Syncopation:
A Harlem Renaissance Anthology
Bessie Smith
(April 15, 1894 – September 26, 1937) nicknamed "The Empress of the Blues”. Smith was born in Chattanooga, Tennessee and very quickly in her life she was without her father and mother (her father having died very early her life and her mother sometime after). With her family impoverished she took to the streets to sing and dance while her brother Andrew played guitar all for a few coins from the entrained passersby. In the early 1923 Smith was signed by Columbia and recorded her first “set”. She scored a big hit with her first release, a coupling of "Gulf Coast Blues" and "Downhearted Blues", which its composer Alberta Hunter had already turned into a hit on the Paramount label. Smith became a headliner on the black circuit and rose to become its top attraction in the 1920s. Working a heavy theater schedule during the winter months and doing tent tours the rest of the year (eventually traveling in her own railroad car), Smith became the highest-paid black entertainer of her day.Columbia nicknamed her "Queen of the Blues," but a PR-minded press soon upgraded her title to "Empress".On September 26, 1937 Smith was seriously injured in a car accident and later passed. Smith's funeral was held in Philadelphia a little over a week later on October 4, 1937. Her body was originally laid out at Upshur's funeral home. As word of her death spread through Philadelphia's black community, the body had to be moved to the O.V. Catto Elks Lodge to accommodate the estimated 10,000 mourners who filed past her coffin on Sunday, October 3.
"Need a Little Sugar in My Bowl"
"Do Your Duty"
"There’ll Be A Hot Time In The Old Town Tonight"
“Live in Berlin 1965”
(full concert)
“Nobody Knows the Trouble I’ve Seen”
Louis Armstrong
(August 4, 1901 – July 6, 1971) nicknamed Satchmo or Pops. Armstrong might be the most famous of the musicians to come out of the Harlem Renaissance. He was born in New Orleans, LA and to a very poor family. Armstrong was the grandson of a slave. He worked as a boy, hauling coal in New Orlean’s red-light district and was surrounded by the music and atmosphere of the jazz scene going on in the Louisiana nightlife. He learned to play coronet by ear around age eleven and thus began a long relationship with music. He moved to Chicago in the early 1920s and made several recordings in New York in the later years of the decade. In 1929, he made his first appearance on Broadway. In his recording of “Ain't Misbehavin”, he used a pop song, except that he interpreted it through jazz. This set the stage for the acceptance of jazz music in the musical mainstream for the future. In 1942, he married a dancer from the Cotton Club, where his band had performed many times, and all throughout the 1950's and 60's, Armstrong appeared in films and made many international tours.
“When the Saints Go Marchin’ In”
“What a Wonderful World”
Chick Webb
William Henry Webb (February 10, 1905 – June 16, 1939) born in Baltimore, Webb suffered from tuberculosis of the spine. he worked as a paperboy to earn enough money to buy his first drum set and became a professional jazz drummer at age eleven. At age seventeen he moved to New York City and began leading his own band in Harlem. He and his band found themselves booked as the house band for the Savoy Ballroom and he became on of the highest regarded bandleaders of “Swing”. At the Savoy Webb hosted “Battle of the Bands” and more than not won the battles and was given the nickname the “King of Swing”.
“Stompin’ At The Savoy”
“Midnight in a Madhouse”
“Don’t Be That Way”
Billie Holliday
Eleanora Fagan (April 7, 1915 – July 17, 1959) nicknamed “Lady Day”, she was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Billie (after a traumatic childhood) discovered the music of Louis Armstrong and Bessie Smith while working as an errand runner for a brothel. She found her way out of the brothels by singing in night clubs and eventually was signed to a record deal in 1935. She went on to record a great many songs and was the first black singer to be featured with a white orchestra. Her life and career suffered as drugs became a prevalent part of both worlds. She passed away from cirrhosis of the liver at age 44 but not before leaving her mark on the world. Critic John Bush once wrote that Holiday "changed the art of American pop vocals forever."
"Strange Fruit"
"Fine and Mellow"
"Please Don't Talk About Me When I'm Gone","Billie's Blues",and "My Man".
(Stars of Jazz 1956) Mini-Bio
“Fingerbuster”
Willie “The Lion” Smith
William Henry Joseph Bonaparte Bertholoff Smith (23 November 1893 – 18 April 1973) born Goshen, New York and when he was about six he discovered his mother’s organ in the family basement and so began his passion for music. He joined the army in 1917 and when the war ended he returned to Harlem where he played (largely as a soloist) many of the clubs and rent parties there. While he never really received the same kind of national press some of his friends did (Fats Waller and Duke Ellington) he was highly regarded by those musicians as “the man behind the Harlem stride” piano style.
“Perdido”
Willie “The Lion Smith”,
Duke Ellington and Billy Taylor
“Ain’t Misbehavin'/St. Luis Blues”
Jelly Roll Morton
Ferdinand Joseph LaMothe (October 20, 1890 – July 10, 1941)was born in New Orleans, LA. He started playing piano early on in life and at age fourteen he landed a gig playing and singing “smutty” lyrics at a local brothel (then called Sporting Houses). He got the nickname “Jelly Roll” while playing at the brothel (a sexual reference) and it stuck. Morton suffered a stab wound late into his career and through poor medical care his wound eventually claimed his life even though he continued to compose and record music.
“Wolverine Blues”
“Black Bottom Stomp”
“Boogaboo”
Duke Ellington
Edward Kennedy "Duke" Ellington (April 29, 1899 – May 24, 1974), born in Washington DC and moved to New York City in the mid-1920s. He was known as a “big band” composer and pianist but also brought elements of jazz and swing into his music and performed at the famed Cotton Club for much of the late 1920s. In the 1930s he toured with his orchestra and gained quite a bit of national recognition for his music. His career cooled off during the second world war but was revived again in the 1950s and he continued to work within the music industry up until his death including a performance at Northern Illinois University on March 20, 1974.
“The Mooche”
“Bundle of Blues”
1933
“Old Man Blues”
1930
(In the Cotton Club!)
Fats Waller
Thomas Wright "Fats" Waller
(May 21, 1904 – December 15, 1943) was born in New York City. The youngest of eleven children he started playing piano when he was six and at age fifteen he’d composed his first “rag”. Waller basically laid the groundwork for jazz piano as he expanded on the Harlem Stride Style. There's an unconfirmed story about how Waller was kidnapped after a show and take to an undisclosed location. When he arrived he was shown into a room full of people and told to play the piano. Supposedly it was a surprise party for the infamous gangster Al Capone. True or not the story only exemplifies the "bigger than life" person that Waller was.
“Honeysuckle Rose” (Grammy Hall of Fame)
“Ain’t Misbehavin’” (Grammy Hall of Fame)
"That Ain't Right"
Waller and Ada Brown
There were so many more incredible artists that called this era home that I wasn't able to include all. What's most important to remember is that music shifted because of these dedicated artists who sought to remake the world around them any way they possibly could. I can only leave you with a taste given us by Claude McKay in his book "Home to Harlem",
"The saxophone was moaning it. And feet and hands and mouths were acting it. Dancing. Some jigged, some shuffled, some walked, and some were glued together swaying on the dance floor."
