MUSICIAN Walter Craig was born free in Princeton NJ, in 1854; his father Chales originated in Maryland, while his mother Sarah came from Pennsylvania. The family soon moved to New York City, where he attended the historic Colored School No. 4 on 17th Street, in the CHelsea neighborhood. By age 13 he was learning violin, particularly interested in music of the classical and romantic composers. He made his concert debut at the Cooper Union at 16, and he organized his own orchestra a couple of years later. For economic reasons, his orchestra regularly performed for dances, but Craig was demanding of his performers' musicianship. The orchestra also made concert tours of adjacent states, performing works by European composers, including Dvorak, Musin, Stobbe, and Berlioz. They often featured popular African-American vocalists who performed classical music or opera/operettas, these included Sissieretta Jones, Harry Burleigh, and Azalia Hackley. Craig also became known for introducing young African-American performers, such as Roland Hayes. Walter himself became well-known as a violinist and composer. Craig’s orchestra was made up of both white and black performers, and he was active in the musicians’ union - being the first black conductor to be a member of the Musical Mutual Protective Union of New York City. He was probably best known for a set of recurring seasonal performances at the Palm Garden for Christmas, before the start of Lent, and an annual May Festival; these appeared annually for more than a quarter-century. He continued to compose music and give violin lessons until his death at 79. #anamericanmusician |
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27 Feb 24 - 09:45 PM (#4198182) Subject: Black History Month: Noble Sissle & Eubie Blake From: Joe Offer AN AMERICAN MUSICIAN Probably the most well-known African-American musicians a century ago were the songwriting team of Blake and Sissle. Their recent musical theatre success "Shuffle Along" (504 performances on Broadway, then several East Coast tours and an Off-Broadway revival) had been a springboard for the performing careers of Josephine Baker, Paul Robeson, Adelaide Hall, and Florence Mills. The most popular number ("I'm Just Wild About Harry") has been recorded by Al Jolson, Prima, and Judy Garland - but most famously in the Truman presidential campaign. Its appeal crossed racial divides, and broke a decades-long practice of excluding African-Americans from white theatres (unofficially limiting shows to a single act with black performers). The show was revived in 1933 (with Nat King Cole), again in 1952, and adapted for the stage again in 2014. James Hubert "Eubie" Blake was born in 1887, the only one of former slaves Emma Johnstone and John Blake to survive childhood in Baltimore. HIs father worked on the docks as a stevedore. When he was 5, Emma bought a cottage organ (paying twenty five cents a week) and Eubie started lessons with the lady who played the organ at the Methodist church. But soon, Eubie was fascinated by ragtime; he even snuck off to play in a Baltimore bordello. In 1907, boxer Joe Gans hired the young Blake to perform in the lobby of his hotel - the tale being Gans first heard the kid at Aggie Shelton's Bawdy House. Blake also played Allen's Boathouse in Atlantic City, including his own compositions "Tricky Fingers' (1904) and "The Charleston Rag." Noble Sissle, son of Indianapolis Rev. George A. Sissle and Martha (formerly Scott) entered this world in 1889 . The young Sissle sang in church and school choirs, then began singing professionally in 1908 with Joe Porter’s Serenaders. That continued while he was a scholarship student at DePauw University (1913) and Butler University (1914-15). In 1915, the Serenaders performed at Baltimore's Riverview Park, where Noble encountered Eubie Blake, and their lives changed. Each appreciated the other's abilities, and they decided to form a songwriting team: Blake composing and Sissle as lyricist. They sold their first song, "It’s All Your Fault," to Sophie Tucker for $200 (years later she added their "Have a Good Time Everybody" to her repertoire). That convinced Sissle his future lay in music, not college. The pair would remain friends until Sissle's death sixty years later. In 1916, Noble successfully auditioned for James Reece Europe's dance orchestra, accompanying Vernon and Irene Castle in New York. He urged the famous bandleader to hire his friend, so Eubie came north to join the Harlem-based orchestra. Sissle and Blake fit Europe's ideal of the professional black entertainer perfectly. Both had experience performing and writing music for white audiences, without losing their professional dignity. Blake was soon promoted from solo pianist to assistant orchestra leader, and later stated that "Jim Europe was the biggest influence in my musical career," When Europe's New York National Guard unit was called-up in 1917, Sissle joined his leader's 369th Infantry Regimental Band as a sergeant. During training in North Carolina, a white man attacked Sissl, which eventually led to the Army seconding the 369th to the French. Both Europe and Sissle served overseas until the war ended. When Europe re-formed his Society Orchestra in 1919, Sissle was the featured vocalist and Blake the pianist and orchestra leader. After Europe's murder, they briefly led The Society Orchestra, then went on the vaudeville circuit as 'The Dixie Duo.' All along, they continued writing, and In 1921 their revue "Shuffle Along" opened an 18-month Broadway run, followed by another 2 years on tour. As soon as the first play was established, the partners began work on "The Chocolate Dandies;" the cast (and budget) were double that of "Shuffle Along," so the show would have needed to play to sold-out houses for a year to get into the black. Instead, it went on a 24-week tour before opening on Broadway for just 96 performances. Nonetheless, both later claimed this was their best collaboration, with Blake saying it was his masterpiece. Lee deForest filmed them performing individually and together; they toured Europe in 1925 where Sissle remained to work with Cole Porter and Fred Waring. During the 1930s they each led bands and performed in movies; Sissle founded the Negro Actors Guild. Both toured for the USO during WW2. In 1948, Blake returned to school, getting a degree from New York University; his career re-started when new interest in ragtime began during the 1960s. Sissle was named the Honorary Mayor of Harlem in 1950 then ran a music-publishing business, owned a nightclub, and was a radio disc-jockey. Sissle and Blake's last collaboration was the 1968 composition, "Didn’t The Angels Sing || For Martin Luther King" - they assigned all royalties to the King Foundation. It was made while they were recording "86 Years of Eubie Blake." Their last performance together was in Tampa, Florida in 1972. Sissle died in 1975, Blake in 1983. #anamericanmusician Marian McParland performs with and interviews Eubie Blake (1980) https://www.npr.org/2012/10/19/123385170/ Noble Sissle sings "All of No-Man's Land Is Ours" (1919) https://youtu.be/dGAV8VCXvA4 |
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27 Feb 24 - 09:47 PM (#4198183) Subject: RE: Black History Month: St. Charles Hotel From: Joe Offer AN AMERICAN MUSICIAN In 1842 that solemn and respectable newspaper, the New Orleans 'Bee,' published an obituary for an itinerant African-American street-hawker and singer whose name and history were generally unknown. Going by the sobriquet of "Old Corn-Meal," this character was widely-known to (and apparently widely-mourned by) not just the citizens of New Orleans, but also to a great many businessmen and visitors from the Americas and Europe. Similar eulogies appeared in the 'Picayune,' while two decades later he was still being remembered in the New York news. For more than a dozen years, Old Corn-Meal had driven his wagon through the city, stopping at the major hotels, government offices, and business-districts to sell bags of "Indian meal" from the back. He announced his presence and attracted customers by dancing and singing. He was known for switching back and forth between his natural baritone voice and a high-pitched falsetto, accompanying himself in popular tunes as well as his own creations. Frequently, while slave-auctions were taking place in front of the City Hotel or at the St. Charles, he would be there at the edges of the crowd purveying his corn meal and music. He is known to have appeared on the stage at the St. Charles in 1837 (a skit in which his horse fell from the stage and died) - spoken of as the first appearance by a black man on a white stage in New Orleans. He later performed on several occasions at the Camp Street Theatre. Which tells us that he was widely-known, and his performances were appreciated. For us today, Old Corn-Meal would just be a "character" (maybe similar to San Francisco's Emperor Norton). Except that his unique performances were observed and faithfully copied by Thomas D. Rice - the early white performer who perfected the minstrel-show character Jim Crow. Rice visited New Orleans in 1835, and returned the following year with a skit called "Corn Meal." And George Nichols, the originator of the song 'Jump Jim Crow' (originally sung in circus-clown costume, before Rice made Crow a "darkie") was reported to have copied the tune from Old Corn-Meal earlier in the 1830s. The blackface minstrel-shows which grew in popularity from the that period - as well as the later "coon-songs" of vaudeville and ragtime that followed - owe a great deal to this New Orleans character. And the music and racial-characterization bowdlerized from his musical performances created a significant perception of African-Americans that has echoes today. In justice, we are certain that Old Corn-Meal had no intention of victimizing his people, and would likely be bewildered by the manner in which his songs and dancing would be construed. #anamericanmusician Historic images of Jim Crow dancers accompanied by the song: https://youtu.be/T5FpKAxQNKU?si=e7S0QskDrV-grCxh |
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27 Feb 24 - 09:48 PM (#4198184) Subject: RE: Black History Month: Thomas Wiggins From: Joe Offer AN AMERICAN MUSICIAN Born on a Georgia plantation in 1849, ‘Blind Tom’ Wiggins was a blind and and (presumably) autistic slave. Sold with his parents to the secessionist James Neil Bethune in 1850, people soon noted the toddler's ability to mimic sounds of nature and people's speech. He could repeat lengthy conversations verbatim, although he was for many years unable to form sentences on his own. The slave child was assigned to accompany Bethune's daughters, and got exposed to the piano while they took lessons. By three years old, he was allowed to try the instrument, and inside a year was mimicking the girls' lessons and composing his own tunes. This ability was encouraged by Bethune, who soon had Tom giving concerts as a musical prodigy all across Georgia. In 1857 Bethune hired concert promoter Perry Oliver; the child was shown across the U.S. (often three or four times a day), even appearing at the White House. Oliver touted Tom as a freak with advertising that compared him to a bear or an ape. He had reportedly memorized 7,000 pieces, and was able to play them at audience demand, often with his back to the piano or simultaneously playing a different number with each hand. These concerts earned Bethune and Oliver as much as $100,000 per year, even after the start of the Civil War - when he performed benefits for the Confederacy. When Tom was emancipated by the 13th Amendment after the war, Bethune became his manager and conservator and continued his shows - commencing with a European tour. Ten years later, his son John took over Tom's management; he eventually lost custody of Tom to his wife Eliza when they divorced. Tom moved with Eliza and her new husband to New York, where they had him performing in vaudeville shows until 1904, when he became "partially-paralysed." He died of a stroke in 1908. #anamericanmusician https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t4ZmwXd_dJg |
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27 Feb 24 - 09:50 PM (#4198185) Subject: RE: Black History Month: James Reese Europe From: Joe Offer AN AMERICAN MUSICIAN James Reece Europe was born fourth of five children to a former slave and a "free-colored" woman in Mobile, Alabama in 1881. His parents and all the siblings played music, so he learned to play both violin and piano. The family moved when his father took a job with the Post Office in Washington D.C., where ten-year old James began more advanced violin lessons with Enrico Hurlei, assistant director of the Marine Corps Band. At 14, James placed second in a music composition contest (his younger sister was the winner). He graduated from Washington's Preparatory High School for Negro Youth, a contemporary of pianist Ford Dabney and playwright Mary P. Burrill. At twenty-one, Europe went to look for orchestra work in New York City. Jobs for African-American violinists in 1901 were scarce, so he started playing piano in cabarets - where customers' musical tastes ran to ragtime. Always a quick-study, James soon absorbed the fundamentals of the genre, and began to 'improve' the often-basic repertoire. Living in Harlem, he joined 'The Frogs,' an informal club of black musicians whose aim was both social and educational (many needed help to read scores). By 1910, this association had been incorporated by Europe into the midtown all African-American 'Clef Club,' with a labor exchange, concert hall, and an orchestra. In 1912, 31 year old Europe led the club's orchestra at a Carnegie Hall concert; likely the first performance of jazz music at any whites-only venue in New York. All music was written by black composers, while the 125-piece orchestral arrangements were by Europe. In the same year, James was hired to direct and arrange music for shows by dancers Irene and Vernon Castle at the Cafe de Paris and on Broadway, pioneering the Fox-trot. Victor Records signed him to a contract with his 'Society Orchestra' (mostly Clef Club members). He married Willie Starke in 1913. The New York National Guard asked Europe to organize a brass band for the colored 15th Infantry Regiment. In 1917, they were mobilized as the 369th Infantry, and sent to France. Europe took an officers' test, and accepted a commission as lieutenant commanding a machine-gun company. They were assigned as a unit to the French Army command, because white American troops refused to serve with blacks. German soldiers named the 369th "Die Höllenkämpfer" (or Hellfighters). Europe was also appointed to lead the regimental band - soldiers who both fought and performed. They were often asked to play for military parades and civilian events; they introduced jazz to British, French, and other European audiences. After the Armistice, the 369th was one of the earliest units to be returned home. On February 17, 1919, Europe and the band led the much-decorated Harlem Hellfighters on a parade from Washington Square to Harlem as thousands lined the sidewalks to cheer them. Europe re-organized his Society Orchestra and made several post-war recordings, but his plans were cut short. Less than three months after his return from the war, he was stabbed to death in an argument with one of his musicians. #anamericanmusician https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=de6vX1U6xHw |
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27 Feb 24 - 09:51 PM (#4198186) Subject: RE: Black History Month: James A. Bland From: Joe Offer AN AMERICAN MUSICIAN James A. Bland (“the black Stephen Foster“), was only one of many early African-American blackface minstrels. But he's remembered today as the author of 700+ songs, several of which are still well-known and often played - nearly one hundred and fifty years later. Bland was born in 1854 to free parents in Brooklyn NY. His father set a high standard for James to live up to; one of America’s earliest black college graduates, a law degree from Howard University, a position with the U.S. Patent office). James, however, liked to sing and play the banjo at high school parties; later - admitted to Howard - James continued his career as 'the life of every party.' At the time, Howard students wore uniforms, attended drill and daily roll-calls, while attendance at off-campus theatricals and entertainments was expressly prohibited. So, at 19, James and college parted ways, much to the chagrin of his parents. James began to get minor jobs with African-American black-face minstrel shows that were starting to appear, including a Boston group, the Original Black Diamonds. He occasionally worked as a "hand" for white minstrel shows, and did some busking or played at beer-gardens while awaiting his next call. He had always been clever writing songs, and often based his ballads' themes or style on material he heard from blacks who were doing menial jobs in the Washington DC area. After five years in small-time jobs, the owner of Ford's Theatre introduced him to white minstrel George Primrose, and James demonstrated a song he'd recently written. "Carry Me Back To Old Virginny" was an instant hit; sentimental without bathos, easy to sing. As soon as it was published, every minstrel in every show heard of Jimmy Bland. By the end of 1878, Bland was in Chicago with Sprague's Georgia Minstrels writing songs for its star, the dapper Sam Lucas. Bland provided Lucas with the imitation-spiritual walkaround "Oh, Dem Golden Slippers," and the gentle ballad "In the Evening By the Moonlight," while appearing as a comic and singer/banjoist in his own acts. When Lucas left Sprague's to join Billy Kersands in Haverly's Original Colored Minstrels he convinced James to join them. He wrote the still-popular "Hand Me Down My Walkin' Cane" and “De Golden Wedding” during his first few months with Haverly's. Written within the idioms of blackface minstrelsy, James' music was crafted to be easy to perform, and never included poly-rhythms or "ragged" beats of later jazz or ragtime. He used ensemble call-and-response in many songs. His lyrics generally presented his black stereotypes in a fairly dignified manner, without the commonly-used perjorative terms and exaggerated characterizations, nor did he mock black religious practice. Several of his songs called-out the abuses of slavery. And many of them were closely imitated, by Lucas, Dan Lewis, and others. Bland travelled with the Haverly show throughout their 1880-81 tours of the West Coast and England. After the English tour he remained in London, living and working there for twenty years. He performed at the command of Queen Victoria and of the Prince of Wales, and was billed in music-halls throughout Britain and in Germanya s "The Prince of Negro Minstrels." His income was excellent, but his lifestyle expensive. He continued to write and publish songs, but frequently sold them outright to publishers who often failed to give him credits. James returned to the Washington DC in 1901 with little money, no family, and few friends to fall back on. Lucas and Kersands were working in three-act musical stage comedies by people like Bob Cole and the Johnson brothers. The big minstrel shows had been replaced by travelling tent-shows like Rabbits Foot. His songs sounded old-fashioned compared to ragtime (and - unlike his contemporary Foster - he had no agents to keep his name before the public). Suffering from tuberculosis, Bland moved to Philadelphia, where he wrote 18 songs for a production called "The Sporting Girl," but was paid only $250. Bland died in early 1911. A number of his songs remained popular after his death; "Carry Me Back To Old Virginny" was adopted as the State song for Virginia in 1940. The Philadelphia Mummers use "Oh, Dem Golden Slippers" as the theme-song for their annual parade. The Lions Clubs of Virginia sponsor a contest and scholarships named in honor of Bland. Twenty-eight years after James' death, the American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers undertook a search for his grave and raised a monument. In 1970, James A. Bland was inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame. #anamericanmusician https://youtu.be/rh2jUvjqJ7s |
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27 Feb 24 - 09:52 PM (#4198187) Subject: RE: Black History Month: Toney Jackson From: Joe Offer AN AMERICAN MUSICIAN In its brief existence, Storyville was likely the most competitive music-scene in the United States (if not the world). Young black men and women were drawn to its relatively free and comparatively well-paid nightlife, with literally hundreds of jobs as performers. Their efforts evolved from the popular rags and sentimental songs, and created bright, high-energy music for a new era. To be considered the best - jockeying with Jelly Roll Morton, King Oliver, Loius Armstrong - was to attain one of the pinnacles of musical recognition. In early 1800s France, the revolutionary government imposed a system to "hygienically-regulate" prostitution; it was spread across Europe by Napoleonic conquest and continued after the Empire collapsed. Features included physical isolation, registration of sex workers, regular medical examinations, and policing. 'Regulationism' claimed to manage the spread of syphilis and tuburculosis; it was particularly enforced in seaport cities. 'Red-light' districts soon appeared from St. Petersburg to Cadiz. The port of New Orleans was a late-comer. In the 1890s the city commissioned a study of Hamburg's 'Reeperbahn,' and 'De Wallen' in Amsterdam. Councilman Sidney Story wrote legislation, and in 1897 prostitutes were proscribed outside a 38-block district between the French Quarter and the St. Louis Cemetery. That district included one of the main railroad stations and was adjacent to the docks and popular hotels; saloons and entertainments found 'Storyville' attractive. Directories to bordellos were published during its existence. But with involvement of the US in WW1, the War Department pressed the city to close Storyville so troops would not be distracted during deployment. The area later became public-housing. During the Storyville years, famous brothel operators included LuLu White (Mahogany Hall), Willie Piazza, Antonia Gonzales, and Gipsy Schaffer. Their businesses included ostentatious parlors, fancy bars, stages, and musical entertainments. Nearby saloons such as Frank Early's, Abadie's pool-hall and The Frenchman's Cafe also included stages for small orchestras and pianists. Performers who shared these venues during late nights soon developed a pecking-order, giving-up their places if a superior performer arrived. Pianist Jelly Roll Morton was a stand-out (an opinion he shared), but even he would relinquish his stool to Toney Jackson. Antonio Junius Jackson, Jr was the youngest of seven born to former slaves Antonio Sr. and Rachel. The family lived in Treme, where his father was a laborer and occasional fisherman. Toney and his twin (Prince) arrived somewhere between 1876 and 1888, parish records for 1884 indicate Prince died in his second year. Toney suffered epileptic seizures throughout his life, and much of his childhood was spent at home, only leaving for church or school. Despite health problems, he built a stringed musical instrument at the age of seven, on which he played songs learned at church. Hearing the child, a neighbor who owned an ancient reed organ worked a trade: Toney would wash dishes in exchange for sketchy lessons and practice-time. In the mid-90s he began to learn the piano in off-hours at bandleader Adam Olivier's saloon, and was shortly playing during business-hours and in Olivier's band (which then included trumpeter Bunk Johnson). Soon he was scouting in 'the district' for chances to play the piano at saloons and bawdy-houses. By 1900, Jackson ruled Storyville nightlife, with a flashy piano style and a substantial vocal range. By this time, he had moved out of his parents' home, living in rooms above Frank Early's saloon. He would often play the famous white piano at Willie Piazza's, or accompany Antonia Gonzales' cornet. One of his specialties was playing a cakewalk, kicking over the stool and dancing while he played. Late nights, musicians would gather at The Frenchman's Saloon. Years later, Jelly Roll Morton told Alan Lomax, "All these (pianists) were hard to beat, but when Tony Jackson walked in, any one of them would get up from the piano stool. If he didn't, somebody was liable to say, 'Get up from that piano. You hurting its feelings. Let Tony play.' Tony was real dark, and not a bit good-looking, but he had a beautiful disposition. He was the outstanding favorite of New Orleans... There was no tune that come up from any opera or any show of any kind or anything that was wrote on paper that Tony couldn't play. He had such a beautiful voice and a marvelous range. Singer Alberta Hunter said: "Everybody would go to hear Tony Jackson after hours. Tony was just marvelous - a fine musician, spectacular, but still soft. He could write a song in two minutes and was one of the greatest accompanist I've every listened to..." By this time, Toney was known to be a homosexual. While not a problem in Storyville, it became an issue for his parents and in the broader community. To get away, in 1904 he toured with Whitman Sisters' New Orleans Troubadors, but - dissatisfied - left the tour in Louisville to make his way back home. The following year he accepted a date in Chicago, and several more in the winter of 1907-08. But it wasn't until after his mother died in 1913 that Jackson left New Orleans. An attraction was support within Chicago's (underground) gay community. But leaving Storyville also gave Toney the opportunity to perform more often for the general public, at the Pekin Cafe and the Deluxe. Another important bonus in Chicago was access to music publishers. In 1915, lyricist Gus Kahn and his partner Egbert Van Alstyne (local manager of J.H. Remick & Co. music publishers) heard Jackson perform his ditty "Pretty Baby" at the Deluxe. Toney had composed the tune years before, and sang it with impromptu lyrics. The version Kahn heard was dedicated to Jackson's current boyfriend, and they proposed to re-write the words for a general audience and publish the song. Toney agreed, and to the publication crediting Kahn as lyricist; but was vocally dissatisfied when it also credited Van Alstyne as a co-composer. He was also disappointed that he was not paid royalties. His unhappiness was supported by many Chicago musicians, who were hostile to Van Alstyne until he died in 1951. "Pretty Baby" was a hit for Fanny Brice. The song was folowed by nine others known to be published (several others are claimed, but remain undocumented). Jackson's notoriety increased across the US, but he continued to be happy as a lounge-singer. Perhaps his lack of ambition was dictated by increasing health problems, compounded by alcohol-abuse dating back to his days in Olivier's saloon. By 1920 his sister Maria and her husband moved to Chicago to live with him. The Chicago Defender reported Toney Jackson died in March 1921 of liver failure, before he reached 39. #anamericanmusician https://youtu.be/xPBHNQRi6pQ |
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27 Feb 24 - 09:54 PM (#4198188) Subject: RE: Black History Month: Azalia Hackley From: Joe Offer AN AMERICAN MUSICIAN The accompaying photo of Azalia Hackley (1867-1922) may give you an impression of who she was. That impression is probably reinforced when you learn the former Michigan schoolteacher edited the womens' section of a Denver newspaper, organized folk-song festivals, directed the choir at her church (and her lawyer husband promoted sending African-Americans to Africa). That would be a misapprehension. She was, indeed, all those things. But Azalia was also a political activist and bel canto concert soprano, who publicly embraced her African-American heritage. Her father was a Michigan blacksmith, her mother the free-born child of an escaped slave. After the end of the Civil War, they moved to her father's birthplace of Murfreesboro TN, to start a school for emancipated slaves. Emma was born in Murfreesboro; but in 1870 when the Ku Klux Klan took action against the school, however, the family left for the growing city (80,000) of Detroit. In their new home, the Smiths started 3-year old Azalia with piano lessons, and soon added voice and violin. She sang and played piano for dances at Capital high school; at 19 she graduated with honors and a teaching certificate from Washington Normal School (now part of Wayne State University). For the next seven years she taught at Detroit's Clinton Elementary, performed with the Musical Society and taught piano. In 1894 she married University of Michigan graduate Edwin Hackley, lawyer and Colorado newspaper publisher. They settled in Denver, where Azalia acquired a conservatory B.A. from the University of Denver while directing several church and community choirs. She also founded Denver's Colored Womens' League, co-founded the patriotic Order of Lybians with Edwin, and served as womens' editor for her husband's newspaper, 'The Denver Statesman'. But altitude created health problems for Ms. Hackley; she left for Philadelphia in 1901 to be music director at Episcopal Church of the Crucifixion, and she founded and led the large 'People's Chorus'. Edwin followed soon after, but his career languished; he soon took a job as a postman. Azalia moved to Paris to study voice with Polish opera singer Jan de Reszke in 1904-05 (later drawing on this training to develop singers Marian Anderson and Roland Hayes). When she returned to the US, she travelled the country, appearing with Walter Craig's New York Orchestra, plus Denver, Chicago, and other cities in the US and Canada. Briefly, she worked for Flo Ziegfeld Sr. at Chicago Musical College, attempting to establish a curriculum for school-teachers. When that failed, she organized concert tours that featured Negro Spirituals, culminating at the Tokyo World Sunday-School Convention. In 1921, Azalia fell ill in San Diego and returned to live with her sister in Detroit. She died of a cerebral hemorrhage in December 1922 - still married to Edwin. Her efforts to recognize and uplift her people remain: a century of teaching spirituals in public schools, the success of her students, and memorials at schools and museums across the nation. #anamericanmusician |
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27 Feb 24 - 09:58 PM (#4198189) Subject: RE: Black History Month: African American Musicians From: Joe Offer Thanks to Mark Johnson for these wonderful biographies. I found and posted 25. Did I miss any? -Joe- |
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28 Feb 24 - 12:13 AM (#4198197) Subject: RE: Black History Month: Bert Williams From: Joe Offer AN AMERICAN MUSICIAN Bert Williams, born in the Bahamas (1874), epitomizes the transition from minstrelsy and black-vaudeville into movies and records. Dubbed "the funniest man I ever saw" by W.C.Fields, Williams was a comedian, writer, singer, musician, actor, and most of all a star. His parents immigrated to the US before he was five, to settle in New York City. By his late teens, he was performing with Martin and Selig's Mastodon Minstrels in San Francisco, where he met George Walker, his stage partner for the next sixteen years. They began in song-and-dance numbers, added comic dialogue, and then wrote and performed humorous songs. At first Williams played the sharpster to Walker's "ignorant coon," but they soon switched roles for a better audience reacton. Walker's ineffectual scheming dandy was perfectly offset by the oafish Williams making comic faces, and Bert's large frame highlighted their physical comedy. In their partnership, as in the act, Walker was the active one - he dealt with the reporters, lawyers, and managers. By 1896, the pair headlined vaudeville shows, billed as "Two Real Coons," with cork-blackened faces and kinky wigs. Audiences liked the sly irony of their lauded cakewalk - where they parodied face-blackened white men making fun of blacks. Bert made early Grampohone recordings in 1896, as well (though none have survived). Walker & Williams appeared in New York shows like "The Gold Bug," "Senegambian Carnival," "Lucky Coon", and in 1900 put on the musical "Sons of Ham" with Will Marion Cook and Jesse Shipp. When "Sons" enjoyed modest success, the four principals immediately went to work on a more ambitious show: "In Dahomey." It opened on the road and moved to Broadway's New York Theatre in early 1903; followed by two American tours and a London season. It was the earliest full-length African American musical to appear on a Broadway theatre stage. It was a significant step in the evolution from minstrelsy through vaudeville into musical comedy. And - though still using black stereotypes - its characters were people, not caricatures. The group produced "In Abyssinia" (1906) and "Bandanna Land" (1908); both were highly successful with critics, audiences , and their financial partners. "In Abyssinia" is largely remembered today for Bert's solo number "Nobody," which he recorded for Columbia - as many as 150,000 copies were sold through 1930. "Bandanna Land" was the final show for George Walker, who suffered a stroke onstage in 1909 and retired. In less than two years he was dead. Williams was now adrift, especially since he now dealt directly with organized anti-black sentiment among white performers and theatre management. In 1910, though, an offer to join Ziegfield's "Follies," (Broadway's biggest attraction) let him concentrate on performance rather than business. For years he shared the stage with Fanny Brice, Eddie Cantor, W.C.Fields, and Will Rogers. During the same period, he continued recording for Columbia - along with Al Jolson and Nora Bayes he was the highest paid recording artist in the world. In 1913, Bert led the cast for Biograph's "Lime Kiln Club Field Day"- the first feature film with an all-black cast; he later made two short films with Biograph. In 1921 he left the “Follies” for new material, a musical by the popular team of Bob Cole and the Johnson Brothers. But - while on tour in Detroit - he collapsed on stage (like his partner a dozen years earlier), and died at home a month later. A decade earlier, Booker T. Washington had said of Bert Williams that "He has done more for our race than I have. He has smiled his way into people's hearts..." #anamericanmusician https://youtu.be/MvDpz1EJb_M Excerpts from 1913s “Lime Kiln Club Field Day” (MOMA) |
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28 Feb 24 - 05:30 AM (#4198207) Subject: RE: Black History Month: African American Musicians From: GUEST,Felipa https://www.theguardian.com/music/2024/feb/27/black-artistry-is-woven-into-the-fabric-of-country-music-it-belongs-to-everyone-beyonce-texas-hold-em-rhiannon-giddens |
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02 Mar 24 - 02:21 PM (#4198390) Subject: RE: Black History Month: African American Musicians From: Stilly River Sage Here is the Facebook profile page where these appear. |
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03 Mar 24 - 02:01 AM (#4198427) Subject: RE: Black History Month: Flora Batson From: Joe Offer Flora Batson From Washington DC (but growing up in Providence RI), Flora was a concert singer with extraordinary range. Known as the “black Jenny Lind,” she was the most serious rival for her contemporary, Madame Sissieretta Jones. She was married for a decade to the white owner of her touring company. |
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03 Mar 24 - 02:02 AM (#4198428) Subject: RE: Black History Month: Sam Lucas From: Joe Offer Sam Lucas Born to free black parents in 1840 Ohio, Lucas was a performing fixture in black-face minstrel shows, black vaudeville, musical comedies, and film. Sam wrote scripts and songs, as well as appearing onstage. He was the first black man to portray Uncle Tom on stage, and the first to do so on film. |
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03 Mar 24 - 02:04 AM (#4198429) Subject: RE: Black History Month: J.Homer Tutt & Salem Tutt From: Joe Offer J.Homer Tutt & Salem Tutt In the 1890s the Tutt Brothers created a tent-show called “Silas Green from New Orleans” that ran continuously for 69 years in the South. After they sold it, the created the Smart Set company, writing and producing 40+ black musical revues. Their shows featured future black stars, including singers Mamie Smith and Ethel Waters. |
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03 Mar 24 - 02:05 AM (#4198430) Subject: RE: Black History Month: Roland Hayes From: Joe Offer Roland Hayes Born in 1887 to Georgia tenant-farmers, Hayes attended Fisk University and sang tenor with their Jubilee Singers. In 1915 he appeared with the Walter F. Craig Orchestra in New York, and soon after at Carnegie Hall. Traveling in post-war Europe, he was extremely well-received, and did a command performance for King George V. He continued to perform worldwide until his death in 1977. |
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03 Mar 24 - 02:06 AM (#4198431) Subject: RE: Black History Month: Luckey Roberts From: Joe Offer Luckey Roberts Roberts (1887-1968) invented “stride” piano, was the first of the early Harlem pianists to record, and the first to be published. He mentored Fats Waller, Duke Ellington, and George Gershwin. But it was as a society bandleader that he became wealthy. Luckey is the sole artist in my American Musician series to have appeared in Esquire Magazine’s famed 1958 photo “A Great Day in Harlem.” |
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03 Mar 24 - 02:07 AM (#4198432) Subject: RE: Black History Month: Francis Johnson From: Joe Offer Francis Johnson Born in Philadelphia in 1792, Johnson directed military bands and society orchestras. He led a band that played in London for the celebrations surrounding the accession of Queen, Victoria, returning to the US to introduce “promenade-concerts.” |
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03 Mar 24 - 02:08 AM (#4198433) Subject: RE: Black History Month: Charles Hicks From: Joe Offer Charles Hicks The African-American Hicks managed many of the best early black minstrel shows for the show’s owners. Unable to own his own troupe because white theatre owners refused to deal with him, though they were okay doing so as a functionary for white investors. |
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03 Mar 24 - 02:09 AM (#4198434) Subject: RE: Black History Month: Harry T. Burleigh From: Joe Offer Harry T. Burleigh Burleigh (1866-1949) was the son of a Union Navy veteran and the grandson of a freed slave. He learned spirituals and slave-songs from his grandfather as a child. He attended the National Conservatory, where Anton Dvorak heard him sing them. He became one of America’s foremost opera singers. |
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03 Mar 24 - 02:12 AM (#4198435) Subject: RE: Black History Month: Edmond Dede From: Joe Offer Edmond Dede AN AMERICAN MUSICIAN In 1803, the United States was considering the largest single land-acquisition in its history - buying the French Republic's territory of "Louisiana." The purchase was opposed not only by Eastern businessmen and land speculators (who understood the primary tax burden for buying the land would fall on them), but also Southern landowners backing then-President Jefferson, who were disturbed that as many as 50,000 French, Spanish, and non-slave black residents would gain American citizenship. And the free black inhabitants of the territory (many of whom had recently fled from civil wars in Haiti or oppression in Spanish Caribbean possessions) were even more opposed - fearful their individual freedom might be challenged or even administratively overturned. Over the next few decades, thousands took ship for France, England, and other countries to escape racial segregation and discrimination. Those African-American sojourners and expatriates soon added to their number black artists (Victor Sejour, Henry Ossawa Tanner, Charles Ethan Porter, Robert Duncanson), writers (Frederick Douglass, William Wells Brown), students (Alexander Crummell, James McCune Smith) and slaves/escapees (Sally Hemings, Hariet Jacobs, Henry "Box" Brown). Shortly thereafter, Black American performers ('Juba' Lane, Elizabeth T. Greenfield) and - from the middle of the 19th century - blackface minstrel shows became popular on European stages. After WW1, more than 200,000 African-Americans remained, attracted by the less-oppressive discrimination. In the 1950s and through the American civil-rights era, a number of outspoken black Americans chose to live in Europe in order to retain their freedom of expression. Edmond Dédé was born in 1827 to a free Creole merchant family already established in New Orleans for several generations after leaving the French West Indies. His father was a leading member of an amateur military-style band, and gave young Edmond his first music lessons on the clarinet. He soon prevailed on the band's conductor, Constantin Debergue, to give the boy violin lessons. When the boy's aptitude became apparent he was referred to the director of the St. Charles Theater orchestra, Ludovico Gabici. New Orleans was a main transshipment point for soldiers returning from the 1846-48 war in Mexico, including sick, wounded, and discharged. Some agitated against the comfort and safety enjoyed by the city's free black community, so the teen-aged Edmond left to study in Mexico. When he returned in 1851, it was to work for the Tinchant cigar factory, earning money to study in Europe. At this time, he wrote and published “Mon Pauvre Coeur” (My Poor Heart). The following year, with his savings and contributions from family and friends, he left for Belgium. There he and his friend Joseph Tinchant established an office for that family's cigar business. After several years with Tinchant, Edmond felt free to go to Paris and became in 1857 an 'auditeur' at the Conservatory (CNSMDP), studying violin, orchestral conducting, and composition. His Quasimodo Symphony was written during this period - it was given an American premier at the New Orleans Theatre in 1865. In 1864, he accepted a position as assistant conductor for the ballet at the Grand Théâtre in busiest of French port-cities, Bordeaux. He remained in that city more than thirty years, also conducting the orchestras for the Théâtre l'Alcazar and the Folies Bordelaises. During the Franco-Prussian War, while the national government relocated from Paris to Bordeaux, he was probably the most prominent musician in France (which - for a contemporary of Ravel and Debussy - is something!). During his long tenure in France, Dédé was a prolific composer, writing ballets, operettas, opera-comiques, overtures, and more than 250 songs and dances. He only returned to New Orleans once, in 1893 (the ship on which he travelled foundered near Galveston Tx, and his Cremona violin was lost during the rescue). Dédé married Sylvie Leflet, a Frenchwoman of moderate wealth, in 1864; their son Eugene followed his father's vocation as a conductor and composer. After Edmond returned from America in 1894, they settled in Paris. He presented his papers and musical manuscripts to the National Library, where they remain. Edmond died at the beginning of 1901. #anamericanmusician https://youtu.be/hYdxoKck6_U |
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03 Mar 24 - 02:15 AM (#4198436) Subject: RE: Black History Month: Rev. James M. Gates From: Joe Offer Rev. James M. Gates AN AMERICAN MUSICIAN Sermon transcription has a long history. From Jesus' discourse on the Mount of Beatitudes through the speeches of Francis of Assisi and John Chrysostom, sermons have been written down. Calvin and Luther both published collections of their own sermons, Jonathan Edwards' "Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God" is still read, though published 183 years ago. Today, we can listen to preachers on the radio, see them on TV, even watch online using current technology. A century ago that technology was the gramophone record. The evolution of recorded black sermons marches alongside the evolution of recorded black music. A strong African-American impulse in the 1910s-20s was to avoid earthy and vulgar material and put forward a high-minded and refined product that would not reflect negatively on a people seeking acceptance as respectable citizens of white America. The record companies agreed - sermons would strike the proper note. The first black minister to be recorded while preaching - Rev. Calvin Dixon - touted himself as "the Black Billy Sunday”, a tribute to the white temperance evangelist. Major-league baseball star Sunday famously turned down an 1891 trade to Philadelphia (and a salary close to $1 million in today's dollars) to become an assistant secretary for the Chicago YMCA before starting his massive revivals a decade later. Dixon's sermons recorded for Columbia in 1925, followed Sunday's style; impassioned but verbose, bellowed into a studio microphone with no audience. They didn’t much sell, and he was dropped from the label. Reverend James. M. Gates of Atlanta came along a year later with a wholly different approach. Gates was a superstar in a city full of black clergymen, and the first to record sermons in the emotional style of black Baptist preaching by his congregants, many of whom - like Gates - had migrated from rural Georgia. His sermons were a hit from his 1926 debut; his records captured the vivid imagery, topicality, cadences, and call-and-response found throughout the rural South, and brought them to black audiences across the country. Gates was born in logging-and-farming Hogansville GA - 500 souls halfway between Atlanta and Columbus - in 1884. After growing up in the Baptist faith, James and his wife moved to Atlanta while in their mid-20s, becoming members (with James possibly a deacon) at Mount Calvary Baptist Church in the 'colored' suburb of Rockdale Park. In 1916, when pastor J.H. Johnson was called to a church in Detroit, Gates became the congregation's fifth pastor (a position he held through 1942). Ten years later, he was well-known throughout the region as "the singing preacher," and had encouraged his fast-growing evangelical congregation to raise the funds for a new, large church building. During the church's dedication, visiting promoter Polk C. Brockman heard Rev. Gates preach, and hired one of Western Electric' new recording systems to be set up at the front of the church - recording James preaching to his congregation at Mount Calvary. Brockman (a native Georgian employed by a furniture store that sold Okeh Records) had earlier "discovered" Lucile Bogan, Eddie Heywood, and Fiddlin' John Carson, he talked Columbia Records into pressing and distributing the results. The first release was "Death's Black Train is Coming;" Columbia sold 35,000 records in three months. While it's likely that Brockman took the lion's-share of payment for the sessions, Gates certainly made much more money than he had expected. During his heyday in the 1920s and ’30s, Gates wrote and produced a river of sermons. He recorded in Atlanta (as well as Chicago, New York, New Orleans, Memphis, and South Carolina) for popular national record labels, which sold hundreds of thousands of copies across the country to black audiences thirsting to hear “straining" preaching from strong, melodic, fire and brimstone black pastors. From 1926–1941, Gates put out more than 200 sides on 78 rpm discs - including 80 more recorded in 1926 alone! At his peak, he was as big a money-maker as any of the biggest stars of the era. He wasn’t first into the field, but his innovative style came to dominate the market. He became a shrewd businessman, maximizing his exposure, and steadily building his audience. For those African-Americans who had left the South to find jobs in Chicago, Detroit, New York, Oakland, or Los Angeles, his records brought back to them the preaching they had grown up with. If he had any real competition, it's not remembered much at all. His second-most popular sermon was 1927s "Death Might Be Your Santa Claus" in which (Paul Oliver tells us) "the good reverend castigates those who buy their children Christmas gifts of guns and decks of cards, then warns those who prepare to drive to all-night dances that Death himself could be waiting around the next bend." Other sermons included the relatively-tame titles "Judgement Day is Coming," "The Dying Gambler," and "He'll Feed You When You're Hungry," He addresses all the ladies with "Women Spend Too Much Money," and "Smoking Women In The Street" (my own favorite). On the eve of WW2, he recorded "Hitler and Hell." Several of the sermons were recorded at different times for different labels including Paramount and Victor . Rev. Gates' voice dominates all his recordings, but he rarely performed solo. Most of his sides include a choir (even if just a trio) or instrumental accompaniment, and on all of them we hear congregational noise (even somehow in the studio-takes). Other pastors mined his material for their own sermons. Thirty-five years later, the Rolling Stones covered part of a Gates sermon (which they had heard from the Staples Singers) on their record "The Last Time." Gates died in 1945, his funeral services saw Atlanta's largest gathering until those held for Martin Luther King, Jr. in 1968, #anamericanmusician Death's Black Train is Coming (1926) https://youtu.be/iPT-CYAtzDU |