|
Monday, January 19, 2015
JAZZ EVENT - KANSAS CITY
Saturday, January 17, 2015
JAZZ EVENT - NEW YORK CITY
|
Thursday, January 15, 2015
BIRTH OF A KING
Martin Luther King Jr. was born on this day in 1929, in Atlanta, Georgia as Michael King Jr. He and his father Michael King Sr. adopted the name Martin Luther, after the religious figure who founded the Lutheran denomination.
King was a minister and civil rights leader. At the age of 26, he took up the leadership role that would fill the rest of his life. He furthered the stubborn determination of Black people to break down the barriers of a racist American society.
His strategy of non-violent protest brought the passage of legislation that changed America.
Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated on April 4, 1968.
.jpg)
To read the details of his life Google-search his name
King was a minister and civil rights leader. At the age of 26, he took up the leadership role that would fill the rest of his life. He furthered the stubborn determination of Black people to break down the barriers of a racist American society.
His strategy of non-violent protest brought the passage of legislation that changed America.
Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated on April 4, 1968.
To read the details of his life Google-search his name
Wednesday, January 14, 2015
THE BLACK EXPERIENCE 102
///////////////////////////////////////////
DID YOU KNOW?...THIS PERSON, WHO WAS A FAMOUS WRITER OF PIANO MUSIC, WAS KNOWN AS THE "KING OF RAGTIME."
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
///////////////////////////////////
CAN YOU NAME THAT PERSON?
\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\
\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\
Answer to previous quiz (12/27) BESSIE COLEMAN
DID YOU KNOW?...THIS PERSON, WHO WAS A FAMOUS WRITER OF PIANO MUSIC, WAS KNOWN AS THE "KING OF RAGTIME."
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
///////////////////////////////////
CAN YOU NAME THAT PERSON?
\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\
\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\
Answer to previous quiz (12/27) BESSIE COLEMAN
Bessie Coleman - COMMUNITY CREATOR
BESSIE COLEMAN was a pioneer in American aviation. The 10th of 13 siblings, she was born on January 26, 1892, in Atlanta, Texas, She went on to become the first Black female pilot, and the first Black woman in the U.S. to receive an international pilot's license.
In 1916, while working as a manicurist, her desire to become an aviator was fueled by the barbershop tales she heard from pilots about their exploits in World War 1.
She wanted to go to flying school to pursue her dream, but domestic flying school discrimination in the U.S. motivated her to go to Europe. She could not go to any American flight schools, because she was Black, and a woman, but she received financial support from a banker and in 1920 went to Europe, where she was trained to fly by French and German aviators.
Upon her return to the U.S., Coleman prospered in Chicago as an "exhibition flier" between 1922-26. She had hopes of starting a school to train Black aviators, but a tragic flying accident took her life in April 1926, at the age of 34.
Her pioneering achievements has inspired a generation of Black men and women to pursue careers in aviation, including MAE JEMISON, the first Black woman astronaut, who in 1992 carried a picture of Coleman with her on her historic mission in outer space.
.jpg)
To learn more on the life of Bessie Coleman Google-search her name.
To read a brief bio of Mae Jemison, click on jcdudley.blogspot.com and see the post of Tuesday, December 16, 2014: " Mae Jemison - Community Creator"
Monday, January 12, 2015
ANOTHER JAZZ LEGEND
+++++++++++++++
.jpg)
During the 1960s, McShann became popular as a singer and pianist, and was still performing at the age of 80. His recording career spanned over 60 years.
Jay McShann was born on this day in 1916, in Muskogee, Oklahoma. He was a musician, composer, and bandleader, who played jazz, blues, and swing music.
A the age of twenty he moved to Kansas City, Missouri, and a year later had formed his own band, the Jay McShann Orchestra, which featured among others, Charlie "Bird" Parker, Ben Webster, and the blues shouter, Jimmy Witherspoon, who wrote and recorded with the band.
During the 1960s, McShann became popular as a singer and pianist, and was still performing at the age of 80. His recording career spanned over 60 years.
He died in 2006 at the age of 90.
To read his complete bio Google-search his name
A JAZZ LEGEND
========================
.jpg)
Max Roach was born in Newland, North Carolina on either January 10, 1924 or January 8, 1925. The former date is listed on his birth certificate, the latter date is what his family believe was his true birth date. He was a jazz drummer, percussionist, composer, and music innovator.
Roach grew up in the Bedford-Stuyvesant section of Brooklyn, New York, in a musical home, as his mother was a gospel singer. So naturally he was introduced to music at an early age, and by the time he was 10 years old he was playing drums in a variety of gospel bands.
In the 1940s, as a teenager, Roach began to expand his musical horizons. In addition to working at Monroe's Uptown House in Harlem with Charlie Parker, he did a stint with the Duke Ellington Orchestra while they were in town at the Paramount Theater.
He had his first recording session in 1943 with Coleman Hawkins, and in 1944 played with Benny Carter's orchestra. From 1947-49 he played with Charlie Parker's landmark quintet.
Influenced and inspired by fellow jazz drummer, Kenny Clarke, ten years his senior, Max developed his own style and became the premier drummer in the bop movement.
In the fifties he was a regular at the Lighthouse in California before forming his own group with trumpeter Clifford Brown in 1954. That quintet set standards of excellence in the mid-fifties, at the height of the "hard bop" period. But then tragedy struck. Brown and pianist Richie Powell were killed in a car accident and it took Max some time to reorganize another band.
In the sixties, Roach fell from favor by introducing some campaigning for civil rights and racial equality into his musical compositions.
During the 1970s, Roach continued to lead his own combos, as well as, forming an orchestra, "M'Boom," with a group of percussion instrumentalists whose members both composed and performed with the unit. He also appeared as a solo performer, and as a teacher when he became Professor of Music at the University of Massachusetts.
Throughout the remainder of his career Max Roach continued to find new forms of musical expression. Always the innovator, he performed in entire solo concerts, recorded duet sessions in free improvisation with various avant-garde artists, like Archie Shepp and Cecil Taylor, and wrote music for plays, performed with dancers like the Alvin Ailey Dance Theater, and even performed in a hip-hop concert, but he always kept in contact with his musical roots. Tall, lean, erect and distinguished-looking well into his seventies, Roach played the drums with elegance and class.
All jazz drummers owe a debt to Max Roach for his persistence, high standards for drumming, virtuosity, and creativity, and his forward-thinking approach to jazz and it's future.
Max Roach died in August 2007.
For a more comprehensive view of his bio Google-search his name
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)