Essays on Jazz Music

Harlem Renaissance Poets: Essays on Langston Hughes’s “Jazz Band in a Parisian Cabaret” and Countee Cullen’s “Heritage” and Harlem Renaissance-Inspired Poem (Student’s Full Name) (Name of Professor) Harlem Renaissance Poets: Essay on Langston Hughes’s “Jazz Band in a Parisian Cabaret” and Countee Cullen’s “Heritage” and Harlem Renaissance-Inspired Poem According to David Chioni Moore (1996), there “exists and existed in this century a black culture that is neither African, Caribbean, American, nor European, but is rather all of these at once and more” (p. 49). The previously mentioned statement encapsulates both the dilemma and the ...

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The three digital texts are also similar in that; they are all dedicated to audiences with similar characteristics. For instance, the literary content of the texts is only completely accessible online, and may not serve its initial intended purpose if read as plain text. In addition, the audience to whom the texts are meant for, are also expected to possess some kind of computer literacy by for instance understanding the behaviour of hyperlinked texts like those featured in ‘Twelve Blue’, or an understanding of the need for visual speed and close attention while encoding the intended message from the ...

Bebop is a jazz style known for fast paces and complex improvisations based on playing off of harmonies. It developed in the 1940s in the United States of America and symbolized the new stage in the ideas about jazz music and its perception. This paper aims to discuss the history of bebop, its establishment as the major modern jazz movement around the days of the decline of big bands, its fragmentation into the styles of cool and hard bop, and the role African-American musicians played in its development. As Gioia writes, from its beginning, jazz was the genre of ...

Armstrong’s recording of Hotter than that is entirely based on his music prowess. He uses nonsensical syllables but produced solo brilliance which makes the track desirable to the ear and soothing to the heart with a combination of various musical instruments tones such as trumpet, piano, guitar, clarinets and alto saxophone which introduces the track. However, the trumpet dominates the whole track with the sound of other instruments playing distantly in the background. This is boring as there is no smooth flow of the tones. Armstrong’s trumpet solo is characterized by poor quality tones as he plays ...

Explain the cultural/historical context for the performance.

The world of music is now quite diverse, with jazz takes not the last place in it. If we immerse yourself in the history of the origins of jazz, we note that the music of this style has a large number of types and areas, which to some extent may be quite different from each other. It would seem that jazz means some one particular trend in music, but it is so much more. For example, among particularities we have the blues, swing, bebop, fusion, postbol, ​​cool, mainstream, hard -bop, stride But this list does not end there. Throughout ...

On March 10, 2016, at 6:00 PM I attended the All-University Jazz Ensemble at the Northern Illinois University’s Arboretum. This was the first jazz concert of the year with a special guest being a well-renowned jazz maestro, Jason Pitt. The directors of the concert were Chris Leach and Michael Mixtacki. The concert collectively performed a total of ten pieces. However, the most prominent pieces for the night were “St. Thomas” written by Sonny Rollins and “Palo Pa’ Rumba” written by Eddie Palmieri. These particular pieces used different styles that allowed the whole audience to experiences the different sides ...

Zora Neale Hurston and Marita Bonner are often associated with Harlem Renaissance of 1920s. Their views on the race problem differ greatly from the views of male African American writers, and sometimes even contradict them, as the ideas of female writers of those times also incorporate the ideas of gender and being a colored woman. The movement for the rights of colored people and the rights of women has inspired the appearance of the whole range of works concerning the perspectives on the issue. The two essays, “How It Feels Like to Be a Colored Me” written by Zora ...

“Music is a world within itself with a language we all understand.” These are the words of the legendary musician, Stevie Wonder. It goes to show the extent of the impact of music not only regarding entertainment but also regarding its psychological effects. Music has the power to stir the deepest of emotions and thoughts. In the recent past, the study of music psychology has increasingly become the focus of psychologists and other researchers who opine that there is a positive co-relation between the functioning of the psychological processes and singing, composing or merely listening to music (Zbikowski, 77). ...

Among the myriad of cultural phenomena which proliferated and become immortalized to define the electric social atmosphere of the “roaring 20’s”, there is perhaps no better example of a form of artistic expression which at once defined and immortalized the social attitudes and realities faced by individuals living during the period than the genre of Jazz music. Jazz has undoubtedly had a fundamental impact on not only the evolution of artistic expression as seen through the birth of an innovative and vibrant form of musical composition, but also on the transformation of the social status quo of the ...

Langston Hughes poetry and social activist

Langston Hughes was an American social Jazz Poet, novelist and an activist who used American language, religion, music, slang to educate the globe about the lifestyles of American people at the times of Harlem Renaissance. The main theme that trolled in his poems were the social problems of the blacks who lived in low earning settings (Carl, 2004). Much of critique targeted the prejudices and the divisions that were common in the people of color within the community of the blacks. The poems were activist in nature as they dealt with how to be oneself issues and encouraged the ...

Twyla Tharp the daring, original, stylish and high profile choreographer was born on 1st July, 1945 in Portland, Indiana. Her family moved to California when she was about eight years old. From a very young age she started learning piano, ballet, jazz, tap, violin, painting, shorthand etc. (Twyla Tharp Biography 2016). Her mother wanted her to be competent and expert in a number of fields. It was this strict and cumbersome schedule that she had to adhere to, which turned her into a workaholic and perfectionist. She invented the a technique called “Stuffing” in which various movements, including shrugged ...

Music could be one of the greatest inventions that happened in our history. It is a form of art and a form of cultural activity which is created out of various elements such as pitch, rhythm, dynamics, and even the audible qualities of texture and timbre. There are many types of music that were created that may have started in the early days. One of which is the Jazz music. This type of music represents a perfect combination of music components and elements in order to create an audible sound that many people have been enjoying since the early ...

In an article about hip hop music and its intersection with jazz, Jared Pauley writes that both genres have often flirted with each other. Over the years, hip hop artists have utilized the flavor of jazz music through sampling. In the 1980s to the mid-1990s, hip hop acts "took jazz samples to the top of the charts while others worked directly with respected jazz musicians. With the new millennium, this trend continued" (1). One artist that has continued the trend is Kendrick Lamar. Kendrick Lamar is an emcee that has been on the scene for a number of years, ...

Culture is a very dynamic element of the social setting of human beings. Culture is kinetic meaning that it is bound to constant modification and change from time to time. For example, when we consider the English language, we notice the constant and frequent adoption and addition of new words meant to describe varied situations in different cultures. These new words emanate from the frequent changes or social developments constantly shaping our world today. For example, one of the new words adopted as part of the accepted English words is the word ‘Photobomb’. A ‘photobomb’ is a verb meaning ...

America in the 1920s: Radical Social Change as a Result of Technological Innovation

Important periods in American history are remembered with nostalgia and awe by the subsequent generations. The 1920s are mainly remembered in American culture for the changing attitudes of the youth, who embraced modern ideas and embraced the technological and ideological changes at the level of the society. Thus, America faced changes of an unprecedented scale in the 1920s (Palmer, 2006). The nation’s economic social and cultural identity underwent profound transformations during this time (Palmer, 2006). Americans enjoyed economic growth, political stability, and an unprecedented transformation due to the technological advancements. Novel technologies and inventions allowed people to spend ...

“Sonny’s Blues” is a story by James Baldwin written in 1957. The story describes a position many adolescents find themselves in when they are in high school. They have to listen to teachers, parents, elder siblings, etc.; however, they have their own opinions, ideas, and passions. Adolescents become very frustrating when they feel that dear people do not understand them or take seriously. This is what happens with the protagonist, Sonny. His brother does not understand his desire to become a musician or join the military. In general, the story is about family, overcoming difficulties, music, and human ...

The Montreux Jazz Festival, founded in 1967, has grown to the second largest jazz festival in the world after the Montreal International Jazz Festival of Canada. Over the years, a wide variety of musical forms has been integrated into this festival. Currently, the Montreux Jazz Festival includes almost all forms of music even while jazz remaining a major part of the festival. Today a number of world’s famous musicians perform in the festival, and this festival has currently audience strength of over 200,000. In each year, new additional events are included in the festival so as to ...