HISTORICAL NEWS JOURNAL

POEMS
on Comic, Serious
and Moral Subjects
by Phyllis Wheatley

            Printed for J. French
                 bookseller (1784)

Ed. Note: We express our deep
sorrow at the death of Miss
Wheatley, who after an
unfortunate marriage to John
Peters (who neglected her and
her child), died a pauper, forced
to work in a boarding house to
provide for herself and her
family.

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     The Will

Among the Bequests of
George Fox, who Died Last
Year, are mentioned: 1 Negro
Man, 1 warming Pan, 1 old
looking glass, & 1 gun.

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     Wins Lottery,
     Buys Freedom

Newport Gardner, a slave in
Rhode Island, recently won
$2,000 in a lottery. The next
day Mr. Gardner bought himself
and most of his family.
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Collector's Sale

Let those who are careless
about the abolition of Slavery,
read the following advertisements:
Will be offered for public sale
Thursday next at Urqudart's
Tavern, in Friendship, one Negro
woman named Nelly, one girl
named Harriet, one boy named
William, and one named John
and three head of horses. Seized
and taken to satisfy county
taxes due for 1830 and 1831.
             ISRAEL DAVIDSON
              Maryland Republican
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Ran away, a NEGRO WOMAN
and two children: a few days
before she went off, I burnt her
with a hot iron, on the left side of
her face. I tried to make the letter
M.      Raleigh Standard
.............................................
Any person having sick Negroes,
considered incurable by their
respective physicians, and wishing
to dispose of them, Dr, Stillman
will pay cash......
                   Charleston Mercury




***The preceding were actual newspaper articles

Sojourner Truth - COMMUNITY CREATOR

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SOJOURNER TRUTH, an abolitionist and women's rights activist, was born a slave, Isabella Baumfree, in 1797, in upstate New York. She escaped to freedom with her baby daughter in 1827. A White family gave her shelter.

A year later, when New York outlawed slavery, she moved to New York City.

Baumfree was deeply religious. In 1843 she gave up her job as a maid and became a wandering preacher. She was determined to speak the truth. She gave herself the name Sojourner Truth. A sojourner is someone who travels from place to place. She told her friends, "The Spirit calls me, and I must go." 

Later that year she joined the abolitionist movement, traveling about speaking for the cause of freedom for all slaves. She worked with Frederick Douglass, William Lloyd Garrison and other noted abolitionists.

Like many abolitionists, Truth also fought for women's rights and as a result became a friend of Lucretia Mott, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, and other leaders of the women's movement. During the Civil War, she recruited Black soldiers for the Union army as well, as collect food and clothing which she gave to them.

Although she never learned to read or write, her words were powerful. Over the course of her lifetime she gave speeches to hundreds of audiences. In 1858 during one of her speeches, someone interrupted and accused her of being a man; Truth opened her blouse and showed them her breasts.
There was something about Sojourner Truth that made people listen.

To read the incredible bio of Sojourner Truth Google her name 

THE BLACK EXPERIENCE 101

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DID YOU KNOW THAT...


THIS PERSON WAS A DOCTOR WHO SPENT TWO YEARS WORKING WITH POOR PEOPLE IN AFRICA BEFORE GOING ON TO BECOME FAMOUS .



CAN YOU NAME THAT PERSON?

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Answer to previous quiz (10/18) Sojourner Truth

ANOTHER JAZZ LEGEND

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DIZZY GILLESPIE was born on this day in 1917, in Cheraw, South Carolina. He was a trumpet player, band leader and composer, and sometimes he even used his voice  as an instrument. Yeah, Dizzy was a singer too.

Dizzy, whose real name was John Birks Gillespie, learned to play several instruments from his musician father, James. He played the piano at the age of 4, took a liking to the trombone in his mid-teens, then he taught himself to play the trumpet. He received a scholarship to Laurinberg Institute in North Carolina where he studied harmony and theory for  two years.

Dizzy worked with local bands in Philadelphia in 1935,before getting his first professional job with the Frank Fairfax Orchestra. In 1937, at the young age of 20, he played in England and France with Teddy Hill, and soon made his first recording.

During his early years he also played with the likes of Cab Calloway, Roy Elderidge, Earl Hines, and Billy Eckstine.  At this time Dizzy began writing big band music for band leaders like Woody Herman and Jimmy Dorsey. He also started  experimenting with a more sophisticated approach to harmony and soon moved away from his early influences.

In 1945, Diz co-led a quintet with the legendary Charlie "Bird" Parker, and ushered in a new force in jazz, bebop, which became known as the first modern jazz style.

Always the innovator, Diz also was involved in the Afro-Cuban Movement, bringing those musical elements to a whole new audience of jazz, pop and dance listeners all over the globe.

A personality, as well as a master musician, Diz has received many honors in recognition of his contribution to the world of music.

                                                               

To read more of his remarkable story, Google his name

A JAZZ LEGEND

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JELLY ROLL MORTON was born on this day in 1890, in New Orleans, Louisiana, that is according to his baptismal certificate. Morton claimed that he was actually born on September 20, 1885.  Other documents list various days and dates, so it's not really clear. 

What is clear, however, is that he was a jazz pianist, bandleader, and composer. He is  most notable as jazz's first arranger.

Morton began his musical studies on the guitar at the age of 7, and 3 years later he took up the piano. While still in his teens, he was reputedly a working "professor" in the bordellos of New Orleans' Storyville district; there was always a demand for  "professors" at the piano in their many sporting-houses. Morton was one of the best.

He started with the Ragtime style, and developed it by bringing to it all that his huge musical memory stored. He played rhythms so subtle that critics who didn't understand his style, said he had no sense of timing.

Morton believed that the piano when played solo, should be able to emulate a whole band , and his solo compositions with his Morton's Red Hot Peppers band shows his belief being put incredibly, into practice.   

Morton produced a markedly individual piano sound, and composed jazz of a type that has never been bettered. He understood the music, he understood the instruments, and he wrote for the musicians he chose to play with him.

A series of recordings done with his band between 1926-30 firmly established him as a exemplary jazz composer, arranger, and leader.

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To read a full bio Goggle his name

JAZZ EVENTS

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NEW JERSEY
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William Patterson University presents it's 37th Season of THE JAZZ ROOM SERIES

For a complete schedule of events and a list of performers click on wppresents.org

JAZZ NOTES

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STYLES OF JAZZ

Since the last world war, every country has made some contribution to the music of jazz. As the music has spread across the globe, it has drawn on local, national and regional musical cultures in varied environments. This exposure has given rise to many distinctive styles. These different styles of jazz co-exist with each other, no matter which ones are in vogue at any given time.

Jazz, then, encompasses a loose collection of many streams.  Offshoots of some streams form streams of their own; sometimes streams remix; sometimes they consolidate by imitation of a particularly distinctive innovator. But more often, styles come from gradual overlapping of approaches and a host of influences that even the players themselves are frequently unaware of it.

Jazz and many of it's related styles have also been affected by almost all musical idioms to which it's players and composers have been exposed: folk and popular musics, "light classics," and even some not-so-light classics. Such influences have also gone in the other direction. American music of all kinds, and indeed, many of the world's music have felt Black influences at least since the 1860s.

As a result, jazz has spawned a variety of subgenres. These subgenres have their stylistic and cultural origins in the Blues, Folk, March, and Ragtime music of New Orleans. 

From the early 1910s we have Dixieland. Then there is the big band-style swing from the 30s and 40s, bebop from the mid-1940s, free jazz from the 50s and 60s, jazz fusion from the 70s, acid jazz from the 80s, Nujazz from the 90s, and so on.

As you explore these relationships between styles and genres, you will discover a remarkable continuity.  Jazz, however, cannot be accurately described as a single stream evolving from Dixieland to swing to bop. There is no neat line of succession, with each subsequent style rendering the previous one obsolete.

 By studying the history of jazz you will learn principles of stylistic evolution  that apply to all art forms, and not just jazz. By studying and listening to jazz it will lead you to related styles that you will also enjoy.