WE INTERRUPT THIS BLOG....

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ALL ENTRIES ON THIS BLOG WILL BE SUSPENDED UNTIL DECEMBER 6th.

 I AM OFFICIALLY WRITING A BOOK FOR NATIONAL NOVEL WRITER'S MONTH IN 

NOVEMBER. 

I WILL ALSO PARTICIPATE IN  THE 2014 NOVEMBER PAD CHAPBOOK CHALLENGE.

For info on these two events please log on to nanowrimo.org and writersdigest.com/editor-blogs/poetic-asides

                                                 SEE YOU HERE IN DECEMBER!!!

JAZZ NOTES

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THE INSTRUMENTS OF JAZZ

Many of the earliest jazz groups derived their instrumentation from the 

European brass band model that included trumpet, trombone, clarinet, saxophone, and tuba. Some of the bands in the earliest groups of New Orleans, used violin, guitar, bass, and occasionally, cornet or clarinet. These instruments and the style they played were basically European.

The Black fraternal bands that were plentiful in turn-of-the century New Orleans used  European brass band instrumentation, as they played marches and the pop tunes of the day for parades, picnics, funerals and dances.

As time went on most jazz groups began to include a drummer, who played a set of assorted instruments and provided almost continuous timekeeping sounds, as well as generating musical excitement.

Jazz has been played by solo pianists; by pianists in duo with cornet, with clarinet, with string bass; by piano with the accompaniment of string bass and drums; by quasi-brass bands of from five to eight pieces; by quartets and quintets of horns plus rhythm; by "big bands" of twelve to eighteen pieces, and by entire orchestras.

The instruments of jazz, as you can see are varied. A typical group of jazz musicians may have more or less of these as is necessary for their performance. Their main objective is to entertain. The music they play is presented in settings as varied as the instruments they use: concert halls, ballrooms, restaurants, night clubs, and coffee houses, just to name a few.

Jazz is played in hundreds of schools, universities and conservatories and has evolved into a fine and delicate art. It requires the musicians to create the parts they play with their instruments as they are playing them. This makes for excitement because the players are creating something unique in our very presence, and taking us along with them , involving us in the action of making up fresh sounds with their instruments.

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.

===========================
     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.

========================
     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.
===========================
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
...........................................
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?

====================================================
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