Showing posts sorted by date for query jazz. Sort by relevance Show all posts
Showing posts sorted by date for query jazz. Sort by relevance Show all posts
Like Robinson, singer and dancer John W. Bubbles made significant strides in the progression and commercialization of tap. Starting his career at 10 years old, Bubbles joined six-year-old dancer “Buck” Washington to create a singing-dancing-comedy act. With Buck, Bubbles became very popular. The two performed an act in the Ziegfeld Follies of 1931 and became the first black artists to perform in New York’s acclaimed Radio City Music Hall.
Bubbles, who is perhaps best known for performing as Sportin’ Life in George Gershwin’s 1935 production Porgy and Bess, later went on to perform in Harlem’s famous Hoofers Club, which led to Broadway gigs, which led to opportunities in Hollywood.
Bubbles is said to be the first dancer to fuse jazz dance with tap, a frontrunner for many jazz-tap companies that exist today. He created off-beats and in turn, altered accents, phrasing and timing.
Mattiwilda Dobbs, Soprano and Principal at Met, Dies at 90. If you would like to listen to some of her performances, just type her name in the search box.
By MARGALIT FOXDEC. 10, 2015
Mattiwilda Dobbs, a coloratura soprano who was the third African-American to appear as a principal singer with the Metropolitan Opera, died on Tuesday at her home in Atlanta. She was 90. Her death was confirmed by a niece, Michele Jordan.
Though Ms. Dobbs’s voice was not immense, she was routinely praised by critics for its crystalline purity and supple agility, and for her impeccable intonation, sensitive musicianship and captivating stage presence.
She also had a highly regarded international career as a recitalist, singing at Town Hall in New York and on other celebrated stages, and was especially renowned as an interpreter of Schubert lieder.
When Ms. Dobbs made her Met debut, as Gilda in Verdi’s “Rigoletto,” on Nov. 9, 1956, she had already sung to great acclaim at La Scala in Milan, where she was the first black principal singer; Covent Garden in London; and the San Francisco Opera, where she had made her United States operatic debut, as the Queen of Shemakha in Rimsky-Korsakov’s “Le Coq d’Or,” in 1955.
At the Met, she was preceded by two black singers: the contralto Marian Anderson, who made her debut in January 1955, and the baritone Robert McFerrin, who made his a few weeks later. (Mr. McFerrin was the father of the jazz singer Bobby McFerrin.)
Reviewing Ms. Dobbs’s Met debut, opposite the baritone Leonard Warren, Howard Taubman wrote in The New York Times: “The young soprano has a voice of substance and quality, well placed and expertly controlled. Her singing is true, flexible at the top in coloratura passages and glowing in texture throughout the scale.”
The first black woman to be offered a long-term contract by the Met, Ms. Dobbs appeared with the company 29 times through 1964. Her roles there included Oscar the pageboy (sung by a soprano) in Verdi’s “Un Ballo in Maschera”; Zerlina in Mozart’s “Don Giovanni”; and the title part in Donizetti’s “Lucia di Lammermoor,” for which, The Daily News reported in 1957, the audience summoned her back for nine curtain calls after she had sung her mad scene.
If Ms. Dobbs is less well remembered today than some singers of her era, that is partly because she made relatively few recordings. It is also because her debut fell between the historic advent of Ms. Anderson and the blazing ascendance of Leontyne Price, widely considered the first black operatic superstar, who made her Met debut in 1961.
What was more, Ms. Dobbs happened to have joined the Met as part of the incoming class of 1956-57 — a group of newly hired principal singers that included the titanic sopranos Antonietta Stella and Maria Callas.
Named for a grandmother, Mattie Wilda Sykes, Mattiwilda Dobbs was born in Atlanta on July 11, 1925, the fifth of six daughters of John Wesley Dobbs and the former Irene Ophelia Thompson.
Hers was a distinguished family: Ms. Dobbs’s father, a mail-train clerk, was long active in civic affairs, helping to register black voters as early as the 1930s. In the late 1940s he helped found the Atlanta Negro Voters League.
Mr. Dobbs insisted on a college education, along with seven years’ study of the piano, for each of his daughters, and he prevailed in every instance. As a girl, Mattiwilda also sang in her church choir but, retiring and bashful, did not envision a performing career.
She began voice lessons in earnest only as an undergraduate at Spelman College in Atlanta. After earning her bachelor’s degree — she graduated first in her class with majors in Spanish and music — the young Ms. Dobbs moved North at her father’s insistence for advanced vocal training.
“I would never have been a singer if it were not for my father,” she told Look magazine in 1969. “I was too shy.”
In New York, Ms. Dobbs became a pupil of the German soprano Lotte Leonard; she also studied at Tanglewood. At the same time, as a hedge against the uncertainties of a career in music, she earned a master’s degree in Spanish from Columbia University Teachers College.
Ms. Dobbs was a winner of the Marian Anderson Scholarship Fund in 1948, and received a scholarship from the John Hay Whitney Foundation not long afterward. On the strength of her awards, she moved to Paris, where she studied with the art-song specialist Pierre Bernac.
In 1951, she came to wide international attention by winning a first prize in the Geneva International Music Competition.
Over the years, Ms. Dobbs also sang at the Glyndebourne Festival in England and with the Royal Swedish Opera, the Hamburg State Opera and the Israel Philharmonic. In 1959, she was one of four Americans — the others were Gary Cooper, Edward G. Robinson and the producer Harold Hecht — sent by President Dwight D. Eisenhower to establish a cultural exchange program with the Soviet Union.
Ms. Dobbs’s first husband, Luis Rodriguez Garcia de la Piedra, a Spanish journalist whom she married in 1953, died the next year. (Only days after his death, she honored a commitment to sing at Covent Garden before the new monarch, Queen Elizabeth II.)
In 1957 Ms. Dobbs married Bengt Janzon, a Swedish journalist, and she was known afterward in private life as Mattiwilda Dobbs Janzon.
Mr. Janzon died in 1997. Ms. Dobbs’s survivors include a sister, June Dobbs Butts.
Ms. Dobbs’s recordings include Mozart’s “The Abduction From the Seraglio,” Bizet’s “The Pearl Fishers” and Offenbach’s “Tales of Hoffmann.”
After retiring from the concert stage, Ms. Dobbs taught voice at the University of Texas, Spelman College and, for many years, Howard University in Washington.
Throughout her career, Ms. Dobbs refused to sing in segregated concert halls. She did not perform in her hometown, Atlanta, for instance, until 1962, when she sang before an integrated audience at the Municipal Auditorium there.
In January 1974 she performed at another epochal Atlanta event, singing the spiritual “He’s Got the Whole World in His Hands” at the inauguration of the city’s first black mayor, Maynard Jackson.
The choice of Ms. Dobbs to perform at Mr. Jackson’s inauguration seemed almost foreordained, and not merely because of their shared background as racial pioneers. Mr. Jackson, the great-great-grandson of a slave, was also Ms. Dobbs’s nephew.
Sharin Apostolou sings Bill from Show Boat by Jerome Kern & Oscar Hammerstein with famed jazz pianist Ward Marston.
From her recital "The American Songbook: Then and Now"
Uploaded on Oct 31, 2011
1- Blood Diamond - Solomon Vandy By James Newton Howard
2- "Dreamcatcher-Seventh Heaven
3- "Black & White" by Kwon Wo Chen.
Africa is a vast continent and its regions and nations have distinct musical traditions. The music of North Africa for the most part has a different history from Sub-Saharan African music traditions.[1]
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The music and dance forms of the African diaspora, includesAfrican American music and many Caribbean genres like soca, calypso and Zouk; and Latin American music genres like the samba, rumba, salsa; and other clave (rhythm)-based genres, were founded to varying degrees on the music of African people, which has in turn influenced African popular music.
Besides using the voice, which has been developed to use various techniques such as complex hard melisma and yodel, a wide array of musical instruments are used. African musical instruments include a wide range of drums, slit gongs, rattles, double bells as well as melodic instruments like string instruments, (musical bows, different types of harps and harp-like instruments such as the Kora as well as fiddles), many kinds of xylophone and lamellophone like the mbira, and different types of wind instrument like flutes and trumpets.
Drums used in African traditional music include talking drums, bougarabou and djembe in West Africa, water drums in Central and West Africa, and the different types of ngoma drums (or engoma) in Central and Southern Africa. Other percussion instruments include many rattles and shakers, such as the kosika, rain stick, bells and wood sticks. Also, Africa has lots of other types of drums, and lots of flutes, and lots of stringed and wind instruments.
African popular music, like African traditional music, is vast and varied. Most contemporary genres of African popular music build on cross-pollination with western popular music. Many genres of popular music like blues, jazz and rumba derive to varying degrees from musical traditions from Africa, taken to the Americas by African. These rhythms and sounds have subsequently been adapted by newer genres like rock and rhythm and blues. Likewise, African popular music has adopted elements, particularly the musical instruments and recording studio techniques of western music.[10]
The appealing Afro-Euro hybrid the Cuban son influenced popular music in Africa. The first African guitar bands played Cuban covers.[11] The early guitar-based bands from the Congo called their music rumba (although it was son rather than rumba-based). The Congolese style eventually evolved into what became known as soukous
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/South_Af...
another great african song :
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ccZde...
Music
"Solomon Vandy" by James Newton Howard (Google Play • AmazonMP3 • iTunes)
Artist
Dreamcatcher
Best 3 African Music Ever
1- Blood Diamond - Solomon Vandy By James Newton Howard
2- "Dreamcatcher-Seventh Heaven
3- "Black & White" by Kwon Wo Chen.
Africa is a vast continent and its regions and nations have distinct musical traditions. The music of North Africa for the most part has a different history from Sub-Saharan African music traditions.[1]
.jpg)
Besides using the voice, which has been developed to use various techniques such as complex hard melisma and yodel, a wide array of musical instruments are used. African musical instruments include a wide range of drums, slit gongs, rattles, double bells as well as melodic instruments like string instruments, (musical bows, different types of harps and harp-like instruments such as the Kora as well as fiddles), many kinds of xylophone and lamellophone like the mbira, and different types of wind instrument like flutes and trumpets.
Drums used in African traditional music include talking drums, bougarabou and djembe in West Africa, water drums in Central and West Africa, and the different types of ngoma drums (or engoma) in Central and Southern Africa. Other percussion instruments include many rattles and shakers, such as the kosika, rain stick, bells and wood sticks. Also, Africa has lots of other types of drums, and lots of flutes, and lots of stringed and wind instruments.
African popular music, like African traditional music, is vast and varied. Most contemporary genres of African popular music build on cross-pollination with western popular music. Many genres of popular music like blues, jazz and rumba derive to varying degrees from musical traditions from Africa, taken to the Americas by African. These rhythms and sounds have subsequently been adapted by newer genres like rock and rhythm and blues. Likewise, African popular music has adopted elements, particularly the musical instruments and recording studio techniques of western music.[10]
The appealing Afro-Euro hybrid the Cuban son influenced popular music in Africa. The first African guitar bands played Cuban covers.[11] The early guitar-based bands from the Congo called their music rumba (although it was son rather than rumba-based). The Congolese style eventually evolved into what became known as soukous
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/South_Af...
another great african song :
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ccZde...
Music
"Solomon Vandy" by James Newton Howard (Google Play • AmazonMP3 • iTunes)
Artist
Dreamcatcher
Best 3 African Music Ever
Biography Born: May 26, 1926 Died: September 28, 1991
Over
six full decades, from his arrival on the national scene in 1945 until
his death in 1991, Miles Davis made music that grew from an uncanny
talent to hear the future and a headstrong desire to play it. From his
beginnings in the circle of modern jazz, he came to intuit new worlds of
sound and challenge. While the vast majority of musicians – jazz, rock,
R&B, otherwise – find the experimental charge and imperviousness of
youth eventually running down, Miles forever forged ahead, trusting and
following instinct until the end.
In doing so, Miles became the standard bearer for successive generations of musicians, shaped the course of modern improvisational music more than a half-dozen times. This biography attempts to explain those paradigm-shifts one after another, through his recordings and major life changes.
The factors leading to that process are now the foundation of the Miles Davis legend: the dentist’s son born in 1926 to middle-class comfort in East St Louis. The fresh acolyte learning trumpet in the fertile, blues-drenched music scene of his hometown. The sensitive soul forging a seething streetwise exterior that later earned him the title, Prince Of Darkness. The determined teenager convincing his parents to send him to New York’s famed Juilliard School of Music in 1944, a ploy allowing him to locate and join the band of his idol, bebop pioneer Charlie Parker.
It wasn’t long before the headstrong young arrival grew from sideman to leading his own projects and bands of renown, from the restrained, classical underpinning of the famous “Birth of the Cool” group (Miles’ first foray with arranger Gil Evans), to the blues-infused hardbop anthem “Walkin’”, to his first famous quintet (Coltrane, Chambers, Red Garland, Philly Joe Jones) with whom his recordings on muted trumpet helped him develop a signature sound that broke through to mainstream recognition. His subsequent jump from recording with independent labels (Prestige, Blue Note) to Columbia Records, then the Tiffany of record companies, propelled his career further from a limited jazz audience and a series of late ‘50s albums (Miles Ahead, Porgy & Bess, Miles Ahead, Kind of Blue and Sketches of Spain) secured his widespread popularity.
Miles’ group shifted and morphed through the early ‘60s until he settled for a four-year run with his classic quintet, a lineup that is still hailed today as one of the greatest and most influential jazz groups of all time. Their albums together — from Miles Smiles, ESP and Nefertiti, to Miles In The Sky, and Filles de Kilimanjaro — traced a pattern of unparalleled growth and innovation.
Had Miles stopped his progress at that point, he’d still be hailed as one of the greatest pioneers in jazz, but his creative momentum from the end of the ‘60s into the ‘70s would not let up. He was listening to the world around him — the amplified explosion of rock bands and the new, heavy-on-the-one funk of James Brown and Sly & The Family Stone. From the ambient hush of In A Silent Way, to the strange and unsettling – yet wildly popular Bitches Brew, he achieved another shift in musical paradigm and a personal career breakthrough.
Bitches Brew was controversial, a best-seller and attracted another, younger generation into the Miles fold. Thousands whose musical taste respected no categorical walls flocked to hear Miles, and a slew of fusion bands were soon spawned, led by his former sidemen: Weather Report, Mahavishnu Orchestra, Return To Forever. The studio albums that defined Miles’ kaleidoscopic sound in the ‘70s included a series of (mostly) double albums, from …Brew to 1971’s Live-Evil, ‘72’s On The Corner and ‘75’s Get Up With It. The covers listed populous line-ups that reached up to 11 musicians, adding new names to an ever-widening circle of on-call talent.
By the end of 1975, Miles was tired – and sick. A period of seclusion ensued, full years to deal with personal demons and health issues, bouncing between bouts of self-abuse and boredom. It was the longest time Miles had been off the public radar – only amplifying the appetite for his return.
When Miles reappeared in 1981, expectation had reached fever pitch. A final series of albums for Columbia reflected his continuing fascination with funk of the day (Rose Royce, Cameo, Chaka Khan and later, Prince), and the sounds of synthesizer and drum machines (Great Miles Shift Number 8). The Man With A Horn, We Want Miles and Decoy found him still working with Teo Macero and still surrounding himself with young talent, including bassist Darryl Jones (Rolling Stones). In 1985, his album You’re Under Arrest — with unexpected covers of recent pop charters (Michael Jackson’s “Human Nature” and Cyndi Lauper’s “Time After Time”) – brought the long Davis-Columbia association to a close. He embarked on a new relationship with Warner Bros. Records and producer Tommy LiPuma, scoring successes with Tutu (written in a large part by his bassist Marcus Miller), Music from Siesta (also with Miller), Amandla (featuring a new breed of soloists, including alto saxophonist Kenny Garrett, tenor saxophonist Rick Margitza, guitarist Jean-Paul Bourelly, keyboardist Joey DeFrancesco, and others) and Doo-Bop (his collaboration with hip hop producer Easy Moe Bee.)
Those titles proved Miles’ farewell, still pushing forward, still exploring new musical territory. Throughout his career, he had always resisted looking back, avoiding nostalgia and loathing leftovers. “It’s more like warmed-over turkey,” the eternal modernist described the music of Kind of Blue twenty-five years after recording it. Ironically, in 1991, only weeks after performing a career-overview concert in Paris that featured old friends and collaborators from as early as the ‘40s, he died from a brain aneurysm.
Like his music, Miles always spoke with an economy of expression. And for Miles, it had to be fresh, or forget it. “I don’t want you to like me because of Kind of Blue,” he insisted. “Like me for what we’re doing now.”
shared by Author unknownIn doing so, Miles became the standard bearer for successive generations of musicians, shaped the course of modern improvisational music more than a half-dozen times. This biography attempts to explain those paradigm-shifts one after another, through his recordings and major life changes.
The factors leading to that process are now the foundation of the Miles Davis legend: the dentist’s son born in 1926 to middle-class comfort in East St Louis. The fresh acolyte learning trumpet in the fertile, blues-drenched music scene of his hometown. The sensitive soul forging a seething streetwise exterior that later earned him the title, Prince Of Darkness. The determined teenager convincing his parents to send him to New York’s famed Juilliard School of Music in 1944, a ploy allowing him to locate and join the band of his idol, bebop pioneer Charlie Parker.
It wasn’t long before the headstrong young arrival grew from sideman to leading his own projects and bands of renown, from the restrained, classical underpinning of the famous “Birth of the Cool” group (Miles’ first foray with arranger Gil Evans), to the blues-infused hardbop anthem “Walkin’”, to his first famous quintet (Coltrane, Chambers, Red Garland, Philly Joe Jones) with whom his recordings on muted trumpet helped him develop a signature sound that broke through to mainstream recognition. His subsequent jump from recording with independent labels (Prestige, Blue Note) to Columbia Records, then the Tiffany of record companies, propelled his career further from a limited jazz audience and a series of late ‘50s albums (Miles Ahead, Porgy & Bess, Miles Ahead, Kind of Blue and Sketches of Spain) secured his widespread popularity.
Miles’ group shifted and morphed through the early ‘60s until he settled for a four-year run with his classic quintet, a lineup that is still hailed today as one of the greatest and most influential jazz groups of all time. Their albums together — from Miles Smiles, ESP and Nefertiti, to Miles In The Sky, and Filles de Kilimanjaro — traced a pattern of unparalleled growth and innovation.
Had Miles stopped his progress at that point, he’d still be hailed as one of the greatest pioneers in jazz, but his creative momentum from the end of the ‘60s into the ‘70s would not let up. He was listening to the world around him — the amplified explosion of rock bands and the new, heavy-on-the-one funk of James Brown and Sly & The Family Stone. From the ambient hush of In A Silent Way, to the strange and unsettling – yet wildly popular Bitches Brew, he achieved another shift in musical paradigm and a personal career breakthrough.
Bitches Brew was controversial, a best-seller and attracted another, younger generation into the Miles fold. Thousands whose musical taste respected no categorical walls flocked to hear Miles, and a slew of fusion bands were soon spawned, led by his former sidemen: Weather Report, Mahavishnu Orchestra, Return To Forever. The studio albums that defined Miles’ kaleidoscopic sound in the ‘70s included a series of (mostly) double albums, from …Brew to 1971’s Live-Evil, ‘72’s On The Corner and ‘75’s Get Up With It. The covers listed populous line-ups that reached up to 11 musicians, adding new names to an ever-widening circle of on-call talent.
By the end of 1975, Miles was tired – and sick. A period of seclusion ensued, full years to deal with personal demons and health issues, bouncing between bouts of self-abuse and boredom. It was the longest time Miles had been off the public radar – only amplifying the appetite for his return.
When Miles reappeared in 1981, expectation had reached fever pitch. A final series of albums for Columbia reflected his continuing fascination with funk of the day (Rose Royce, Cameo, Chaka Khan and later, Prince), and the sounds of synthesizer and drum machines (Great Miles Shift Number 8). The Man With A Horn, We Want Miles and Decoy found him still working with Teo Macero and still surrounding himself with young talent, including bassist Darryl Jones (Rolling Stones). In 1985, his album You’re Under Arrest — with unexpected covers of recent pop charters (Michael Jackson’s “Human Nature” and Cyndi Lauper’s “Time After Time”) – brought the long Davis-Columbia association to a close. He embarked on a new relationship with Warner Bros. Records and producer Tommy LiPuma, scoring successes with Tutu (written in a large part by his bassist Marcus Miller), Music from Siesta (also with Miller), Amandla (featuring a new breed of soloists, including alto saxophonist Kenny Garrett, tenor saxophonist Rick Margitza, guitarist Jean-Paul Bourelly, keyboardist Joey DeFrancesco, and others) and Doo-Bop (his collaboration with hip hop producer Easy Moe Bee.)
Those titles proved Miles’ farewell, still pushing forward, still exploring new musical territory. Throughout his career, he had always resisted looking back, avoiding nostalgia and loathing leftovers. “It’s more like warmed-over turkey,” the eternal modernist described the music of Kind of Blue twenty-five years after recording it. Ironically, in 1991, only weeks after performing a career-overview concert in Paris that featured old friends and collaborators from as early as the ‘40s, he died from a brain aneurysm.
Like his music, Miles always spoke with an economy of expression. And for Miles, it had to be fresh, or forget it. “I don’t want you to like me because of Kind of Blue,” he insisted. “Like me for what we’re doing now.”
Bitches Brew | Miles Davis | 1969 | Full Album
Mirriam Makeba, Mother Africa.
Information provided by William Dillard
My notes: I attended one of her concerts at the University of Dayton and was mesmerized by her performance. Her death was a very sad occasion. One of my favorites was the "Click Song". The Song was sung in her native language which is Xhosa.
I ended the video collection with "N'Kosi Sikeleli", the South African National anthem. On the stage singing with Miriam is Paul Simon and Ladysmith Black Mambazo.
This day Women in History: Mirriam Makeba, "Mother Africa"
On this date in 1932, Mirriam Makeba was born. She was a South African singer, entertainer, and activist.
From Prospect, South Africa, throughout her life and singing career, Miriam Zenzi Makeba has used her voice to draw the attention of the world to the music of South Africa and to its oppressive system of racial separation, apartheid. For eight years she attended the Kilmerton Training School in Pretoria, where she sang in the school choir. During her teenage years, Makeba helped her mother with the domestic work she did for white families.
She also pursued singing and, in 1950, joined an amateur Johannesburg group called the Cuban Brothers. In 1954, a successful professional South African group, the Black Manhattan Brothers, noticed her. Eventually she left with the group in 1957 to become a member of a touring revue show, African Jazz and Variety. With her appearance in the semi-documentary anti apartheid film Come Back, Africa 1959, Makeba drew the attention of international audiences. That same year, Makeba traveled to London where she met African-American performer and civil rights activist Harry Belafonte, who had requested a private screening of the film.
Belafonte became her sponsor and promoter in the United States. Through him, she appeared on the Steve Allen Show, which led to nightclubs around New York City and recordings of South Africa music. Some songs became hits in the United States, including Patha Patha, Malaika, and The Click Song. Her music also contained a political component, the denunciation of apartheid, which earned Makeba the hostility of the South African government, who revoked her passport when she attempted to return for her mother’s funeral in 1960. Makeba pressed on and, in 1963, she addressed a United Nations special committee on apartheid, characterizing South Africa as "a nightmare of police brutality and government terrorism."
Her marriage to African-American civil rights activist Stokely Carmichael (now Kwame Ture) derailed her career in the United States. The entertainment industry virtually blacklisted Makeba. According to one account, her record company never called her in to record again after the marriage. She and Carmichael eventually moved to Guinea in West Africa. Makeba’s career continued outside of the United States, however, during the 1970s and 1980s she toured Europe, South America, and Africa appearing regularly at the Montreux Jazz Festival, the Berlin Jazz Festival, and the Northsea Jazz Festival.
In 1977 she traveled to Lagos, Nigeria, to serve as the unofficial South African representative at Festac, a Pan-African festival of arts and culture. In 1982 "Mother Africa," as she was known, reunited with South African trumpeter Hugh Masekela, to whom Makeba was married from 1964 to 1966. Continuing her activism, in 1975, she served a term as a United Nations delegate from Guinea. In addition, she was awarded the Dag Hammarskjöld Peace Prize in 1986. In 1987, Makeba performed on Paul Simon’s Graceland tour. She finally returned to South Africa in 1990.
In 1991, she released Eyes on Tomorrow and, that same year, Makeba gave her first live performance in South Africa since her departure more than 30 years earlier. She has continued to record and tour.
In November, 2008, South Africa’s top female singer Mirriam Makeba died after being taken ill near the Southern Italian town of Caserta following a concert.
Miriam Makeba - Pata Pata
Miriam Makeba sings her most famous song Pata Pata during a performance in the Dutch TV-studios in Hilversum, september 1979. Joining her on stage towards the end of the song is her granddaughter Zenzi. Zenzi's mother, Bongi Makeba, is one of the backing vocalists (in the blue dress).
MIRIAM MAKEBA - "Malaika" - Original 1974 single with Swahili and English Lyrics.
Miriam Makeba - Mas Que Nada
miriam makeba - kilimanjaro
Miriam Makeba - A Luta Continua
Miriam Makeba et Harry Belafonte (1966)
Harry Belafonte & Miriam Makeba - Malaika
Harry Belafonte -My angel (malaika)- with Miriam Makeba
Uploaded on Nov 11, 2008
the tokens are not will never be the creator of our african rythm never..this is a south african song a zulu song called mbube (lion)...it has been sung for centuries in south africa and firstly recorded by linda solomon...we talk about a lion sleeping but it just deeper than you guy think when a king dies we say in africa that he sleeps and when shacka died they sang it to tell the people that the lion is sleeping ..i yu m'bube =you are the lion...chacka you can't die you certainly sleeping..they stole it and don't have the honesty to say where they took it..damn it
"the lion sleeps tonight"a real original african version
Miriam Makeba - The Click Song (Distinct Version)
N'Kosi Sikeleli (Miriam Makeba, Ladysmith Black Mambazo, Paul Simon)
Information provided by William Dillard
My notes: I attended one of her concerts at the University of Dayton and was mesmerized by her performance. Her death was a very sad occasion. One of my favorites was the "Click Song". The Song was sung in her native language which is Xhosa.
I ended the video collection with "N'Kosi Sikeleli", the South African National anthem. On the stage singing with Miriam is Paul Simon and Ladysmith Black Mambazo.
This day Women in History: Mirriam Makeba, "Mother Africa"
On this date in 1932, Mirriam Makeba was born. She was a South African singer, entertainer, and activist.
From Prospect, South Africa, throughout her life and singing career, Miriam Zenzi Makeba has used her voice to draw the attention of the world to the music of South Africa and to its oppressive system of racial separation, apartheid. For eight years she attended the Kilmerton Training School in Pretoria, where she sang in the school choir. During her teenage years, Makeba helped her mother with the domestic work she did for white families.
Belafonte became her sponsor and promoter in the United States. Through him, she appeared on the Steve Allen Show, which led to nightclubs around New York City and recordings of South Africa music. Some songs became hits in the United States, including Patha Patha, Malaika, and The Click Song. Her music also contained a political component, the denunciation of apartheid, which earned Makeba the hostility of the South African government, who revoked her passport when she attempted to return for her mother’s funeral in 1960. Makeba pressed on and, in 1963, she addressed a United Nations special committee on apartheid, characterizing South Africa as "a nightmare of police brutality and government terrorism."
Her marriage to African-American civil rights activist Stokely Carmichael (now Kwame Ture) derailed her career in the United States. The entertainment industry virtually blacklisted Makeba. According to one account, her record company never called her in to record again after the marriage. She and Carmichael eventually moved to Guinea in West Africa. Makeba’s career continued outside of the United States, however, during the 1970s and 1980s she toured Europe, South America, and Africa appearing regularly at the Montreux Jazz Festival, the Berlin Jazz Festival, and the Northsea Jazz Festival.
In 1977 she traveled to Lagos, Nigeria, to serve as the unofficial South African representative at Festac, a Pan-African festival of arts and culture. In 1982 "Mother Africa," as she was known, reunited with South African trumpeter Hugh Masekela, to whom Makeba was married from 1964 to 1966. Continuing her activism, in 1975, she served a term as a United Nations delegate from Guinea. In addition, she was awarded the Dag Hammarskjöld Peace Prize in 1986. In 1987, Makeba performed on Paul Simon’s Graceland tour. She finally returned to South Africa in 1990.
In 1991, she released Eyes on Tomorrow and, that same year, Makeba gave her first live performance in South Africa since her departure more than 30 years earlier. She has continued to record and tour.
In November, 2008, South Africa’s top female singer Mirriam Makeba died after being taken ill near the Southern Italian town of Caserta following a concert.
Miriam Makeba - Pata Pata
Miriam Makeba sings her most famous song Pata Pata during a performance in the Dutch TV-studios in Hilversum, september 1979. Joining her on stage towards the end of the song is her granddaughter Zenzi. Zenzi's mother, Bongi Makeba, is one of the backing vocalists (in the blue dress).
MIRIAM MAKEBA - "Malaika" - Original 1974 single with Swahili and English Lyrics.
Miriam Makeba - Mas Que Nada
miriam makeba - kilimanjaro
Miriam Makeba - A Luta Continua
Miriam Makeba et Harry Belafonte (1966)
Harry Belafonte & Miriam Makeba - Malaika
Harry Belafonte -My angel (malaika)- with Miriam Makeba
Uploaded on Nov 11, 2008
the tokens are not will never be the creator of our african rythm never..this is a south african song a zulu song called mbube (lion)...it has been sung for centuries in south africa and firstly recorded by linda solomon...we talk about a lion sleeping but it just deeper than you guy think when a king dies we say in africa that he sleeps and when shacka died they sang it to tell the people that the lion is sleeping ..i yu m'bube =you are the lion...chacka you can't die you certainly sleeping..they stole it and don't have the honesty to say where they took it..damn it
"the lion sleeps tonight"a real original african version
Miriam Makeba - The Click Song (Distinct Version)
N'Kosi Sikeleli (Miriam Makeba, Ladysmith Black Mambazo, Paul Simon)
Information taken from Wikipedia:
Louis Armstrong (August 4, 1901 – July 6, 1971), nicknamed Satchmo or Pops, was an American jazz trumpeter, singer, and an influential figure in jazz music.
Coming to prominence in the 1920s as an "inventive" trumpet and cornet player, Armstrong was a foundational influence in jazz, shifting the focus of the music from collective improvisation to solo performance. With his instantly recognizable gravelly voice, Armstrong was also an influential singer, demonstrating great dexterity as an improviser, bending the lyrics and melody of a song for expressive purposes. He was also skilled at scat singing (vocalizing using sounds and syllables instead of actual lyrics).
Renowned for his charismatic stage presence and voice almost as much as for his trumpet-playing, Armstrong's influence extends well beyond jazz music, and by the end of his career in the 1960s, he was widely regarded as a profound influence on popular music in general. Armstrong was one of the first truly popular African-American entertainers to "cross over", whose skin color was secondary to his music in an America that was severely racially divided. He rarely publicly politicized his race, often to the dismay of fellow African-Americans, but took a well-publicized stand for desegregation during the Little Rock Crisis. His artistry and personality allowed him socially acceptable access to the upper echelons of American society that were highly restricted for men of color.
His Early Life
Armstrong often stated that he was born on July 4, 1900, a date that has been noted in many biographies. Although he died in 1971, it was not until the mid-1980s that his true birth date of August 4, 1901 was discovered by researcher Tad Jones through the examination of baptismal records. Armstrong was born into a very poor family in New Orleans, Louisiana, the grandson of slaves. He spent his youth in poverty, in a rough neighborhood, known as “the Battlefield”, which was part of the Storyville legal prostitution district. His father, William Armstrong (1881–1922), abandoned the family when Louis was an infant and took up with another woman. His mother, Mary "Mayann" Albert (1886–1927), then left Louis and his younger sister Beatrice Armstrong Collins (1903–1987) in the care of his grandmother, Josephine Armstrong, and at times, his Uncle Isaac. At five, he moved back to live with his mother and her relatives, and saw his father only in parades. He attended the Fisk School for Boys, where he likely had early exposure to music. He brought in some money as a paperboy and also by finding discarded food and selling it to restaurants, but it was not enough to keep his mother from prostitution. He hung out in dance halls close to home, where he observed everything from licentious dancing to the quadrille. For extra money he also hauled coal to Storyville, the famed red-light district, and listened to the bands playing in the brothels and dance halls, especially Pete Lala's where Joe "King" Oliver performed and other famous musicians would drop in to jam.
After dropping out of the Fisk School at age eleven, Armstrong joined a quartet of boys who sang in the streets for money. But he also started to get into trouble. Cornet player Bunk Johnson said he taught Armstrong (then 11) to play by ear at Dago Tony's Tonk in New Orleans, although in his later years Armstrong gave the credit to Oliver. Armstrong hardly looked back at his youth as the worst of times but instead drew inspiration from it, “Every time I close my eyes blowing that trumpet of mine—I look right in the heart of good old New Orleans... It has given me something to live for.”
He also worked for a Lithuanian-Jewish immigrant family, the Karnofskys, who had a junk hauling business and gave him odd jobs. They took him in and treated him as almost a family member, knowing he lived without a father, and would feed and nurture him. He later wrote a memoir of his relationship with the Karnofskys titled, Louis Armstrong + the Jewish Family in New Orleans, La., the Year of 1907. In it he describes his discovery that this family was also subject to discrimination by "other white folks' nationalities who felt that they were better than the Jewish race... I was only seven years old but I could easily see the ungodly treatment that the White Folks were handing the poor Jewish family whom I worked for." Armstrong wore a Star of David pendant for the rest of his life and wrote about what he learned from them: "how to live—real life and determination." The influence of Karnofsky is remembered in New Orleans by the Karnofsky Project, a non-profit organization dedicated to accepting donated musical instruments to "put them into the hands of an eager child who could not otherwise take part in a wonderful learning experience."
Armstrong with his first trumpet instructor, Peter Davis, in 1965.
Armstrong developed his cornet playing skills by playing in the band of the New Orleans Home for Colored Waifs, where he had been sent multiple times for general delinquency, most notably for a long term after firing his stepfather's pistol into the air at a New Year's Eve celebration, as police records confirm. Professor Peter Davis (who frequently appeared at the Home at the request of its administrator, Captain Joseph Jones) instilled discipline in and provided musical training to the otherwise self-taught Armstrong. Eventually, Davis made Armstrong the band leader. The Home band played around New Orleans and the thirteen-year-old Louis began to draw attention by his cornet playing, starting him on a musical career. At fourteen he was released from the Home, living again with his father and new stepmother and then back with his mother and also back to the streets and their temptations. Armstrong got his first dance hall job at Henry Ponce’s where Black Benny became his protector and guide. He hauled coal by day and played his cornet at night.
He played in the city's frequent brass band parades and listened to older musicians every chance he got, learning from Bunk Johnson, Buddy Petit, Kid Ory, and above all, Joe "King" Oliver, who acted as a mentor and father figure to the young musician. Later, he played in the brass bands and riverboats of New Orleans, and began traveling with the well-regarded band of Fate Marable, which toured on a steamboat up and down the Mississippi River. He described his time with Marable as "going to the University," since it gave him a much wider experience working with written arrangements.
In 1919, Joe Oliver decided to go north and resigned his position in Kid Ory's band; Armstrong replaced him. He also became second trumpet for the Tuxedo Brass Band, a society band.
Through all his riverboat experience Armstrong’s musicianship began to mature and expand. At twenty, he could read music and he started to be featured in extended trumpet solos, one of the first jazzmen to do this, injecting his own personality and style into his solo turns. He had learned how to create a unique sound and also started using singing and patter in his performances. In 1922, Armstrong joined the exodus to Chicago, where he had been invited by his mentor, Joe "King" Oliver, to join his Creole Jazz Band and where he could make a sufficient income so that he no longer needed to supplement his music with day labor jobs. It was a boom time in Chicago and though race relations were poor, the “Windy City” was teeming with jobs for black people, who were making good wages in factories and had plenty to spend on entertainment.
Oliver's band was the best and most influential hot jazz band in Chicago in the early 1920s, at a time when Chicago was the center of the jazz universe. Armstrong lived luxuriously in Chicago, in his own apartment with his own private bath (his first). Excited as he was to be in Chicago, he began his career-long pastime of writing nostalgic letters to friends in New Orleans. As Armstrong’s reputation grew, he was challenged to “cutting contests” by hornmen trying to displace the new phenom, who could blow two hundred high C’s in a row. Armstrong made his first recordings on the Gennett and Okeh labels (jazz records were starting to boom across the country), including taking some solos and breaks, while playing second cornet in Oliver's band in 1923. At this time, he met Hoagy Carmichael (with whom he would collaborate later) who was introduced by friend Bix Beiderbecke, who now had his own Chicago band.
Armstrong enjoyed working with Oliver, but Louis' second wife, pianist Lil Hardin Armstrong, urged him to seek more prominent billing and develop his newer style away from the influence of Oliver. Armstrong took the advice of his wife and left Oliver's band. For a year Armstrong played in Fletcher Henderson's band in New York on many recordings. After playing in New York, Armstrong returned to Chicago, playing in large orchestras; there he created his most important early recordings. Lil had her husband play classical music in church concerts to broaden his skill and improve his solo play and she prodded him into wearing more stylish attire to make him look sharp and to better offset his growing girth. Lil’s influence eventually undermined Armstrong’s relationship with his mentor, especially concerning his salary and additional moneys that Oliver held back from Armstrong and other band members. Armstrong and Oliver parted amicably in 1924. Shortly afterward, Armstrong received an invitation to go to New York City to play with the Fletcher Henderson Orchestra, the top African-American band of the day. Armstrong switched to the trumpet to blend in better with the other musicians in his section. His influence upon Henderson's tenor sax soloist, Coleman Hawkins, can be judged by listening to the records made by the band during this period.
Armstrong quickly adapted to the more tightly controlled style of Henderson, playing trumpet and even experimenting with the trombone and the other members quickly took up Armstrong’s emotional, expressive pulse. Soon his act included singing and telling tales of New Orleans characters, especially preachers. The Henderson Orchestra was playing in the best venues for white-only patrons, including the famed Roseland Ballroom, featuring the classy arrangements of Don Redman. Duke Ellington’s orchestra would go to Roseland to catch Armstrong’s performances and young hornmen around town tried in vain to outplay him, splitting their lips in their attempts.
During this time, Armstrong made many recordings on the side, arranged by an old friend from New Orleans, pianist Clarence Williams; these included small jazz band sides with the Williams Blue Five (some of the best pairing Armstrong with one of Armstrong's few rivals in fiery technique and ideas, Sidney Bechet) and a series of accompaniments with blues singers, including Bessie Smith, Ma Rainey, and Alberta Hunter.
Armstrong returned to Chicago in 1925 due mostly to the urging of his wife, who wanted to pump up Armstrong’s career and income. He was content in New York but later would concede that she was right and that the Henderson Orchestra was limiting his artistic growth. In publicity, much to his chagrin, she billed him as “the World’s Greatest Trumpet Player”. At first, he was actually a member of the Lil Hardin Armstrong Band and working for his wife. He began recording under his own name for Okeh with his famous Hot Five and Hot Seven groups, producing hits such as "Potato Head Blues", "Muggles", (a reference to marijuana, for which Armstrong had a lifelong fondness), and "West End Blues", the music of which set the standard and the agenda for jazz for many years to come.
The group included Kid Ory (trombone), Johnny Dodds (clarinet), Johnny St. Cyr (banjo), wife Lil on piano, and usually no drummer. Armstrong’s bandleading style was easygoing, as St. Cyr noted, "One felt so relaxed working with him, and he was very broad-minded . . . always did his best to feature each individual."[20] His recordings soon after with pianist Earl "Fatha" Hines (most famously their 1928 Weatherbird duet) and Armstrong's trumpet introduction to "West End Blues" remain some of the most famous and influential improvisations in jazz history. Armstrong was now free to develop his personal style as he wished, which included a heavy dose of effervescent jive, such as "whip that thing, Miss Lil" and "Mr. Johnny Dodds, Aw, do that clarinet, boy!"
Armstrong also played with Erskine Tate’s Little Symphony, actually a quintet, which played mostly at the Vendome Theatre. They furnished music for silent movies and live shows, including jazz versions of classical music, such as "Madame Butterfly," which gave Armstrong experience with longer forms of music and with hosting before a large audience. He began to scat sing (improvised vocal jazz using nonsensical words) and was among the first to record it, on "Heebie Jeebies" in 1926. The recording was so popular that the group became the most famous jazz band in the United States, even though they had not performed live to any great extent. Young musicians across the country, black or white, were turned on by Armstrong’s new type of jazz.
With Jack Teagarden (left) and Barney Bigard (right), Armstrong plays the trumpet in Helsinki, Finland, October 1949
After separating from Lil, Armstrong started to play at the Sunset Café for Al Capone's associate Joe Glaser in the Carroll Dickerson Orchestra, with Earl Hines on piano, which was soon renamed Louis Armstrong and his Stompers, though Hines was the music director and Glaser managed the orchestra. Hines and Armstrong became fast friends and successful collaborators.
Armstrong returned to New York, in 1929, where he played in the pit orchestra of the successful musical Hot Chocolate, an all-black revue written by Andy Razaf and pianist/composer Fats Waller. He also made a cameo appearance as a vocalist, regularly stealing the show with his rendition of "Ain't Misbehavin'", his version of the song becoming his biggest selling record to date.
Armstrong started to work at Connie's Inn in Harlem, chief rival to the Cotton Club, a venue for elaborately staged floor shows, and a front for gangster Dutch Schultz. Armstrong also had considerable success with vocal recordings, including versions of famous songs composed by his old friend Hoagy Carmichael. His 1930s recordings took full advantage of the new RCA ribbon microphone, introduced in 1931, which imparted a characteristic warmth to vocals and immediately became an intrinsic part of the 'crooning' sound of artists like Bing Crosby. Armstrong's famous interpretation of Hoagy Carmichael's "Stardust" became one of the most successful versions of this song ever recorded, showcasing Armstrong's unique vocal sound and style and his innovative approach to singing songs that had already become standards.
Armstrong's radical re-working of Sidney Arodin and Carmichael's "Lazy River" (recorded in 1931) encapsulated many features of his groundbreaking approach to melody and phrasing. The song begins with a brief trumpet solo, then the main melody is stated by sobbing horns, memorably punctuated by Armstrong's growling interjections at the end of each bar: "Yeah! ..."Uh-huh" ..."Sure" ... "Way down, way down." In the first verse, he ignores the notated melody entirely and sings as if playing a trumpet solo, pitching most of the first line on a single note and using strongly syncopated phrasing. In the second stanza he breaks into an almost fully improvised melody, which then evolves into a classic passage of Armstrong "scat singing".
Louis Armstrong, head-and-shoulders portrait, facing front, looking at trumpet in 1953.
As with his trumpet playing, Armstrong's vocal innovations served as a foundation stone for the art of jazz vocal interpretation. The uniquely gritty coloration of his voice became a musical archetype that was much imitated and endlessly impersonated. His scat singing style was enriched by his matchless experience as a trumpet soloist. His resonant, velvety lower-register tone and bubbling cadences on sides such as "Lazy River" exerted a huge influence on younger white singers such as Bing Crosby.
The Great Depression of the early 1930s was especially hard on the jazz scene. The Cotton Club closed in 1936 after a long downward spiral, and many musicians stopped playing altogether as club dates evaporated. Bix Beiderbecke died and Fletcher Henderson’s band broke up. King Oliver made a few records but otherwise struggled. Sidney Bechet became a tailor and Kid Ory returned to New Orleans and raised chickens.
Armstrong moved to Los Angeles in 1930 to seek new opportunities. He played at the New Cotton Club in Los Angeles with Lionel Hampton on drums. The band drew the Hollywood crowd, which could still afford a lavish night life, while radio broadcasts from the club connected with younger audiences at home. Bing Crosby and many other celebrities were regulars at the club. In 1931, Armstrong appeared in his first movie, Ex-Flame. Armstrong was convicted of marijuana possession but received a suspended sentence. He returned to Chicago in late 1931 and played in bands more in the Guy Lombardo vein and he recorded more standards. When the mob insisted that he get out of town,[why?] Armstrong visited New Orleans, got a hero’s welcome and saw old friends. He sponsored a local baseball team known as “Armstrong’s Secret Nine” and had a cigar named after him. But soon he was on the road again and after a tour across the country shadowed by the mob, Armstrong decided to go to Europe to escape.
After returning to the United States, he undertook several exhausting tours. His agent Johnny Collins’ erratic behavior and his own spending ways left Armstrong short of cash. Breach of contract violations plagued him. Finally, he hired Joe Glaser as his new manager, a tough mob-connected wheeler-dealer, who began to straighten out his legal mess, his mob troubles, and his debts. Armstrong also began to experience problems with his fingers and lips, which were aggravated by his unorthodox playing style. As a result he branched out, developing his vocal style and making his first theatrical appearances. He appeared in movies again, including Crosby's 1936 hit Pennies from Heaven. In 1937, Armstrong substituted for Rudy Vallee on the CBS radio network and became the first African American to host a sponsored, national broadcast.
After spending many years on the road, Armstrong settled permanently in Queens, New York in 1943 in contentment with his fourth wife, Lucille. Although subject to the vicissitudes of Tin Pan Alley and the gangster-ridden music business, as well as anti-black prejudice, he continued to develop his playing. He recorded Hoagy Carmichael's Rockin' Chair for Okeh Records.
During the subsequent thirty years, Armstrong played more than three hundred gigs a year. Bookings for big bands tapered off during the 1940s due to changes in public tastes: ballrooms closed, and there was competition from television and from other types of music becoming more popular than big band music. It became impossible under such circumstances to support and finance a 16-piece touring band.
The All Stars
Louis Armstrong in 1953
Following a highly successful small-group jazz concert at New York Town Hall on May 17, 1947, featuring Armstrong with trombonist/singer Jack Teagarden, Armstrong's manager Joe Glaser dissolved the Armstrong big band on August 13, 1947 and established a six-piece small group featuring Armstrong with (initially) Teagarden, Earl Hines and other top swing and dixieland musicians, most of them ex-big band leaders. The new group was announced at the opening of Billy Berg's Supper Club.
This group was called L.A. and his A.S. and included at various times Earl "Fatha" Hines, Barney Bigard, Edmond Hall, Jack Teagarden, Trummy Young, Arvell Shaw, Billy Kyle, Marty Napoleon, Big Sid Catlett, Cozy Cole, Tyree Glenn, Barrett Deems, Joe Darensbourg and the Filipino-American percussionist Danny Barcelona. During this period, Armstrong made many recordings and appeared in over thirty films. He was the first jazz musician to appear on the cover of Time Magazine on February 21, 1949.)
In 1964, he recorded his biggest-selling record, "Hello, Dolly!", a song by Jerry Herman, originally sung by Carol Channing. Armstrong's cover of the song, which lasted 22 weeks on the Hot 100, longer than any other record that year, went to No. 1 on the pop chart, making Armstrong (age 62 years, 9 months, 5 days) the oldest person to date to ever accomplish that feat. In the process, Armstrong dislodged The Beatles from the No. 1 position they had occupied for 14 consecutive weeks with three different songs.
Armstrong kept up his busy tour schedule until a few years before his death in 1971. In his later years he would sometimes play some of his numerous gigs by rote, but other times would enliven the most mundane gig with his vigorous playing, often to the astonishment of his band. He also toured Africa, Europe, and Asia under sponsorship of the US State Department with great success, earning the nickname "Ambassador Satch " and inspiring Dave Brubeck to compose his jazz musical The Real Ambassadors
While failing health restricted his schedule in his last years, within those limitations he continued playing until the day he died.
Death
Armstrong died of a heart attack in his sleep on July 6, 1971, a month before his 70th birthday, 11 months after playing a famous show at the Waldorf-Astoria's Empire Room. He was residing in Corona, Queens, New York City, at the time of his death. He was interred in Flushing Cemetery, Flushing, in Queens, New York City. His honorary pallbearers included Bing Crosby, Ella Fitzgerald, Dizzy Gillespie, Pearl Bailey, Count Basie, Harry James, Frank Sinatra, Ed Sullivan, Earl Wilson, Alan King, Johnny Carson and David Frost.Peggy Lee sang The Lord's Prayer at the services while Al Hibbler sang "Nobody Knows the Trouble I've Seen" and Fred Robbins, a long-time friend, gave the eulogy.
Louis Armstrong (August 4, 1901 – July 6, 1971), nicknamed Satchmo or Pops, was an American jazz trumpeter, singer, and an influential figure in jazz music.
Coming to prominence in the 1920s as an "inventive" trumpet and cornet player, Armstrong was a foundational influence in jazz, shifting the focus of the music from collective improvisation to solo performance. With his instantly recognizable gravelly voice, Armstrong was also an influential singer, demonstrating great dexterity as an improviser, bending the lyrics and melody of a song for expressive purposes. He was also skilled at scat singing (vocalizing using sounds and syllables instead of actual lyrics).Renowned for his charismatic stage presence and voice almost as much as for his trumpet-playing, Armstrong's influence extends well beyond jazz music, and by the end of his career in the 1960s, he was widely regarded as a profound influence on popular music in general. Armstrong was one of the first truly popular African-American entertainers to "cross over", whose skin color was secondary to his music in an America that was severely racially divided. He rarely publicly politicized his race, often to the dismay of fellow African-Americans, but took a well-publicized stand for desegregation during the Little Rock Crisis. His artistry and personality allowed him socially acceptable access to the upper echelons of American society that were highly restricted for men of color.
His Early Life
Armstrong often stated that he was born on July 4, 1900, a date that has been noted in many biographies. Although he died in 1971, it was not until the mid-1980s that his true birth date of August 4, 1901 was discovered by researcher Tad Jones through the examination of baptismal records. Armstrong was born into a very poor family in New Orleans, Louisiana, the grandson of slaves. He spent his youth in poverty, in a rough neighborhood, known as “the Battlefield”, which was part of the Storyville legal prostitution district. His father, William Armstrong (1881–1922), abandoned the family when Louis was an infant and took up with another woman. His mother, Mary "Mayann" Albert (1886–1927), then left Louis and his younger sister Beatrice Armstrong Collins (1903–1987) in the care of his grandmother, Josephine Armstrong, and at times, his Uncle Isaac. At five, he moved back to live with his mother and her relatives, and saw his father only in parades. He attended the Fisk School for Boys, where he likely had early exposure to music. He brought in some money as a paperboy and also by finding discarded food and selling it to restaurants, but it was not enough to keep his mother from prostitution. He hung out in dance halls close to home, where he observed everything from licentious dancing to the quadrille. For extra money he also hauled coal to Storyville, the famed red-light district, and listened to the bands playing in the brothels and dance halls, especially Pete Lala's where Joe "King" Oliver performed and other famous musicians would drop in to jam.
After dropping out of the Fisk School at age eleven, Armstrong joined a quartet of boys who sang in the streets for money. But he also started to get into trouble. Cornet player Bunk Johnson said he taught Armstrong (then 11) to play by ear at Dago Tony's Tonk in New Orleans, although in his later years Armstrong gave the credit to Oliver. Armstrong hardly looked back at his youth as the worst of times but instead drew inspiration from it, “Every time I close my eyes blowing that trumpet of mine—I look right in the heart of good old New Orleans... It has given me something to live for.”
He also worked for a Lithuanian-Jewish immigrant family, the Karnofskys, who had a junk hauling business and gave him odd jobs. They took him in and treated him as almost a family member, knowing he lived without a father, and would feed and nurture him. He later wrote a memoir of his relationship with the Karnofskys titled, Louis Armstrong + the Jewish Family in New Orleans, La., the Year of 1907. In it he describes his discovery that this family was also subject to discrimination by "other white folks' nationalities who felt that they were better than the Jewish race... I was only seven years old but I could easily see the ungodly treatment that the White Folks were handing the poor Jewish family whom I worked for." Armstrong wore a Star of David pendant for the rest of his life and wrote about what he learned from them: "how to live—real life and determination." The influence of Karnofsky is remembered in New Orleans by the Karnofsky Project, a non-profit organization dedicated to accepting donated musical instruments to "put them into the hands of an eager child who could not otherwise take part in a wonderful learning experience."
Armstrong with his first trumpet instructor, Peter Davis, in 1965.
Armstrong developed his cornet playing skills by playing in the band of the New Orleans Home for Colored Waifs, where he had been sent multiple times for general delinquency, most notably for a long term after firing his stepfather's pistol into the air at a New Year's Eve celebration, as police records confirm. Professor Peter Davis (who frequently appeared at the Home at the request of its administrator, Captain Joseph Jones) instilled discipline in and provided musical training to the otherwise self-taught Armstrong. Eventually, Davis made Armstrong the band leader. The Home band played around New Orleans and the thirteen-year-old Louis began to draw attention by his cornet playing, starting him on a musical career. At fourteen he was released from the Home, living again with his father and new stepmother and then back with his mother and also back to the streets and their temptations. Armstrong got his first dance hall job at Henry Ponce’s where Black Benny became his protector and guide. He hauled coal by day and played his cornet at night.
He played in the city's frequent brass band parades and listened to older musicians every chance he got, learning from Bunk Johnson, Buddy Petit, Kid Ory, and above all, Joe "King" Oliver, who acted as a mentor and father figure to the young musician. Later, he played in the brass bands and riverboats of New Orleans, and began traveling with the well-regarded band of Fate Marable, which toured on a steamboat up and down the Mississippi River. He described his time with Marable as "going to the University," since it gave him a much wider experience working with written arrangements.
In 1919, Joe Oliver decided to go north and resigned his position in Kid Ory's band; Armstrong replaced him. He also became second trumpet for the Tuxedo Brass Band, a society band.
Through all his riverboat experience Armstrong’s musicianship began to mature and expand. At twenty, he could read music and he started to be featured in extended trumpet solos, one of the first jazzmen to do this, injecting his own personality and style into his solo turns. He had learned how to create a unique sound and also started using singing and patter in his performances. In 1922, Armstrong joined the exodus to Chicago, where he had been invited by his mentor, Joe "King" Oliver, to join his Creole Jazz Band and where he could make a sufficient income so that he no longer needed to supplement his music with day labor jobs. It was a boom time in Chicago and though race relations were poor, the “Windy City” was teeming with jobs for black people, who were making good wages in factories and had plenty to spend on entertainment.
Oliver's band was the best and most influential hot jazz band in Chicago in the early 1920s, at a time when Chicago was the center of the jazz universe. Armstrong lived luxuriously in Chicago, in his own apartment with his own private bath (his first). Excited as he was to be in Chicago, he began his career-long pastime of writing nostalgic letters to friends in New Orleans. As Armstrong’s reputation grew, he was challenged to “cutting contests” by hornmen trying to displace the new phenom, who could blow two hundred high C’s in a row. Armstrong made his first recordings on the Gennett and Okeh labels (jazz records were starting to boom across the country), including taking some solos and breaks, while playing second cornet in Oliver's band in 1923. At this time, he met Hoagy Carmichael (with whom he would collaborate later) who was introduced by friend Bix Beiderbecke, who now had his own Chicago band.
Armstrong enjoyed working with Oliver, but Louis' second wife, pianist Lil Hardin Armstrong, urged him to seek more prominent billing and develop his newer style away from the influence of Oliver. Armstrong took the advice of his wife and left Oliver's band. For a year Armstrong played in Fletcher Henderson's band in New York on many recordings. After playing in New York, Armstrong returned to Chicago, playing in large orchestras; there he created his most important early recordings. Lil had her husband play classical music in church concerts to broaden his skill and improve his solo play and she prodded him into wearing more stylish attire to make him look sharp and to better offset his growing girth. Lil’s influence eventually undermined Armstrong’s relationship with his mentor, especially concerning his salary and additional moneys that Oliver held back from Armstrong and other band members. Armstrong and Oliver parted amicably in 1924. Shortly afterward, Armstrong received an invitation to go to New York City to play with the Fletcher Henderson Orchestra, the top African-American band of the day. Armstrong switched to the trumpet to blend in better with the other musicians in his section. His influence upon Henderson's tenor sax soloist, Coleman Hawkins, can be judged by listening to the records made by the band during this period.
Armstrong quickly adapted to the more tightly controlled style of Henderson, playing trumpet and even experimenting with the trombone and the other members quickly took up Armstrong’s emotional, expressive pulse. Soon his act included singing and telling tales of New Orleans characters, especially preachers. The Henderson Orchestra was playing in the best venues for white-only patrons, including the famed Roseland Ballroom, featuring the classy arrangements of Don Redman. Duke Ellington’s orchestra would go to Roseland to catch Armstrong’s performances and young hornmen around town tried in vain to outplay him, splitting their lips in their attempts.
During this time, Armstrong made many recordings on the side, arranged by an old friend from New Orleans, pianist Clarence Williams; these included small jazz band sides with the Williams Blue Five (some of the best pairing Armstrong with one of Armstrong's few rivals in fiery technique and ideas, Sidney Bechet) and a series of accompaniments with blues singers, including Bessie Smith, Ma Rainey, and Alberta Hunter.
Armstrong returned to Chicago in 1925 due mostly to the urging of his wife, who wanted to pump up Armstrong’s career and income. He was content in New York but later would concede that she was right and that the Henderson Orchestra was limiting his artistic growth. In publicity, much to his chagrin, she billed him as “the World’s Greatest Trumpet Player”. At first, he was actually a member of the Lil Hardin Armstrong Band and working for his wife. He began recording under his own name for Okeh with his famous Hot Five and Hot Seven groups, producing hits such as "Potato Head Blues", "Muggles", (a reference to marijuana, for which Armstrong had a lifelong fondness), and "West End Blues", the music of which set the standard and the agenda for jazz for many years to come.
The group included Kid Ory (trombone), Johnny Dodds (clarinet), Johnny St. Cyr (banjo), wife Lil on piano, and usually no drummer. Armstrong’s bandleading style was easygoing, as St. Cyr noted, "One felt so relaxed working with him, and he was very broad-minded . . . always did his best to feature each individual."[20] His recordings soon after with pianist Earl "Fatha" Hines (most famously their 1928 Weatherbird duet) and Armstrong's trumpet introduction to "West End Blues" remain some of the most famous and influential improvisations in jazz history. Armstrong was now free to develop his personal style as he wished, which included a heavy dose of effervescent jive, such as "whip that thing, Miss Lil" and "Mr. Johnny Dodds, Aw, do that clarinet, boy!"
Armstrong also played with Erskine Tate’s Little Symphony, actually a quintet, which played mostly at the Vendome Theatre. They furnished music for silent movies and live shows, including jazz versions of classical music, such as "Madame Butterfly," which gave Armstrong experience with longer forms of music and with hosting before a large audience. He began to scat sing (improvised vocal jazz using nonsensical words) and was among the first to record it, on "Heebie Jeebies" in 1926. The recording was so popular that the group became the most famous jazz band in the United States, even though they had not performed live to any great extent. Young musicians across the country, black or white, were turned on by Armstrong’s new type of jazz.
With Jack Teagarden (left) and Barney Bigard (right), Armstrong plays the trumpet in Helsinki, Finland, October 1949
After separating from Lil, Armstrong started to play at the Sunset Café for Al Capone's associate Joe Glaser in the Carroll Dickerson Orchestra, with Earl Hines on piano, which was soon renamed Louis Armstrong and his Stompers, though Hines was the music director and Glaser managed the orchestra. Hines and Armstrong became fast friends and successful collaborators.
Armstrong returned to New York, in 1929, where he played in the pit orchestra of the successful musical Hot Chocolate, an all-black revue written by Andy Razaf and pianist/composer Fats Waller. He also made a cameo appearance as a vocalist, regularly stealing the show with his rendition of "Ain't Misbehavin'", his version of the song becoming his biggest selling record to date.
Armstrong started to work at Connie's Inn in Harlem, chief rival to the Cotton Club, a venue for elaborately staged floor shows, and a front for gangster Dutch Schultz. Armstrong also had considerable success with vocal recordings, including versions of famous songs composed by his old friend Hoagy Carmichael. His 1930s recordings took full advantage of the new RCA ribbon microphone, introduced in 1931, which imparted a characteristic warmth to vocals and immediately became an intrinsic part of the 'crooning' sound of artists like Bing Crosby. Armstrong's famous interpretation of Hoagy Carmichael's "Stardust" became one of the most successful versions of this song ever recorded, showcasing Armstrong's unique vocal sound and style and his innovative approach to singing songs that had already become standards.
Armstrong's radical re-working of Sidney Arodin and Carmichael's "Lazy River" (recorded in 1931) encapsulated many features of his groundbreaking approach to melody and phrasing. The song begins with a brief trumpet solo, then the main melody is stated by sobbing horns, memorably punctuated by Armstrong's growling interjections at the end of each bar: "Yeah! ..."Uh-huh" ..."Sure" ... "Way down, way down." In the first verse, he ignores the notated melody entirely and sings as if playing a trumpet solo, pitching most of the first line on a single note and using strongly syncopated phrasing. In the second stanza he breaks into an almost fully improvised melody, which then evolves into a classic passage of Armstrong "scat singing".
Louis Armstrong, head-and-shoulders portrait, facing front, looking at trumpet in 1953.
As with his trumpet playing, Armstrong's vocal innovations served as a foundation stone for the art of jazz vocal interpretation. The uniquely gritty coloration of his voice became a musical archetype that was much imitated and endlessly impersonated. His scat singing style was enriched by his matchless experience as a trumpet soloist. His resonant, velvety lower-register tone and bubbling cadences on sides such as "Lazy River" exerted a huge influence on younger white singers such as Bing Crosby.
The Great Depression of the early 1930s was especially hard on the jazz scene. The Cotton Club closed in 1936 after a long downward spiral, and many musicians stopped playing altogether as club dates evaporated. Bix Beiderbecke died and Fletcher Henderson’s band broke up. King Oliver made a few records but otherwise struggled. Sidney Bechet became a tailor and Kid Ory returned to New Orleans and raised chickens.
Armstrong moved to Los Angeles in 1930 to seek new opportunities. He played at the New Cotton Club in Los Angeles with Lionel Hampton on drums. The band drew the Hollywood crowd, which could still afford a lavish night life, while radio broadcasts from the club connected with younger audiences at home. Bing Crosby and many other celebrities were regulars at the club. In 1931, Armstrong appeared in his first movie, Ex-Flame. Armstrong was convicted of marijuana possession but received a suspended sentence. He returned to Chicago in late 1931 and played in bands more in the Guy Lombardo vein and he recorded more standards. When the mob insisted that he get out of town,[why?] Armstrong visited New Orleans, got a hero’s welcome and saw old friends. He sponsored a local baseball team known as “Armstrong’s Secret Nine” and had a cigar named after him. But soon he was on the road again and after a tour across the country shadowed by the mob, Armstrong decided to go to Europe to escape.
After returning to the United States, he undertook several exhausting tours. His agent Johnny Collins’ erratic behavior and his own spending ways left Armstrong short of cash. Breach of contract violations plagued him. Finally, he hired Joe Glaser as his new manager, a tough mob-connected wheeler-dealer, who began to straighten out his legal mess, his mob troubles, and his debts. Armstrong also began to experience problems with his fingers and lips, which were aggravated by his unorthodox playing style. As a result he branched out, developing his vocal style and making his first theatrical appearances. He appeared in movies again, including Crosby's 1936 hit Pennies from Heaven. In 1937, Armstrong substituted for Rudy Vallee on the CBS radio network and became the first African American to host a sponsored, national broadcast.
After spending many years on the road, Armstrong settled permanently in Queens, New York in 1943 in contentment with his fourth wife, Lucille. Although subject to the vicissitudes of Tin Pan Alley and the gangster-ridden music business, as well as anti-black prejudice, he continued to develop his playing. He recorded Hoagy Carmichael's Rockin' Chair for Okeh Records.
During the subsequent thirty years, Armstrong played more than three hundred gigs a year. Bookings for big bands tapered off during the 1940s due to changes in public tastes: ballrooms closed, and there was competition from television and from other types of music becoming more popular than big band music. It became impossible under such circumstances to support and finance a 16-piece touring band.
The All Stars
Louis Armstrong in 1953
Following a highly successful small-group jazz concert at New York Town Hall on May 17, 1947, featuring Armstrong with trombonist/singer Jack Teagarden, Armstrong's manager Joe Glaser dissolved the Armstrong big band on August 13, 1947 and established a six-piece small group featuring Armstrong with (initially) Teagarden, Earl Hines and other top swing and dixieland musicians, most of them ex-big band leaders. The new group was announced at the opening of Billy Berg's Supper Club.
This group was called L.A. and his A.S. and included at various times Earl "Fatha" Hines, Barney Bigard, Edmond Hall, Jack Teagarden, Trummy Young, Arvell Shaw, Billy Kyle, Marty Napoleon, Big Sid Catlett, Cozy Cole, Tyree Glenn, Barrett Deems, Joe Darensbourg and the Filipino-American percussionist Danny Barcelona. During this period, Armstrong made many recordings and appeared in over thirty films. He was the first jazz musician to appear on the cover of Time Magazine on February 21, 1949.)
In 1964, he recorded his biggest-selling record, "Hello, Dolly!", a song by Jerry Herman, originally sung by Carol Channing. Armstrong's cover of the song, which lasted 22 weeks on the Hot 100, longer than any other record that year, went to No. 1 on the pop chart, making Armstrong (age 62 years, 9 months, 5 days) the oldest person to date to ever accomplish that feat. In the process, Armstrong dislodged The Beatles from the No. 1 position they had occupied for 14 consecutive weeks with three different songs.
Armstrong kept up his busy tour schedule until a few years before his death in 1971. In his later years he would sometimes play some of his numerous gigs by rote, but other times would enliven the most mundane gig with his vigorous playing, often to the astonishment of his band. He also toured Africa, Europe, and Asia under sponsorship of the US State Department with great success, earning the nickname "Ambassador Satch " and inspiring Dave Brubeck to compose his jazz musical The Real Ambassadors
While failing health restricted his schedule in his last years, within those limitations he continued playing until the day he died.
Death
Armstrong died of a heart attack in his sleep on July 6, 1971, a month before his 70th birthday, 11 months after playing a famous show at the Waldorf-Astoria's Empire Room. He was residing in Corona, Queens, New York City, at the time of his death. He was interred in Flushing Cemetery, Flushing, in Queens, New York City. His honorary pallbearers included Bing Crosby, Ella Fitzgerald, Dizzy Gillespie, Pearl Bailey, Count Basie, Harry James, Frank Sinatra, Ed Sullivan, Earl Wilson, Alan King, Johnny Carson and David Frost.Peggy Lee sang The Lord's Prayer at the services while Al Hibbler sang "Nobody Knows the Trouble I've Seen" and Fred Robbins, a long-time friend, gave the eulogy.
Information and photographs provided by Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater. If you would like to check out more information, just type Alvin Ailey in the search block or check out their website:http://www.alvinailey.org/ODETTA
Odetta Holmes – one of the most influential singers of the 20th century – is rediscovered as renowned Ailey dancer Matthew Rushing marries soul-stirring movement to songs by the artist anointed “the queen of American folk music” by Martin Luther King, Jr.
Rushing’s world premiere for Ailey pays tribute to Holmes's life as a singer, songwriter, actress, and civil rights activist. With a musical repertoire encompassing American folk music, blues, jazz, and spirituals, Odetta influenced many key figures of the 1960s folk-revival scene including Bob Dylan, Joan Baez, Mavis Staples, and Janis Joplin. Her song "Take This Hammer" was included on TIME magazine's list of the All-Time 100 Songs. When President Clinton honored Odetta at the White House with the National Medal of Arts and Humanities, he remarked, “Odetta reminds us all that songs have the power to change the heart and change the world.”
With projections by artist Stephen Alcorn, ODETTA is Matthew Rushing's third ballet created for Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater following Acceptance In Surrender (2005), a collaboration with Hope Boykin and Abdur Rahim-Jackson, and Uptown (2010), a celebration of the Harlem Renaissance.
The New York Times has listed ODETTA as one of 100 events in the Fall 2014 season that "have [them] especially excited.
Odetta Holmes – one of the most influential singers of the 20th century – is rediscovered as renowned Ailey dancer Matthew Rushing marries soul-stirring movement to songs by the artist anointed “the queen of American folk music” by Martin Luther King, Jr.
Rushing’s world premiere for Ailey pays tribute to Holmes's life as a singer, songwriter, actress, and civil rights activist. With a musical repertoire encompassing American folk music, blues, jazz, and spirituals, Odetta influenced many key figures of the 1960s folk-revival scene including Bob Dylan, Joan Baez, Mavis Staples, and Janis Joplin. Her song "Take This Hammer" was included on TIME magazine's list of the All-Time 100 Songs. When President Clinton honored Odetta at the White House with the National Medal of Arts and Humanities, he remarked, “Odetta reminds us all that songs have the power to change the heart and change the world.”
With projections by artist Stephen Alcorn, ODETTA is Matthew Rushing's third ballet created for Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater following Acceptance In Surrender (2005), a collaboration with Hope Boykin and Abdur Rahim-Jackson, and Uptown (2010), a celebration of the Harlem Renaissance.
The New York Times has listed ODETTA as one of 100 events in the Fall 2014 season that "have [them] especially excited.
American-born British musical theatre and cabaret singer (born Feb. 27, 1904, New York) she was known for her show-stopping performances in plays by Cole Porter, Ivor Novello, and Noel Coward. Welch began her career in New York City, where she created a sensation in 1931 with her rendition of Porter's 'Love for Sale'. She was a cabaret singer in Paris before becoming a fixture in London's West End. From the 1930s she appeared in films and on British radio and television. Welch was particularly associated with the songs 'Stormy Weather', which she introduced to English audiences in 1933, and 'Solomon', written for her by Porter. Later she was a hit in the musical Pippin (1970), and in 1980 a half century after her last appearance in New York City she made a triumphant return to Broadway. She died on July 15, 2003, Northolt, Middlesex, England at the age of 99 years old.
Additional Information provided by William Dillard at Facebook:
Today in History: Elisabeth Welch
Elisabeth Welch was born on this date in 1904. She was a African American chanteuse singer and dancer.
From New York City, her mother was from Scotland and her father was of African and Native American decent. Welch’s career began as a child, singing in school productions and in the choir at St. Cypian’s Episcopal Church. It was in 1923 that her choir was invited to sing in the Broadway production of “Runnin Wild.” Here she introduced the Charleston, a new dance to the tune of the same name. In 1928 she joined Lew Leslie's historic Blackbirds of 1928, where her co-stars were Bill 'Bojangles' Robinson, Aida Ward and Adelaide Hall.
When the show transferred to Paris all the black artists became the toast of cafe society beginning a new career for her in nightclubs and cabaret. By 1933 she had moved and settled in London, where she remained for more than 50 years. Throughout the thirties she established herself as one of the biggest stars of London nightlife. Cole Porter wrote a part for her in Nymph Errant (1933), which also starred Gertrude Lawrence. Welch's number, Solomon, literally stopped the show and went on to become her signature tune. Later revues and musicals included Glamorous Night (1935), It's in the Bag (1937), Arc de Triomphe (1943), Tuppence Coloured (1947), Penny Plain (1951) and The Crooked Mile (1959).
Other songs with which she was associated, As Time Goes By, Love for Sale and La Vie En Rose, have since become standards. During the Second World War she entertained the troops in Gibraltar and the Middle East with such stars as Edith Evans and John Gielgud. She also appeared at the London Palladium in Happy and Glorious from 1944 to 1946. Later stage appearances included playing the fairy godmother in Cindy-Ella (1962, revived 1963 and 1976) and in 1970 she starred in her own one-woman show, A Marvellous Party (Hampstead Theatre Club). By the seventies Welch had achieved something of a cult status with theatergoers.
A new and younger generation discovered her when she made a guest appearance (lying on a sofa) in the musical Pippin (1973) and once again she stopped the show. Six years later she gave one of the most remarkable performances of her career when she sang Stormy Weather in the offbeat film of The Tempest. In 1985, while returning home, she was beat-up by a mugger but was back onstage the following day. Later the same year a new one-woman show in New York, “Elisabeth Welch A Time to Start Living” won her an Obie Award.
Welch was one of the great survivors of show business; she virtually never stopped working. She made countless film, radio and television appearances as well as recording numerous albums, many of them classics. Throughout the eighties and nineties she made triumphant appearances in Australia, Russia and at New York's Carnegie Hall. One of her last public appearances was in 1992 when stars gathered at London's Lyric Theatre to pay tribute to her and she was given five standing ovations. Her career spanned eight decades.
She also starred in many British movies in the 1930s, appearing alongside Paul Robeson and Rex Harrison. The African-American actress and singer was one of the most redoubtable entertainers of the 20th century. Celebrated for her sultry singing voice, she was a great interpreter of popular song and her long career took her from New York's jazz-age theatre to Paris cabaret and numerous West End musicals and revues. Elisabeth Welch died in Denville Hall, Middlesex, on July 15, aged 99.
Elisabeth Welch sings Stormy Weather
Elisabeth Welch: Harlem In My Heart
Elisabeth Welch "THE GIRL I KNEW" (1935)
Elisabeth Welch - The Man I Love (George & Ira Gershwin)
Paul Robeson, Elisabeth Welch - The River of Dreams
Reprinted from utube
Published on Jul 21, 2014
About the group:
It is artistic directors Dwight Rhoden and Desmond Richardson’s lifelong appreciation for the artistic & aesthetic appeal of the multicultural that forms the cornerstone of Complexions Contemporary Ballet’s singular approach to reinventing dance. Founded in 1994, Complexions’ groundbreaking mix of methods, styles, cultures has created an entirely new and exciting vision of human movement over the past 20 years.
Complexions has received numerous awards including the New York Times “Critics Choice” Award. It has appeared throughout the US, including the Joyce Theater/NY, Lincoln Center/NY, the Brooklyn Academy of Music‘s/NY, the Mahalia Jackson Performance Arts Center in New Orleans, the Paramount Theatre in Seattle, the Music Center in Los Angeles, and the Winspear Opera House/Dallas.
Photo taken by Complexions Dance Company
The Company has appeared at major European dance festivals including Italy’s Festival of Dance for four consecutive years, the Isle De Dance Festival in Paris, the Maison De La Dance Festival in Lyon, the Holland Dance Festival, Steps International Dance Festival in Switzerland, Łódź Biennale, Warsaw Ballet Festival, Kraków Spring Ballet Festival, the Dance Festival of Canary Islands/Spain, and Le Festival des Arts de St-Sauveur/Canada, and in Korea, Spain, and Australia.
The company’s foremost innovation is that dance should be about removing boundaries, not reinforcing them. Whether it be the limiting traditions of a single style, period, venue, or culture, Complexions transcends them all, creating an open, continually evolving form of dance that reflects the movement of our world—and all its constituent cultures—as an interrelated whole.
It is Rhoden and Richardson’s unique career paths that have paved the way for them to re-define dance—as their multifaceted resumes will show, neither has ever been comfortable with his art being placed in a box. Instead, from E! to PBS to VH1, from Cirque de Soleil to the Joffrey Ballet, the two have allowed the transformative power of their art to flow freely throughout the entertainment world—their creative vision restricted by nothing but the limits of the human body itself.
Together, Dwight Rhoden and Desmond Richardson have created in Complexions an institution that embodies its historical moment, a sanctuary where those passionate about dance can celebrate its past while simultaneously building its future. In the 20 years since its inception, the company has born witness to a world that is becoming more fluid, more changeable, and more culturally interconnected than ever before—in other words, a world that is becoming more and more like Complexions itself.
Featuring choreography by Dwight Rhoden that "grabs the viewer by the eyeballs and refuses to let go" (Dance Magazine), Complexions celebrates its 20th Anniversary season by showcasing the diversity of its repertory and the brilliance of its artists. On a program of repertory favorites and premieres, Artistic Directors Rhoden and Desmond Richardson salute the company's inaugural 1994 performance with appearances by special guest artists, including the phenomenal Desmond Richardson. Highlights include the premiere of Rhoden's The Groove, set to the music of legendary New Orleans jazz musician Terence Blanchard, and Rhoden classics like Hissy Fits and Ave Maria. Completing the program are Surface, the 2008 work by Jae Man Joo, a new work by Marcelo Gomez, and the ballet Duo by William Forsythe.
Check out the group on facebook
Jubilant Sykes
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Jubilant Sykes (born in Los Angeles, California) is an (African)-American baritone. He has performed with Christopher Parkening and other artists, and has appeared in such venues as the Metropolitan Opera, Deutsche Oper Berlin, Carnegie Hall,[3] the Kennedy Center, London's Barbican Centre, the Apollo Theater, Hollywood Bowl, New Orleans Jazz Festival and hundreds of other major venues around the world.
Sykes performed the role of the Celebrant in the Grammy Award-nominated 2009 recording of Leonard Bernstein's Mass, with the Morgan State University Choir and Baltimore Symphony Orchestra under Marin Alsop, for Naxos Records.
Mary, Did You Know by Jubilant Sykes in Grace Community Churc
JUBILANT SYKES - "Were You There When They Crucified My L
A Gershwin Birthday Tribute! - Jubilant Sykes, Maureen McGovern,
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Jubilant Sykes (born in Los Angeles, California) is an (African)-American baritone. He has performed with Christopher Parkening and other artists, and has appeared in such venues as the Metropolitan Opera, Deutsche Oper Berlin, Carnegie Hall,[3] the Kennedy Center, London's Barbican Centre, the Apollo Theater, Hollywood Bowl, New Orleans Jazz Festival and hundreds of other major venues around the world.
Sykes performed the role of the Celebrant in the Grammy Award-nominated 2009 recording of Leonard Bernstein's Mass, with the Morgan State University Choir and Baltimore Symphony Orchestra under Marin Alsop, for Naxos Records.
Mary, Did You Know by Jubilant Sykes in Grace Community Churc
JUBILANT SYKES - "Were You There When They Crucified My L
A Gershwin Birthday Tribute! - Jubilant Sykes, Maureen McGovern,
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