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166-972: The theatre was damaged by a fire in 1967 and was closed until 1971. After re-opening in January for Mahalia Jackson 's funeral, the Arie Crown has, for more than five decades, presented classical, R&B, and rock music, along with musicals and plays. Notable performers at the Arie Crown have included iconic stars such as Frank Sinatra , Judy Garland , Barbra Streisand , Ella Fitzgerald , Lena Horne , The Rolling Stones , Genesis , The Beach Boys , Simon & Garfunkel , Ray Charles , Aretha Franklin , Richard Pryor , Tina Turner , Liberace , Sammy Davis Jr. , Whitney Houston , Liza Minnelli , James Brown , Sonny & Cher , Patti LaBelle , Anita Baker , The Temptations , Tyler Perry , Gladys Knight , Diana Ross , Mary J. Blige , David Bowie , Chicago , and Katt Williams , among others. In more recent years,

332-446: A Cadillac she had purchased to make long trips more comfortable. Jackson remembered, "The looks of anger at the sight of us colored folks sitting in a nice car were frightening to see... It got so we were living on bags of fresh fruit during the day and driving half the night, and I was so exhausted by the time I was supposed to sing, I was almost dizzy." Jackson began to gain weight. She also developed peculiar habits regarding money. As

498-626: A "special relationship to time defined as 'swing ' ". Jazz involves "a spontaneity and vitality of musical production in which improvisation plays a role" and contains a "sonority and manner of phrasing which mirror the individuality of the performing jazz musician". A broader definition that encompasses different eras of jazz has been proposed by Travis Jackson: "it is music that includes qualities such as swing, improvising, group interaction, developing an 'individual voice', and being open to different musical possibilities". Krin Gibbard argued that "jazz

664-511: A $ 50,000-a-year (equivalent to $ 570,000 in 2023) four-year contract, and Jackson became the first gospel artist to sign with Columbia Records , a much larger company with the ability to promote her nationally. Miller attempted to make her repertoire more appealing to white listeners, asking her to record ballads and classical songs, but again she refused. "Rusty Old Halo" became her first Columbia single, and DownBeat declared Jackson "the greatest spiritual singer now alive". Columbia worked with

830-553: A Little Higher" was released in 1947, selling 50,000 copies in Chicago and two million nationwide. It landed at the number two spot on the Billboard charts for two weeks, another first for gospel music. The best any gospel artist could expect to sell was 100,000. Berman set Jackson up for another recording session, where she sang "Even Me" (one million sold), and "Dig a Little Deeper" (just under one million sold). Instantly Jackson

996-438: A Thanksgiving visit. In a very cold December, Jackson arrived in Chicago. For a week she was miserably homesick, unable to move off the couch until Sunday when her aunts took her to Greater Salem Baptist Church, an environment she felt at home in immediately, later stating it was "the most wonderful thing that ever happened to me". When the pastor called the congregation to witness, or declare one's experience with God, Jackson

1162-581: A bar, listening to her again and again. Decca said they would record her further if she sang blues, and once more Jackson refused. The Johnson Singers folded in 1938, but as the Depression lightened Jackson saved some money, earned a beautician's license from Madam C. J. Walker 's school, and bought a beauty salon in the heart of Bronzeville. It was almost immediately successful and the center of gospel activity. Singers, male and female, visited while Jackson cooked for large groups of friends and customers on

1328-531: A beat, a rhythm we held on to from slavery days, and their music was so strong and expressive. It used to bring tears to my eyes." When Jackson was five, her mother became ill and died, the cause unknown. Aunt Duke took in Jackson and her half-brother at another house on Esther Street. Duke was severe and strict, with a notorious temper. Jackson split her time between working, usually scrubbing floors and making moss-filled mattresses and cane chairs , playing along

1494-401: A black woman, Jackson found it often impossible to cash checks when away from Chicago. Her contracts therefore demanded she be paid in cash, often forcing her to carry tens of thousands of dollars in suitcases and in her undergarments. Each event in her career and personal life broke another racial barrier. She often asked ushers to allow white and black people to sit together, sometimes asking

1660-491: A blues player gave him extensive experience improvising and he encouraged Jackson to develop her skills during their performances by handing her lyrics and playing chords while she created melodies, sometimes performing 20 or more songs this way. She was able to emote and relate to audiences profoundly well; her goal was to "wreck" a church, or cause a state of spiritual pandemonium among the audience which she did consistently. At one event, in an ecstatic moment Dorsey jumped up from

1826-419: A chain of restaurants called Mahalia Jackson's Chicken Dinners and lent her name to a line of canned foods. She purchased a lavish condominium in Chicago overlooking Lake Michigan and set up room for Galloway, whom she was considering remarrying. At 58 years old, she returned to New Orleans, finally allowed to stay as a guest in the upscale Royal Orleans hotel, receiving red carpet treatment. She embarked on

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1992-488: A chemist working as a postman during the Depression. Impressed with his attention and manners, Jackson married him after a year-long courtship. Hockenhull's mother gave the couple 200 formulas for homemade hair and skincare products she had sold door to door. Hockenhull and Jackson made cosmetics in their kitchen and she sold jars when she traveled. It was not steady work, and the cosmetics did not sell well. At one point Hockenhull had been laid off and he and Jackson had less than

2158-559: A complete surprise to her closest friends and associates, Jackson married him in her living room in 1964. Only a few weeks later, while driving home from a concert in St. Louis, she found herself unable to stop coughing. She checked herself into a hospital in Chicago. Since the cancellation of her tour to Europe in 1952, Jackson experienced occasional bouts of fatigue and shortness of breath. As her schedule became fuller and more demands were placed on her, these episodes became more frequent. This time,

2324-523: A dollar between them. He saw that auditions for The Swing Mikado , a jazz-flavored retelling of the Gilbert and Sullivan opera , were taking place. He demanded she go; the role would pay $ 60 a week (equivalent to $ 1,317 in 2023). Plus, he saw no value in singing gospel. He did not consider it artful. He had repeatedly urged her to get formal training and put her voice to better use. She refused and they argued about it often. Wracked by guilt, she attended

2490-473: A drum made by stretching skin over a flour-barrel. Lavish festivals with African-based dances to drums were organized on Sundays at Place Congo, or Congo Square, in New Orleans until 1843. There are historical accounts of other music and dance gatherings elsewhere in the southern United States. Robert Palmer said of percussive slave music: Usually such music was associated with annual festivals, when

2656-456: A form of folk music which arose in part from the work songs and field hollers of African-American slaves on plantations. These work songs were commonly structured around a repetitive call-and-response pattern, but early blues was also improvisational. Classical music performance is evaluated more by its fidelity to the musical score , with less attention given to interpretation, ornamentation, and accompaniment. The classical performer's goal

2822-651: A fundraising rally to pay for protestors' bail. By this time she was a personal friend of King and his wife Coretta , often hosting them when they visited Chicago, and spending Thanksgiving with their family in Atlanta. King considered Jackson's house a place that he could truly relax. She appeared at the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom to sing "I've Been 'Buked and I've Been Scorned" on King's request, then " How I Got Over ". Three months later, while rehearsing for an appearance on Danny Kaye 's television show, Jackson

2988-515: A greater person." While touring Europe months later, Jackson became ill in Germany and flew home to Chicago where she was hospitalized. In January 1972, she received surgery to remove a bowel obstruction and died in recovery. Although news outlets had reported on her health problems and concert postponements for years, her death came as a shock to many of her fans. She received a funeral service at Greater Salem Baptist Church in Chicago where she

3154-469: A keen instinct for music, her delivery marked by extensive improvisation with melody and rhythm. She was renowned for her powerful contralto voice, range, an enormous stage presence, and her ability to relate to her audiences, conveying and evoking intense emotion during performances. Passionate and at times frenetic, she wept and demonstrated physical expressions of joy while singing. Her success brought about international interest in gospel music, initiating

3320-410: A limited melodic range, sounding like a field holler, and the guitar accompaniment was slapped rather than strummed, like a small drum which responded in syncopated accents, functioning as another "voice". Handy and his band members were formally trained African-American musicians who had not grown up with the blues, yet he was able to adapt the blues to a larger band instrument format and arrange them in

3486-588: A local radio affiliate in Chicago to create a half hour radio program, The Mahalia Jackson Show . Although it got an overwhelmingly positive reception and producers were eager to syndicate it nationally, it was cut to ten minutes long, then canceled. She appeared on a local television program, also titled The Mahalia Jackson Show , which again got a positive reception but was canceled for lack of sponsors. Despite white people beginning to attend her shows and sending fan letters, executives at CBS were concerned they would lose advertisers from Southern states who objected to

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3652-465: A member of a Sanctified Church in Mount Vernon once told me: 'Mahalia, she add more flowers and feathers than anybody, and they all is exactly right.' She breaks every rule of concert singing, taking breaths in the middle of a word and sometimes garbling the words altogether, but the full-throated feeling and expression are seraphic." Writer Ralph Ellison noted how she blended precise diction with

3818-457: A military and police guard, and 60,000 people viewed her casket. On the way to Providence Memorial Park in Metairie, Louisiana , the funeral procession passed Mount Moriah Baptist Church, where her music was played over loudspeakers. [Jackson would] sometimes build a song up and up, singing the words over and over to increase their intensity... Like Bessie, she would slide up or slur down to

3984-571: A missionary in St. Louis Blues (1958), and a funeral singer in Imitation of Life (1959). As demand for her rose, she traveled extensively, performing 200 dates a year for ten years. She and her entourage of singers and accompanists toured deeper into the South, encountering difficulty finding safe, clean places to sleep, eat, and buy gas due to Jim Crow laws . Sometimes they had to sleep in Jackson's car,

4150-460: A multi- strain ragtime march with four parts that feature recurring themes and a bass line with copious seventh chords . Its structure was the basis for many other rags, and the syncopations in the right hand, especially in the transition between the first and second strain, were novel at the time. The last four measures of Scott Joplin's "Maple Leaf Rag" (1899) are shown below. African-based rhythmic patterns such as tresillo and its variants,

4316-555: A music producer who arranged a session with Decca Records . She recorded four singles: "God's Gonna Separate the Wheat From the Tares", "You Sing On, My Singer", "God Shall Wipe Away All Tears", and "Keep Me Every Day". Jackson told neither her husband or Aunt Hannah, who shared her house, of this session. The records' sales were weak, but were distributed to jukeboxes in New Orleans, one of which Jackson's entire family huddled around in

4482-983: A neighborhood in the South Side into Bronzeville , a black city within a city which was mostly self sufficient, prosperous, and teeming in the 1920s. This movement caused white flight with whites moving to suburbs, leaving established white churches and synagogues with dwindling members. Their mortgages were taken over by black congregations in good position to settle in Bronzeville. Members of these churches were, in Jackson's term, "society Negroes" who were well educated and eager to prove their successful assimilation into white American society. Musical services tended to be formal, presenting solemnly delivered hymns written by Isaac Watts and other European composers. Shouting and clapping were generally not allowed as they were viewed as undignified. Special programs and musicals tended to feature sophisticated choral arrangements to prove

4648-556: A new Buick for her that he promptly stopped paying for. She paid for it entirely, then learned he had used it as collateral for a loan when she saw it being repossessed in the middle of the day on the busiest street in Bronzeville. They divorced amicably. Each engagement Jackson took was farther from Chicago in a nonstop string of performances. In 1946 she appeared at the Golden Gate Ballroom in Harlem . In attendance

4814-571: A night. Steady work became a second priority to singing. Jackson began calling herself a "fish and bread singer", working for herself and God. She made her first recordings in 1931, singles that she intended to sell at National Baptist Convention meetings, though she was mostly unsuccessful. But as her audiences grew each Sunday, she began to get hired as a soloist to sing at funerals and political rallies for Louis B. Anderson and William L. Dawson . In 1932, on Dawson's request, she sang for Franklin D. Roosevelt 's presidential campaign. She had become

4980-429: A note. She would also break up a word into as many syllables as she cared to, or repeat and prolong an ending to make it more effective: "His love is deeper and deeper, yes deeper and deeper, it's deeper! and deeper, Lord! deeper and deeper, Lord! it's deeper than the se-e-e-e-a, yeah, oh my lordy, yeah deeper than the sea, Lord." And the last two words would be a dozen syllables each. – Author Hettie Jones Though

5146-610: A part of this man's hopes. He lifts my spirit and makes me feel a part of the land I live in." Her clout and loyalty to Kennedy earned her an invitation to sing " The Star-Spangled Banner " at his inaugural ball in 1961. Months later, she helped raise $ 50,000 for the Southern Christian Leadership Conference . Jackson lent her support to King and other ministers in 1963 after their successful campaign to end segregation in Birmingham by holding

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5312-518: A pitch which he called a 'jazz ball' "because it wobbles and you simply can't do anything with it". The use of the word in a musical context was documented as early as 1915 in the Chicago Daily Tribune . Its first documented use in a musical context in New Orleans was in a November 14, 1916, Times-Picayune article about "jas bands". In an interview with National Public Radio , musician Eubie Blake offered his recollections of

5478-660: A popular music form. Handy wrote about his adopting of the blues: The primitive southern Negro, as he sang, was sure to bear down on the third and seventh tone of the scale, slurring between major and minor. Whether in the cotton field of the Delta or on the Levee up St. Louis way, it was always the same. Till then, however, I had never heard this slur used by a more sophisticated Negro, or by any white man. I tried to convey this effect ... by introducing flat thirds and sevenths (now called blue notes) into my song, although its prevailing key

5644-623: A program with a black person as the primary focus. If they're Christians, how in the world can they object to me singing hymns? How in the world can they take offense to that? In the name of the Lord, what kind of people could feel that way? – Mahalia Jackson Jackson attracted the attention of the William Morris Agency , a firm that promoted her by booking her in large concert halls and television appearances with Arthur Godfrey , Dinah Shore , Bing Crosby , and Perry Como in

5810-638: A quartet, the Johnson Singers, with Prince as the pianist: Chicago's first black gospel group. Initially they hosted familiar programs singing at socials and Friday night musicals. They wrote and performed moral plays at Greater Salem with offerings going toward the church. Jackson's arrival in Chicago occurred during the Great Migration , a massive movement of black Southerners to Northern cities. Between 1910 and 1970, hundreds of thousands of rural Southern blacks moved to Chicago, transforming

5976-625: A recording artist", but Heilbut calls her Columbia recordings of " When the Saints Go Marching In " and " The Lord's Prayer ", "uneventful material". Jackson agreed somewhat, acknowledging that her sound was being commercialized, calling some of these recordings "sweetened-water stuff". When the themes of her songs were outwardly religious, some critics felt the delivery was at times less lively. John Hammond, who helped secure Jackson's contract with Columbia, told her if she signed with them many of her black fans would not relate well to

6142-453: A seasoned blues musician trying to transition to gospel music, trained Jackson for two months, persuading her to sing slower songs to maximize their emotional effect. Dorsey had a motive: he needed a singer to help sell his sheet music . He recruited Jackson to stand on Chicago street corners with him and sing his songs, hoping to sell them for ten cents a page. It was not the financial success Dorsey hoped for, but their collaboration resulted in

6308-652: A significant amount of weight during the tour, finally having to cancel. When she returned to the U.S., she had a hysterectomy and doctors found numerous granulomas in her abdomen. She was diagnosed with sarcoidosis , a systemic inflammatory disease caused by immune cells forming lumps in organs throughout the body. Sarcoidosis is not curable, though it can be treated, and following the surgery, Jackson's doctors were cautiously optimistic that with treatment she could carry on as normal. In 1954, Jackson learned that Berman had been withholding royalties and had allowed her contract with Apollo to expire. Mitch Miller offered her

6474-583: A steady flow of traffic that she welcomed. Jackson had thoroughly enjoyed cooking since childhood, and took great pleasure in feeding all of her visitors, some of them staying days or weeks on her request. Through friends, Jackson met Sigmond Galloway, a former musician in the construction business living in Gary, Indiana . Despite Jackson's hectic schedule and the constant companions she had in her entourage of musicians, friends, and family, she expressed loneliness and began courting Galloway when she had free time. As

6640-400: A strange effect on the secularists present, who were won over to Mahalia if not to her message. Most of them were amazed at the length of time after the concert during which the sound of her voice remained active in the mind." Jackson explained that as God worked through her she became more impassioned during a song, and that what she felt was right to do in the moment was what was necessary for

6806-406: A stroke while standing in the sun on a Chicago street. Jackson pleaded with God to spare him, swearing she would never go to a theater again. He survived and Jackson kept her promise, refusing to attend as a patron and rejecting opportunities to sing in theaters for her entire career. She furthermore vowed to sing gospel exclusively despite intense pressure. In 1935, Jackson met Isaac "Ike" Hockenhull,

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6972-461: A talented black operatic tenor for a professional assessment of her voice. She was dismayed when the professor chastised her: "You've got to learn to stop hollering. It will take time to build up your voice. The way you sing is not a credit to the Negro race. You've got to learn to sing songs so that white people can understand them." Soon Jackson found the mentor she was seeking. Thomas A. Dorsey ,

7138-458: A thick New Orleans accent, describing the effect as "almost of the academy one instant, and of the broadest cotton field dialect the next". By her own admission and in the opinion of multiple critics and scholars, Bessie Smith's singing style was clearly dominant in Jackson's voice. In Melody Maker , Max Jones contrasted the two: "Whereas Bessie's singing can sound harsh and unlovely, even to jazz students, on first acquaintance, Mahalia's voice

7304-581: A tour of Europe in 1968, which she cut short for health reasons, but she returned in 1969 to adoring audiences. Now experiencing inflammation in her eyes and painful cramps in her legs and hands, she undertook successful tours of the Caribbean , still counting the house to ensure she was being paid fairly, and Liberia in West Africa. In 1971, Jackson made television appearances with Johnny Cash and Flip Wilson . For three weeks she toured Japan, becoming

7470-426: A two-burner stove in the rear of the salon. It was located across the street from Pilgrim Baptist Church , where Thomas Dorsey had become music director. Dorsey proposed a series of performances to promote his music and her voice and she agreed. They toured off and on until 1951. It was regular and, they felt, necessary work. Dorsey accompanied Jackson on piano, often writing songs specifically for her. His background as

7636-420: A viable way to attract and keep new members. When she first arrived in Chicago, Jackson dreamed of being a nurse or a teacher, but before she could enroll in school she had to take over Aunt Hannah's job when she became ill. Jackson became a laundress and took a series of domestic and factory jobs while the Johnson Singers began to make a meager living, earning from $ 1.50 to $ 8 (equivalent to $ 27 to $ 146 in 2023)

7802-574: A way to spread a Christian message to nonbelievers. Jackson appeared at the Newport Jazz Festival in 1957 and 1958, and in the latter's concert film , Jazz on a Summer's Day (1959). Her continued television appearances with Steve Allen , Red Skelton , Milton Berle , and Jimmy Durante kept her in high demand. She toured Europe again in 1961 with incredible success, mobbed in several cities and needing police escorts. All dates in Germany were sold out weeks in advance. In Essen , she

7968-739: A wig with her robes went awry during a show in the 1950s when she sang so frenetically she flung it off mid-performance. Anthony Heilbut writes that "some of her gestures are dramatically jerky, suggesting instant spirit possession", and called her performances "downright terrifying. At her best, Mahalia builds these songs to a frenzy of intensity almost demanding a release in holler and shout. When singing them she may descend to her knees, her combs scattering like so many cast-out demons." Jackson defended her idiosyncrasies, commenting: "How can you sing of amazing grace, how can you sing prayerfully of heaven and earth and all God's wonders without using your hands? My hands, my feet, I throw my whole body to say all that

8134-454: Is a construct" which designates "a number of musics with enough in common to be understood as part of a coherent tradition". Duke Ellington , one of jazz's most famous figures, said, "It's all music." Although jazz is considered difficult to define, in part because it contains many subgenres, improvisation is one of its defining elements. The centrality of improvisation is attributed to the influence of earlier forms of music such as blues ,

8300-693: Is a fundamental rhythmic figure heard in many different slave musics of the Caribbean, as well as the Afro-Caribbean folk dances performed in New Orleans Congo Square and Gottschalk's compositions (for example "Souvenirs From Havana" (1859)). Tresillo (shown below) is the most basic and most prevalent duple-pulse rhythmic cell in sub-Saharan African music traditions and the music of the African Diaspora . Tresillo

8466-558: Is a reminder of "an oppressive and racist society and restrictions on their artistic visions". Amiri Baraka argues that there is a "white jazz" genre that expresses whiteness . White jazz musicians appeared in the Midwest and in other areas throughout the U.S. Papa Jack Laine , who ran the Reliance band in New Orleans in the 1910s, was called "the father of white jazz". The Original Dixieland Jazz Band , whose members were white, were

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8632-493: Is heard prominently in New Orleans second line music and in other forms of popular music from that city from the turn of the 20th century to present. "By and large the simpler African rhythmic patterns survived in jazz ... because they could be adapted more readily to European rhythmic conceptions," jazz historian Gunther Schuller observed. "Some survived, others were discarded as the Europeanization progressed." In

8798-497: Is obviously an instrument of uncommon beauty... Her bursts of power and sudden rhythmic drives build up to a pitch that leave you unprepared to listen afterwards to any but the greatest of musicians." Other singers made their mark. In her early days in Chicago, Jackson saved her money to buy records by classical singers Roland Hayes , Grace Moore , and Lawrence Tibbett , attributing her diction, breathing, and she said, "what little I know of technique" to these singers. Improvisation

8964-482: Is the way we sing down South!" The minister was not alone in his apprehension. She was often so involved in singing she was mostly unaware how she moved her body. To hide her movements, pastors urged her to wear loose fitting robes which she often lifted a few inches from the ground, and they accused her of employing "snake hips" while dancing when the spirit moved her. Enduring another indignity, Jackson scraped together four dollars (equivalent to $ 71 in 2023) to pay

9130-437: Is to play the composition as it was written. In contrast, jazz is often characterized by the product of interaction and collaboration, placing less value on the contribution of the composer, if there is one, and more on the performer. The jazz performer interprets a tune in individual ways, never playing the same composition twice. Depending on the performer's mood, experience, and interaction with band members or audience members,

9296-474: Is within me. The mind and the voice by themselves are not sufficient." Jazz Jazz is a music genre that originated in the African-American communities of New Orleans , Louisiana , in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, with its roots in blues , ragtime , European harmony , African rhythmic rituals, spirituals , hymns , marches , vaudeville song, and dance music . Since

9462-530: The Apollo Theater and Village Vanguard , where she was promised $ 5,000 a week (equivalent to $ 60,000 in 2023). The next year promoter Joe Bostic approached her to perform in a gospel music revue at Carnegie Hall , a venue most often reserved for classical and well established artists such as Benny Goodman and Duke Ellington . Jackson was intimidated by this offer and dreaded the approaching date. Gospel had never been performed at Carnegie. Jackson

9628-625: The Atlantic slave trade had brought nearly 400,000 Africans to North America. The slaves came largely from West Africa and the greater Congo River basin and brought strong musical traditions with them. The African traditions primarily use a single-line melody and call-and-response pattern, and the rhythms have a counter-metric structure and reflect African speech patterns. An 1885 account says that they were making strange music (Creole) on an equally strange variety of 'instruments'—washboards, washtubs, jugs, boxes beaten with sticks or bones and

9794-617: The Dixieland jazz revival of the 1940s, Black musicians rejected it as being shallow nostalgia entertainment for white audiences. On the other hand, traditional jazz enthusiasts have dismissed bebop, free jazz, and jazz fusion as forms of debasement and betrayal. An alternative view is that jazz can absorb and transform diverse musical styles. By avoiding the creation of norms, jazz allows avant-garde styles to emerge. For some African Americans, jazz has drawn attention to African-American contributions to culture and history. For others, jazz

9960-604: The acoustics have been improved by changing the proportions of the auditorium and staging area, and this has reduced the seating capacity to 4,188 people. This article related to a building or structure in Chicago is a stub . You can help Misplaced Pages by expanding it . This United States theatre–related article is a stub . You can help Misplaced Pages by expanding it . Mahalia Jackson Mahalia Jackson ( / m ə ˈ h eɪ l i ə / mə- HAY -lee-ə ; born Mahala Jackson ; October 26, 1911 – January 27, 1972)

10126-471: The civil rights movement , singing for fundraisers and at the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom in 1963. She was a vocal and loyal supporter of Martin Luther King Jr. and a personal friend of his family. Throughout her career, Jackson faced intense pressure to record secular music , but she turned down high-paying opportunities to concentrate on gospel. Completely self-taught, Jackson had

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10292-495: The levees catching fish and crabs and singing with other children, and spending time at Mount Moriah Baptist Church where her grandfather sometimes preached. The full-time minister there gave sermons with a sad "singing tone" that Jackson later said would penetrate to her heart, crediting it with strongly influencing her singing style. Church became a home to Jackson where she found music and safety; she often fled there to escape her aunt's moods. She attended McDonough School 24, but

10458-689: The ongoing bus boycott . She and Mildred Falls stayed at Abernathy's house in a room that was bombed four months later. After hearing that black children in Virginia were unable to attend school due to integration conflicts , she threw them an ice cream party from Chicago, singing to them over a telephone line attached to a public address system . She similarly supported a group of black sharecroppers in Tennessee facing eviction for voting. As gospel music became more popular – primarily due to her influence – singers began appearing at non-religious venues as

10624-432: The "Golden Age of Gospel" making it possible for many soloists and vocal groups to tour and record. Popular music as a whole felt her influence and she is credited with inspiring rhythm and blues , soul , and rock and roll singing styles. Mahalia Jackson was born to Charity Clark and Johnny Jackson, a stevedore and weekend barber. Clark and Jackson were unmarried, a common arrangement among black women in New Orleans at

10790-502: The "I". Duke hosted Charity and their five other sisters and children in her leaky three-room shotgun house on Water Street in New Orleans' Sixteenth Ward . The family called Charity's daughter "Halie"; she counted as the 13th person living in Aunt Duke's house. As Charity's sisters found employment as maids and cooks, they left Duke's, though Charity remained with her daughter, Mahalia's half-brother Peter, and Duke's son Fred. Mahalia

10956-411: The 1920s Jazz Age , it has been recognized as a major form of musical expression in traditional and popular music . Jazz is characterized by swing and blue notes , complex chords , call and response vocals , polyrhythms and improvisation . As jazz spread around the world, it drew on national, regional, and local musical cultures, which gave rise to different styles. New Orleans jazz began in

11122-451: The 1950s, many women jazz instrumentalists were prominent, some sustaining long careers. Some of the most distinctive improvisers, composers, and bandleaders in jazz have been women. Trombonist Melba Liston is acknowledged as the first female horn player to work in major bands and to make a real impact on jazz, not only as a musician but also as a respected composer and arranger, particularly through her collaborations with Randy Weston from

11288-416: The 1950s. Her reverence and upbeat, positive demeanor made her desirable to progressive producers and hosts eager to feature a black person on television. She appeared at the 1956 Democratic National Convention , silencing a rowdy hall of attendees with "I See God". Miller, who was in attendance, was awed by it, noting "there wasn't a dry eye in the house when she got through". Jackson broke into films playing

11454-500: The 1950s. Her singing is lively, energetic, and emotional, using "a voice in the prime of its power and command", according to author Bob Darden. Although hearing herself on Decca recordings years later prompted Jackson to declare they are "not very good", Viv Broughton calls "Keep Me Every Day" a "gospel masterpiece", and Anthony Heilbut praises its "wonderful artless purity and conviction", saying that in her Decca records, her voice "was at its loveliest, rich and resonant, with little of

11620-476: The 21st century, such as Latin and Afro-Cuban jazz . The origin of the word jazz has resulted in considerable research, and its history is well documented. It is believed to be related to jasm , a slang term dating back to 1860 meaning ' pep, energy ' . The earliest written record of the word is in a 1912 article in the Los Angeles Times in which a minor league baseball pitcher described

11786-572: The Black middle-class. Blues is the name given to both a musical form and a music genre, which originated in African-American communities of primarily the Deep South of the United States at the end of the 19th century from their spirituals , work songs , field hollers , shouts and chants and rhymed simple narrative ballads . The African use of pentatonic scales contributed to

11952-464: The Caribbean. African-based rhythmic patterns were retained in the United States in large part through "body rhythms" such as stomping, clapping, and patting juba dancing . In the opinion of jazz historian Ernest Borneman , what preceded New Orleans jazz before 1890 was "Afro-Latin music", similar to what was played in the Caribbean at the time. A three-stroke pattern known in Cuban music as tresillo

12118-737: The Mahalia Jackson Foundation which eventually paid tuition for 50 college students, and the culmination of a dream she had for ten years: a nondenominational temple for young people in Chicago to learn gospel music. As she organized two large benefit concerts for these causes, she was once more heartbroken upon learning of the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. She attended the funeral in Atlanta where she gave one of her most memorable performances of " Take My Hand, Precious Lord ". With this, Jackson retired from political work and personal endorsements. Branching out into business, Jackson partnered with comedian Minnie Pearl in

12284-525: The Pentecostal congregation she heard as a child, saying Jackson was "never a Baptist singer". He continues: "bending a note here, chopping off a note there, singing through rest spots and ornamenting the melodic line at will, [Jackson] confused pianists but fascinated those who played by ear". Bucklin Moon was enamored with her singing, writing that the embellishments Jackson added "take your breath away. As

12450-577: The Power of the Holy Ghost Fall on Me", and "I'm Glad Salvation is Free" as prime examples of the "majesty" of Jackson's voice. According to musicologist Wilfrid Mellers , Jackson's early recordings demonstrate a "sound that is all-embracing, as secure as the womb, from which singer and listener may be reborn. The breathtaking beauty of the voice and superbly controlled transitions from speech to prayer to song heal and anneal." Columbia Records, then

12616-665: The Starlight Roof at the famed Waldorf-Astoria Hotel . He entertained audiences with a light elegant musical style which remained popular with audiences for nearly three decades from the 1930s until the late 1950s. Jazz originated in the late-19th to early-20th century. It developed out of many forms of music, including blues , ragtime , European harmony , African rhythmic rituals, spirituals , hymns , marches , vaudeville song, and dance music . It also incorporated interpretations of American and European classical music, entwined with African and slave folk songs and

12782-589: The U.S. Female jazz performers and composers have contributed to jazz throughout its history. Although Betty Carter , Ella Fitzgerald , Adelaide Hall , Billie Holiday , Peggy Lee , Abbey Lincoln , Anita O'Day , Dinah Washington , and Ethel Waters were recognized for their vocal talent, less familiar were bandleaders, composers, and instrumentalists such as pianist Lil Hardin Armstrong , trumpeter Valaida Snow , and songwriters Irene Higginbotham and Dorothy Fields . Women began playing instruments in jazz in

12948-581: The UK, traded there among jazz fans, earning Jackson a cult following on both sides of the Atlantic, and she was invited to tour Europe. Jackson had her first television appearance on Toast of the Town with Ed Sullivan in 1952. As she prepared to embark on her first tour of Europe, she began having difficulty breathing during and after performances and had severe abdominal cramping. She continued with her plans for

13114-517: The Watts' hymns like she was back in a slave cabin. They say that, in her time, Mahalia Jackson could wreck a church in minutes flat and keep it that way for hours on end." – Author Viv Broughton In live performances, Jackson was renowned for her physicality and the extraordinary emotional connections she held with her audiences. The New York Times stated she was a "massive, stately, even majestic woman, [who] possessed an awesome presence that

13280-425: The attention of jazz fans in the U.S. and France, and she became the first gospel recording artist to tour Europe. She regularly appeared on television and radio, and performed for many presidents and heads of state, including singing the national anthem at John F. Kennedy 's Inaugural Ball in 1961. Motivated by her experiences living and touring in the South and integrating a Chicago neighborhood, she participated in

13446-663: The audience. As her career advanced, she found it difficult to adjust to the time constraints in recording and television appearances, saying: "When I sing I don't go by the score. I lose something when I do. I don't want to be told I can sing just so long. I make it 'til that passion is passed. When I become conscious, I can't do it good." Jackson estimated that she sold 22 million records in her career. Her four singles for Decca and seventy-one for Apollo are widely acclaimed by scholars as defining gospel blues. The earliest are marked by minimal accompaniment with piano and organ. Apollo added acoustic guitar, backup singers, bass, and drums in

13612-403: The audiences to integrate themselves by telling them that they were all Christian brothers and sisters. After years of receiving complaints about being loud when she practiced in her apartment, even in the building she owned, Jackson bought a house in the all-white Chatham Village neighborhood of Chicago. When this news spread, she began receiving death threats. The day she moved in her front window

13778-412: The audition, later calling the experience "miserable" and "painful". When she got home she learned that the role was offered to her, but when Hockenhull informed her he also secured a job she immediately rejected the role to his disbelief. She furthermore turned down Louis Armstrong and Earl "Fatha" Hines when they offered her jobs singing with their bands. In 1937, Jackson met Mayo "Ink" Williams ,

13944-552: The blues are undocumented, though they can be seen as the secular counterpart of the spirituals. However, as Gerhard Kubik points out, whereas the spirituals are homophonic , rural blues and early jazz "was largely based on concepts of heterophony ". During the early 19th century an increasing number of black musicians learned to play European instruments, particularly the violin, which they used to parody European dance music in their own cakewalk dances. In turn, European American minstrel show performers in blackface popularized

14110-423: The church, they were expected to attend services, participate in activities there, and follow a code of conduct: no jazz, no card games , and no "high life": drinking or visiting bars or juke joints . Dancing was only allowed in the church when one was moved by the spirit. The adult choir at Plymouth Rock sang traditional Protestant hymns , typically written by Isaac Watts and his contemporaries. Jackson enjoyed

14276-555: The development of blue notes in blues and jazz. As Kubik explains: Many of the rural blues of the Deep South are stylistically an extension and merger of basically two broad accompanied song-style traditions in the west central Sudanic belt: W. C. Handy became interested in folk blues of the Deep South while traveling through the Mississippi Delta. In this folk blues form, the singer would improvise freely within

14442-434: The early 1910s, combining earlier brass band marches, French quadrilles , biguine , ragtime and blues with collective polyphonic improvisation . However, jazz did not begin as a single musical tradition in New Orleans or elsewhere. In the 1930s, arranged dance-oriented swing big bands , Kansas City jazz (a hard-swinging, bluesy, improvisational style), and gypsy jazz (a style that emphasized musette waltzes) were

14608-509: The early 1920s, drawing particular recognition on piano. When male jazz musicians were drafted during World War II, many all-female bands replaced them. The International Sweethearts of Rhythm , which was founded in 1937, was a popular band that became the first all-female integrated band in the U.S. and the first to travel with the USO , touring Europe in 1945. Women were members of the big bands of Woody Herman and Gerald Wilson . Beginning in

14774-480: The education of freed African Americans. Although strict segregation limited employment opportunities for most blacks, many were able to find work in entertainment. Black musicians were able to provide entertainment in dances, minstrel shows , and in vaudeville , during which time many marching bands were formed. Black pianists played in bars, clubs, and brothels, as ragtime developed. Ragtime appeared as sheet music, popularized by African-American musicians such as

14940-439: The education of several young people as she felt poignant regret that her own schooling was cut short. Stories of her gifts and generosity spread. Her phone number continued to be listed in the Chicago public telephone book, and she received calls nonstop from friends, family, business associates, and strangers asking for money, advice on how to break into the music industry, or general life decisions they should make. Her house had

15106-556: The entertainer Ernest Hogan , whose hit songs appeared in 1895. Two years later, Vess Ossman recorded a medley of these songs as a banjo solo known as "Rag Time Medley". Also in 1897, the white composer William Krell published his " Mississippi Rag " as the first written piano instrumental ragtime piece, and Tom Turpin published his "Harlem Rag", the first rag published by an African-American. Classically trained pianist Scott Joplin produced his " Original Rags " in 1898 and, in 1899, had an international hit with " Maple Leaf Rag ",

15272-472: The first Western singer since the end of World War II to give a private concert for the Imperial Family . The U.S. State Department sponsored a visit to India, where she played Kolkata, New Delhi, Madras, and Mumbai, all of them sold out within two hours. In New Delhi, she had an unexpected audience with Prime Minister Indira Gandhi who declared, "I will never hear a greater voice; I will never know

15438-459: The first jazz group to record, and Bix Beiderbecke was one of the most prominent jazz soloists of the 1920s. The Chicago Style was developed by white musicians such as Eddie Condon , Bud Freeman , Jimmy McPartland , and Dave Tough . Others from Chicago such as Benny Goodman and Gene Krupa became leading members of swing during the 1930s. Many bands included both Black and white musicians. These musicians helped change attitudes toward race in

15604-415: The first written music which was rhythmically based on an African motif (1803). From the perspective of African-American music, the "habanera rhythm" (also known as "congo"), "tango-congo", or tango . can be thought of as a combination of tresillo and the backbeat . The habanera was the first of many Cuban music genres which enjoyed periods of popularity in the United States and reinforced and inspired

15770-405: The gospel blues style Jackson employed was common among soloists in black churches, to many white jazz fans it was novel. As she was the most prominent — and sometimes the only gospel singer many white listeners knew — she often received requests to define the style and explain how and why she sang as she did. Jackson was mostly untrained, never learning to read or write musical notation, so her style

15936-532: The habanera rhythm and cinquillo , are heard in the ragtime compositions of Joplin and Turpin. Joplin's " Solace " (1909) is generally considered to be in the habanera genre: both of the pianist's hands play in a syncopated fashion, completely abandoning any sense of a march rhythm. Ned Sublette postulates that the tresillo/habanera rhythm "found its way into ragtime and the cakewalk," whilst Roberts suggests that "the habanera influence may have been part of what freed black music from ragtime's European bass". In

16102-424: The influences of West African culture. Its composition and style have changed many times throughout the years with each performer's personal interpretation and improvisation, which is also one of the greatest appeals of the genre. By the 18th century, slaves in the New Orleans area gathered socially at a special market, in an area which later became known as Congo Square , famous for its African dances. By 1866,

16268-460: The instruments of jazz: brass, drums, and reeds tuned in the European 12-tone scale. Small bands contained a combination of self-taught and formally educated musicians, many from the funeral procession tradition. These bands traveled in black communities in the deep south. Beginning in 1914, Louisiana Creole and African-American musicians played in vaudeville shows which carried jazz to cities in

16434-434: The largest recording company in the U.S., presented Jackson as the "World's Greatest Gospel Singer" in the 28 albums they released. She was marketed to appeal to a wide audience of listeners who, despite all her accomplishments up to 1954, had never heard of her. In contrast to the series of singles from Apollo, Columbia released themed albums that included liner notes and photos. Compared to other artists at Columbia, Jackson

16600-578: The late 1950s into the 1990s. Jewish Americans played a significant role in jazz. As jazz spread, it developed to encompass many different cultures, and the work of Jewish composers in Tin Pan Alley helped shape the many different sounds that jazz came to incorporate. Jewish Americans were able to thrive in Jazz because of the probationary whiteness that they were allotted at the time. George Bornstein wrote that African Americans were sympathetic to

16766-539: The late 1950s, using the mode , or musical scale, as the basis of musical structure and improvisation, as did free jazz , which explored playing without regular meter, beat and formal structures. Jazz-rock fusion appeared in the late 1960s and early 1970s, combining jazz improvisation with rock music 's rhythms, electric instruments, and highly amplified stage sound. In the early 1980s, a commercial form of jazz fusion called smooth jazz became successful, garnering significant radio airplay. Other styles and genres abound in

16932-900: The many top players he employed, such as George Brunies , Sharkey Bonano , and future members of the Original Dixieland Jass Band . During the early 1900s, jazz was mostly performed in African-American and mulatto communities due to segregation laws. Storyville brought jazz to a wider audience through tourists who visited the port city of New Orleans. Many jazz musicians from African-American communities were hired to perform in bars and brothels. These included Buddy Bolden and Jelly Roll Morton in addition to those from other communities, such as Lorenzo Tio and Alcide Nunez . Louis Armstrong started his career in Storyville and found success in Chicago. Storyville

17098-413: The melody was stated briefly at the beginning and most of the piece was improvised. Modal jazz abandoned chord progressions to allow musicians to improvise even more. In many forms of jazz, a soloist is supported by a rhythm section of one or more chordal instruments (piano, guitar), double bass, and drums. The rhythm section plays chords and rhythms that outline the composition structure and complement

17264-678: The most prominent gospel musician associated with King and the civil rights movement. She raised money for the United Negro College Fund and sang at the Prayer Pilgrimage Breakfast in 1957. She later stated she felt God had especially prepared King "with the education and the warmth of spirit to do His work". Motivated by her sincere appreciation that civil rights protests were being organized within churches and its participants inspired by hymns, she traveled to Montgomery, Alabama to sing in support of

17430-697: The music internationally, combining syncopation with European harmonic accompaniment. In the mid-1800s the white New Orleans composer Louis Moreau Gottschalk adapted slave rhythms and melodies from Cuba and other Caribbean islands into piano salon music. New Orleans was the main nexus between the Afro-Caribbean and African American cultures. The Black Codes outlawed drumming by slaves, which meant that African drumming traditions were not preserved in North America, unlike in Cuba, Haiti, and elsewhere in

17596-583: The music of New Orleans with the music of Cuba, Wynton Marsalis observes that tresillo is the New Orleans "clavé", a Spanish word meaning "code" or "key", as in the key to a puzzle, or mystery. Although the pattern is only half a clave , Marsalis makes the point that the single-celled figure is the guide-pattern of New Orleans music. Jelly Roll Morton called the rhythmic figure the Spanish tinge and considered it an essential ingredient of jazz. The abolition of slavery in 1865 led to new opportunities for

17762-508: The music sung by the congregation more. These songs would be lined out : called out from the pulpit, with the congregation singing it back. They had a stronger rhythm, accentuated with clapping and foot-tapping, which Jackson later said gave her "the bounce" that carried with her decades later. She dutifully joined the children's choir at age four. Next door to Duke's house was a small Pentecostal church that Jackson never attended but stood outside during services and listened raptly. Music here

17928-428: The music. This turned out to be true and as a result, Jackson created a distinct performing style for Columbia recordings that was markedly different from her live performances, which remained animated and lively, both in churches and concert halls. She roared like a Pentecostal preacher, she moaned and growled like the old Southern mothers, she hollered the gospel blues like a sanctified Bessie Smith and she cried into

18094-556: The nation. Yet the next day she was unable to get a taxi or shop along Canal Street . While attending the National Baptist Convention in 1956, Jackson met Martin Luther King Jr. and Ralph Abernathy , both ministers emerging as organizers protesting segregation. Jackson often sang to support worthy causes for no charge, such as raising money to buy a church an organ, robes for choirs, or sponsoring missionaries. She extended this to civil rights causes, becoming

18260-467: The northeastern United States, a "hot" style of playing ragtime had developed, notably James Reese Europe 's symphonic Clef Club orchestra in New York City, which played a benefit concert at Carnegie Hall in 1912. The Baltimore rag style of Eubie Blake influenced James P. Johnson 's development of stride piano playing, in which the right hand plays the melody, while the left hand provides

18426-618: The northern and western parts of the U.S. Jazz became international in 1914, when the Creole Band with cornettist Freddie Keppard performed the first ever jazz concert outside the United States, at the Pantages Playhouse Theatre in Winnipeg , Canada. In New Orleans, a white bandleader named Papa Jack Laine integrated blacks and whites in his marching band. He was known as "the father of white jazz" because of

18592-573: The one she most-often mimicked. Jackson's legs began to straighten on their own when she was 14, but conflicts with Aunt Duke never abated. Whippings turned into being thrown out of the house for slights and manufactured infractions and spending many nights with one of her nearby aunts. The final confrontation caused her to move into her own rented house for a month, but she was lonely and unsure of how to support herself. After two aunts, Hannah and Alice, moved to Chicago, Jackson's family, concerned for her, urged Hannah to take her back there with her after

18758-424: The only professional gospel singer in Chicago. Sometimes she made $ 10 a week (equivalent to $ 223 in 2023) in what historian Michael Harris calls "an almost unheard-of professionalization of one's sacred calling". As opportunities came to her, an extraordinary moral code directed Jackson's career choices. Her lone vice was frequenting movie and vaudeville theaters until her grandfather visited one summer and had

18924-470: The performer may change melodies, harmonies, and time signatures. In early Dixieland , a.k.a. New Orleans jazz, performers took turns playing melodies and improvising countermelodies . In the swing era of the 1920s–40s, big bands relied more on arrangements which were written or learned by ear and memorized. Soloists improvised within these arrangements. In the bebop era of the 1940s, big bands gave way to small groups and minimal arrangements in which

19090-500: The period 1820–1850. Some of the earliest [Mississippi] Delta settlers came from the vicinity of New Orleans, where drumming was never actively discouraged for very long and homemade drums were used to accompany public dancing until the outbreak of the Civil War. Another influence came from the harmonic style of hymns of the church, which black slaves had learned and incorporated into their own music as spirituals . The origins of

19256-406: The perspective of other musical traditions, such as European music history or African music. But critic Joachim-Ernst Berendt argues that its terms of reference and its definition should be broader, defining jazz as a "form of art music which originated in the United States through the confrontation of the Negro with European music" and arguing that it differs from European music in that jazz has

19422-525: The piano and proclaimed, "Mahalia Jackson is the Empress of gospel singers! She's the Empress ! The Empress!!" A constant worker and a shrewd businesswoman, Jackson became the choir director at St. Luke Baptist Church. She bought a building as a landlord, then found the salon so successful she had to hire help to care for it when she traveled on weekends. On tour, she counted heads and tickets to ensure she

19588-494: The plight of the Jewish American and vice versa. As disenfranchised minorities themselves, Jewish composers of popular music saw themselves as natural allies with African Americans. The Jazz Singer with Al Jolson is one example of how Jewish Americans were able to bring jazz, music that African Americans developed, into popular culture. Benny Goodman was a vital Jewish American to the progression of Jazz. Goodman

19754-492: The poem by Joyce Kilmer , " Danny Boy ", and the patriotic songs " My Country 'Tis of Thee " and " The Battle Hymn of the Republic ", among others. The Cambridge Companion to Blues and Gospel Music describes Jackson's Columbia recordings as "toned down and polished" compared to the rawer, more minimalist sound at Apollo. Scholar Mark Burford praises "When I Wake Up In Glory" as "one of the crowning achievements of her career as

19920-459: The post-Civil War period (after 1865), African Americans were able to obtain surplus military bass drums, snare drums and fifes, and an original African-American drum and fife music emerged, featuring tresillo and related syncopated rhythmic figures. This was a drumming tradition that was distinct from its Caribbean counterparts, expressing a uniquely African-American sensibility. "The snare and bass drummers played syncopated cross-rhythms ," observed

20086-676: The pre-jazz era and contributed to the codification of jazz through the publication of some of the first jazz sheet music. The music of New Orleans , Louisiana had a profound effect on the creation of early jazz. In New Orleans, slaves could practice elements of their culture such as voodoo and playing drums. Many early jazz musicians played in the bars and brothels of the red-light district around Basin Street called Storyville . In addition to dance bands, there were marching bands which played at lavish funerals (later called jazz funerals ). The instruments used by marching bands and dance bands became

20252-537: The prominent styles. Bebop emerged in the 1940s, shifting jazz from danceable popular music toward a more challenging "musician's music" which was played at faster tempos and used more chord-based improvisation. Cool jazz developed near the end of the 1940s, introducing calmer, smoother sounds and long, linear melodic lines. The mid-1950s saw the emergence of hard bop , which introduced influences from rhythm and blues , gospel , and blues to small groups and particularly to saxophone and piano. Modal jazz developed in

20418-453: The publicly disclosed diagnosis was heart strain and exhaustion, but in private Jackson's doctors told her that she had had a heart attack and sarcoidosis was now in her heart. Jackson's recovery took a full year during which she was unable to tour or record, ultimately losing 50 pounds (23 kg). From this point on she was plagued with near-constant fatigue, bouts of tachycardia , and high blood pressure as her condition advanced. Jackson

20584-460: The quality of the choir. This difference between the styles in Northern urban churches and the South was vividly illustrated when the Johnson Singers appeared at a church one evening and Jackson stood out to sing solo, scandalizing the pastor with her exuberant shouts. He accused her of blasphemy , bringing "twisting jazz" into the church. Jackson was momentarily shocked before retorting, "This

20750-410: The rhythm and bassline. In Ohio and elsewhere in the mid-west the major influence was ragtime, until about 1919. Around 1912, when the four-string banjo and saxophone came in, musicians began to improvise the melody line, but the harmony and rhythm remained unchanged. A contemporary account states that blues could only be heard in jazz in the gut-bucket cabarets, which were generally looked down upon by

20916-760: The second one thwarted when Jackson ducked and he broke his hand hitting a piece of furniture behind her. The marriage dissolved and she announced her intention to divorce. He responded by requesting a jury trial, rare for divorces, in an attempt to embarrass her by publicizing the details of their marital problems. When Galloway's infidelities were proven in testimony, the judge declined to award him any of Jackson's assets or properties. Her doctors cleared her to work and Jackson began recording and performing again, pushing her limitations by giving two- and three-hour concerts. She performed exceptionally well belying her personal woes and ongoing health problems. When not on tour, she concentrated her efforts on building two philanthropies:

21082-597: The services were less formal and reminiscent of what they had left behind. Jackson found an eager audience in new arrivals, one calling her "a fresh wind from the down-home religion." Black Chicago was hit hard by the Great Depression , driving church attendance throughout the city, which Jackson credited with starting her career. Gradually and by necessity, larger churches became more open to Jackson's singing style. As many of them were suddenly unable to meet their mortgage notes, adapting their musical programs became

21248-556: The slang connotations of the term, saying: "When Broadway picked it up, they called it 'J-A-Z-Z'. It wasn't called that. It was spelled 'J-A-S-S'. That was dirty, and if you knew what it was, you wouldn't say it in front of ladies." The American Dialect Society named it the Word of the 20th Century . Jazz is difficult to define because it encompasses a wide range of music spanning a period of over 100 years, from ragtime to rock -infused fusion . Attempts have been made to define jazz from

21414-444: The soloist. In avant-garde and free jazz , the separation of soloist and band is reduced, and there is license, or even a requirement, for the abandoning of chords, scales, and meters. Since the emergence of bebop, forms of jazz that are commercially oriented or influenced by popular music have been criticized. According to Bruce Johnson, there has always been a "tension between jazz as a commercial music and an art form". Regarding

21580-547: The song Jackson sang as a warmup at the Golden Gate Ballroom concert. " Move On Up a Little Higher " was recorded in two parts, one for each side of the 78 rpm record. Meanwhile, Chicago radio host Louis "Studs" Terkel heard Jackson's records in a music shop and was transfixed. He bought and played them repeatedly on his show. Terkel introduced his mostly white listeners to gospel music and Jackson herself, interviewing her and asking her to sing live. "Move On Up

21746-466: The sound of which jazz aficionado Bucklin Moon described as "an almost solid wall of blue tonality". She moaned, hummed, and improvised extensively with rhythm and melody, often embellishing notes with a prodigious use of melisma , or singing several tones per syllable. Author Anthony Heilbut called it a "weird ethereal sound, part moan, part failed operatics". Gospel historian Horace Boyer attributes Jackson's "aggressive style and rhythmic ascension" to

21912-482: The time. He lived elsewhere, never joining Charity as a parent. Both sets of Mahalia's grandparents were born into slavery , her paternal grandparents on a rice plantation and her maternal grandparents on a cotton plantation in Pointe Coupee Parish about 100 miles (160 km) north of New Orleans . Charity's older sister, Mahala "Duke" Paul, was her daughter's namesake, sharing the spelling without

22078-749: The tour where she was very warmly received. In jazz magazine DownBeat , Mason Sargent called the tour "one of the most remarkable, in terms of audience reaction, ever undertaken by an American artist". Her appearance at the Royal Albert Hall in London made her the first gospel singer to perform there since the Fisk Jubilee Singers in 1872, and she pre-sold 20,000 copies of " Silent Night " in Copenhagen. She played numerous shows while in pain, sometimes collapsing backstage. She lost

22244-500: The twice-daily ferry between both cities to perform, and the habanera quickly took root in the musically fertile Crescent City. John Storm Roberts states that the musical genre habanera "reached the U.S. twenty years before the first rag was published." For the more than quarter-century in which the cakewalk , ragtime , and proto-jazz were forming and developing, the habanera was a consistent part of African-American popular music. Habaneras were widely available as sheet music and were

22410-453: The unintentional conception of gospel blues solo singing in Chicago. Steadily, the Johnson Singers were asked to perform at other church services and revivals . When larger, more established black churches expressed little interest in the Johnson Singers, they were courted by smaller storefront churches and were happy to perform there, though less likely to be paid as much or at all. Newly arrived migrants attended these storefront churches;

22576-575: The use of tresillo-based rhythms in African-American music. New Orleans native Louis Moreau Gottschalk 's piano piece "Ojos Criollos (Danse Cubaine)" (1860) was influenced by the composer's studies in Cuba: the habanera rhythm is clearly heard in the left hand. In Gottschalk's symphonic work "A Night in the Tropics" (1859), the tresillo variant cinquillo appears extensively. The figure was later used by Scott Joplin and other ragtime composers. Comparing

22742-521: The vibrato and neo-operatic obbligatos of later years". Likewise, he calls Jackson's Apollo records "uniformly brilliant", choosing "Even Me", "Just As I Am", "City Called Heaven", and "I Do, Don't You" as perfect examples of her phrasing and contralto range, having an effect that is "angelic but never saccharine". The New Grove Gospel, Blues, and Jazz cites the Apollo songs "In the Upper Room", "Let

22908-633: The world. The granddaughter of enslaved people , Jackson was born and raised in poverty in New Orleans . She found a home in her church, leading to a lifelong dedication and singular purpose to deliver God's word through song. She moved to Chicago as an adolescent and joined the Johnson Singers, one of the earliest gospel groups. Jackson was heavily influenced by musician-composer Thomas Dorsey and blues singer Bessie Smith , adapting Smith's style to traditional Protestant hymns and contemporary songs. After making an impression in Chicago churches, she

23074-498: The writer Robert Palmer, speculating that "this tradition must have dated back to the latter half of the nineteenth century, and it could have not have developed in the first place if there hadn't been a reservoir of polyrhythmic sophistication in the culture it nurtured." African-American music began incorporating Afro-Cuban rhythmic motifs in the 19th century when the habanera (Cuban contradanza ) gained international popularity. Musicians from Havana and New Orleans would take

23240-500: The year's crop was harvested and several days were set aside for celebration. As late as 1861, a traveler in North Carolina saw dancers dressed in costumes that included horned headdresses and cow tails and heard music provided by a sheepskin-covered "gumbo box", apparently a frame drum; triangles and jawbones furnished the auxiliary percussion. There are quite a few [accounts] from the southeastern states and Louisiana dating from

23406-721: Was Art Freeman, a music scout for Apollo Records , a company catering to black artists and audiences concentrating mostly on jazz and blues. Apollo's chief executive Bess Berman was looking to broaden their representation to other genres, including gospel. Berman signed Jackson to a four-record session, allowing Jackson to pick the songs. Her first release on Apollo, "Wait 'til My Change Comes" backed with "I'm Going to Tell God All About it One of These Days" did not sell well. Neither did her second, "I Want to Rest" with "He Knows My Heart". Berman asked Jackson to record blues and she refused. Berman told Freeman to release Jackson from any more recordings but Freeman asked for one more session to record

23572-507: Was a significant part of Jackson's live performances both in concert halls and churches. She often stretched what would be a five-minute recording to twenty-five minutes to achieve maximum emotional effect. In black churches, this was a regular practice among gospel soloists who sought to evoke an emotional purging in the audience during services. White and non-Christian audiences also felt this resonance. After one concert, critic Nat Hentoff wrote: "The conviction and strength of her rendition had

23738-417: Was allowed considerable input in what she would record, but Mitch Miller and producer George Avakian persuaded her with varying success to broaden her appeal to listeners of different faiths. Though her early records at Columbia had a similar sound to her Apollo records, the music accompanying Jackson at Columbia later included orchestras, electric guitars, backup singers, and drums, the overall effect of which

23904-571: Was an American gospel singer , widely considered one of the most influential vocalists of the 20th century. With a career spanning 40 years, Jackson was integral to the development and spread of gospel blues in black churches throughout the U.S. During a time when racial segregation was pervasive in American society, she met considerable and unexpected success in a recording career, selling an estimated 22 million records and performing in front of integrated and secular audiences in concert halls around

24070-421: Was apparent in whatever milieu she chose to perform." So caught up in the spirit was she while singing, she often wept, fell on her knees, bowed, skipped, danced, clapped spontaneously, patted her sides and stomach, and particularly in churches, roamed the aisles to sing directly to individuals. All of these were typical of the services in black churches though Jackson's energy was remarkable. An experiment wearing

24236-483: Was being paid fairly. What she was able to earn and save was done in spite of Hockenhull. A compulsive gambler, he took home a large payout asking Jackson to hide it so he would not gamble it. She laid the stash in flat bills under a rug assuming he would never look there, then went to a weekend performance in Detroit. When she returned, she realized he had found it and used it to buy a race horse. In 1943, he brought home

24402-475: Was born with bowed legs and infections in both eyes. Her eyes healed quickly but her Aunt Bell treated her legs with grease water massages with little result. For her first few years, Mahalia was nicknamed "Fishhooks" for the curvature of her legs. The Clarks were devout Baptists attending nearby Plymouth Rock Baptist Church. Sabbath was strictly followed, the entire house shut down on Friday evenings and did not open again until Monday morning. As members of

24568-523: Was called to give so many encores that she eventually changed into her street clothes and the stage hands removed the microphone. Still she sang one more song. The highlight of her trip was visiting the Holy Land , where she knelt and prayed at Calvary . When King was arrested and sentenced to four months hard labor, presidential candidate John F. Kennedy intervened, earning Jackson's loyal support. She began campaigning for him, saying: "I feel that I'm

24734-470: Was fascinated with second line funeral processions returning from cemeteries when the musicians played brisk jazz. Her older cousin Fred, not as intimidated by Duke, collected records of both kinds. The family had a phonograph and while Aunt Duke was at work, Jackson played records by Bessie Smith , Mamie Smith , and Ma Rainey , singing along while she scrubbed floors. Bessie Smith was Jackson's favorite and

24900-631: Was heavily marked by instinct. She answered questions to the best of her ability though often responded with lack of surety, saying: "All I ever learned was just to sing the way I feel... off-beat, on the beat, between beats — however the Lord lets it come out." When pressed for clearer descriptions, she replied: "Child, I don't know how I do it myself." Jackson's voice is noted for being energetic and powerful, ranging from contralto to soprano , which she switched between rapidly. She resisted labeling her voice range instead calling it "real strong and clear". She used bent or "worried" notes typical of blues,

25066-442: Was hired to sing at funerals, political rallies, and revivals . For 15 years, she functioned as what she termed a "fish and bread singer", working odd jobs between performances to make a living. Nationwide recognition came for Jackson in 1947 with the release of " Move On Up a Little Higher ", selling two million copies and hitting the number-two spot on Billboard charts , both firsts for gospel music. Jackson's recordings captured

25232-596: Was in high demand. A position as the official soloist of the National Baptist Convention was created for her, and her audiences multiplied to the tens of thousands. She participated in the Harry S. Truman 1948 presidential campaign , earning her first invitation to the White House . Time constraints forced her to give up the choir director position at St. Luke Baptist Church and sell the beauty shop. True to her own rule, she turned down lucrative appearances in New York City at

25398-739: Was inconsolable upon learning that Kennedy had been assassinated , believing that he died fighting for the rights of black Americans. Jackson toured Europe again in 1964, mobbed in several cities and proclaiming, "I thought I was the Beatles!" in Utrecht. She appeared in the film The Best Man (1964), and attended a ceremony acknowledging Lyndon Johnson's inauguration at the White House, becoming friends with Lady Bird . When at home, she attempted to remain approachable and maintain her characteristic sincerity. Mostly in secret, Jackson had paid for

25564-430: Was louder and more exuberant. The congregation included "jubilees" or uptempo spirituals in their singing. Shouting and stomping were regular occurrences, unlike at her own church. Jackson later remembered, "These people had no choir or no organ. They used the drum, the cymbal, the tambourine, and the steel triangle. Everybody in there sang, and they clapped and stomped their feet, and sang with their whole bodies. They had

25730-433: Was major ... , and I carried this device into my melody as well. The publication of his " Memphis Blues " sheet music in 1912 introduced the 12-bar blues to the world (although Gunther Schuller argues that it is not really a blues, but "more like a cakewalk"). This composition, as well as his later " St. Louis Blues " and others, included the habanera rhythm, and would become jazz standards . Handy's music career began in

25896-428: Was more closely associated with light pop music. She was marketed similarly to jazz musicians, but her music at Columbia ultimately defied categorization. Her albums interspersed familiar compositions by Thomas Dorsey and other gospel songwriters with songs considered generally inspirational. These included " You'll Never Walk Alone " written by Rodgers and Hammerstein for the 1945 musical Carousel , " Trees " based on

26062-517: Was often considered jazz or blues with religious lyrics, she fielded questions about the nature of gospel blues and how she developed her singing style. Toward the end, a participant asked Jackson what parts of gospel music come from jazz, and she replied, "Baby, don't you know the Devil stole the beat from the Lord? " Those in the audience wrote about Jackson in several publications. Her records were sent to

26228-591: Was often depressed and frustrated at her own fragility, but she took the time to send Lyndon Johnson a telegram urging him to protect marchers in Selma, Alabama , when she saw news coverage of Bloody Sunday . Galloway proved to be unreliable, leaving for long periods during Jackson's convalescence, then upon his return insisting she was imagining her symptoms. He tried taking over managerial duties from agents and promoters despite being inept. They argued over money; Galloway attempted to strike Jackson on two different occasions,

26394-504: Was required to fill in for her various aunts if they were ill, so she rarely attended a full week of school; when she was 10, the family needed her more at home. She dropped out and began taking in laundry. Jackson worked, and she went to church on Wednesday evenings, Friday nights, and most of the day on Sundays. Already possessing a big voice at age 12, she joined the junior choir. She was surrounded by music in New Orleans, more often blues pouring out of her neighbors' houses, although she

26560-402: Was shot. Jackson asked Richard Daley , the mayor of Chicago, for help and Daley ordered police presence outside her house for a year. A few months later, Jackson appeared live on the television special Wide Wide World singing Christmas carols from Mount Moriah, her childhood church in New Orleans. The broadcast earned excellent reviews, and Jackson received congratulatory telegrams from across

26726-700: Was so successful it was made an annual event with Jackson headlining for years. The show that took place in 1951 broke attendance records set by Goodman and Arturo Toscanini . By chance, a French jazz fan named Hugues Panassié visited the Apollo Records office in New York and discovered Jackson's music in the waiting room. He bought her records, took them home and played them on French public radio . The Académie Charles Cros awarded Jackson their Grand Prix du Disque for "I Can Put My Trust in Jesus"; Jackson

26892-496: Was still a member. Fifty thousand people paid their respects, many of them lining up in the snow the night before, and her peers in gospel singing performed in her memory the next morning. The day after, Mayor Richard Daley and other politicians and celebrities gave their eulogies at the Arie Crown Theater with 6,000 in attendance. Her body was returned to New Orleans where she lay in state at Rivergate Auditorium under

27058-442: Was struck by the spirit and launched into a lively rendition of "Hand Me Down My Silver Trumpet, Gabriel", to an impressed but somewhat bemused audience. The power of Jackson's voice was readily apparent but the congregation was unused to such an animated delivery. She was nonetheless invited to join the 50-member choir, and a vocal group formed by the pastor's sons, Prince, Wilbur, and Robert Johnson, and Louise Lemon. They performed as

27224-540: Was the final artist to appear that evening. After a shaky start, she gave multiple encores and received voluminous praise: Nora Holt, a music critic with the black newspaper The New York Amsterdam News , wrote that Jackson's rendition of "City Called Heaven" was filled with "suffering ecstasy" and that Jackson was a "genius unspoiled". John Hammond , critic at the Daily Compass , praised Jackson's powerful voice which "she used ... with reckless abandon". The revue

27390-459: Was the first gospel singer to receive this award. During the same time, Jackson and blues guitarist John Lee Hooker were invited to a ten-day symposium hosted by jazz historian Marshall Stearns who gathered participants to discuss how to define jazz. Jackson was accompanied by her pianist Mildred Falls, together performing 21 songs with question and answer sessions from the audience, mostly filled with writers and intellectuals. As Jackson's singing

27556-536: Was the leader of a racially integrated band named King of Swing. His jazz concert in the Carnegie Hall in 1938 was the first ever to be played there. The concert was described by Bruce Eder as "the single most important jazz or popular music concert in history". Shep Fields also helped to popularize "Sweet" Jazz music through his appearances and Big band remote broadcasts from such landmark venues as Chicago's Palmer House , Broadway's Paramount Theater and

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