151-598: Nathan Irving Hentoff (June 10, 1925 – January 7, 2017) was an American historian, novelist, jazz and country music critic, and syndicated columnist for United Media . Hentoff was a columnist for The Village Voice from 1958 to 2009. Following his departure from The Village Voice , Hentoff became a senior fellow at the Cato Institute and continued writing his music column for The Wall Street Journal , which published his works until his death. He often wrote on First Amendment issues, vigorously defending
302-518: 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 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
453-452: A 19-minute all-African-American RKO short in which he played the hero "Duke". He also appeared in the Amos 'n' Andy film Check and Double Check released in 1930, which features the orchestra playing "Old Man Blues" in an extended ballroom scene. That year, Ellington and his Orchestra connected with a whole different audience in a concert with Maurice Chevalier and they also performed at
604-456: A 45% interest in Ellington's future. Mills had an eye for new talent and published compositions by Hoagy Carmichael , Dorothy Fields , and Harold Arlen early in their careers. After recording a handful of acoustic sides during 1924–26, Ellington's signing with Mills allowed him to record prolifically. However, sometimes he recorded different versions of the same tune. Mills regularly took
755-715: A Jew." He supported the 2003 invasion of Iraq . Hentoff criticized the Clinton administration for the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996 . He also criticized the Bush administration for "authoritarian" policies such as the Patriot Act and other civil liberties restrictions legislated through invoking the ostensible need for homeland security . An ardent critic of the G. W. Bush administration's expansion of presidential power, in 2008 Hentoff called for
906-428: A Song Go Out of My Heart" the following year. Billy Strayhorn , originally hired as a lyricist, began his association with Ellington in 1939. Nicknamed "Sweet Pea" for his mild manner, Strayhorn soon became a vital member of the Ellington organization. Ellington showed great fondness for Strayhorn and never failed to speak glowingly of the man and their collaborative working relationship, "my right arm, my left arm, all
1057-486: A big band, that Ellington was the only rival he would leave Wilson for. He was the orchestra's first regular tenor saxophonist and increased the size of the sax section to five for the first time. Much influenced by Johnny Hodges, he often credited Hodges with showing him "how to play my horn". The two men sat next to each other in the orchestra. Trumpeter Ray Nance joined, replacing Cootie Williams who had defected to Benny Goodman . Additionally, Nance added violin to
1208-506: A brief revival in November of that year. Its subject matter did not make it appealing to Broadway; Ellington had unfulfilled plans to take it there. Despite this disappointment, a Broadway production of Ellington's Beggar's Holiday , his sole book musical, premiered on December 23, 1946, under the direction of Nicholas Ray . The settlement of the first recording ban of 1942–44 , leading to an increase in royalties paid to musicians, had
1359-650: A co-composer credit. From the beginning of their relationship, Mills arranged recording sessions on nearly every label, including Brunswick , Victor , Columbia , OKeh , Pathé (and its subsidiary, Perfect), the ARC/Plaza group of labels (Oriole, Domino, Jewel, Banner) and their dime-store labels (Cameo, Lincoln, Romeo), Hit of the Week, and Columbia's cheaper labels (Harmony, Diva, Velvet Tone, Clarion), labels that gave Ellington popular recognition. On OKeh, his records were usually issued as The Harlem Footwarmers. In contrast,
1510-526: 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 , 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
1661-585: A columnist. The following year, he moved to New York to become the Chicago-based magazine's New York editor. He was fired in 1957, he alleged, because he attempted to hire an African-American writer. Hentoff co-wrote Hear Me Talkin' to Ya: The Story of Jazz by the Men Who Made It (1955) with Nat Shapiro . The book includes interviews with jazz musicians such as Dizzy Gillespie and Duke Ellington . Hentoff co-founded The Jazz Review in 1958,
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#17327873983311812-502: A cross-talk feature with Anderson. Radio exposure helped maintain Ellington's public profile as his orchestra began to tour. The other 78s of this era include: " Mood Indigo " (1930), " Sophisticated Lady " (1933), " Solitude " (1934), and " In a Sentimental Mood " (1935). While Ellington's United States audience remained mainly African-American in this period, the orchestra had a significant following overseas. They traveled to England and Scotland in 1933, as well as France (three concerts at
1963-473: 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
2114-641: A few months, the young musicians returned to Washington, D.C., feeling discouraged. In June 1923, they played a gig in Atlantic City, New Jersey and another at the prestigious Exclusive Club in Harlem. This was followed in September 1923 by a move to the Hollywood Club (at 49th and Broadway) and a four-year engagement, which gave Ellington a solid artistic base. He was known to play the bugle at
2265-604: A few years at the beginning of Strayhorn's involvement, Ellington's orchestra featured bassist Jimmy Blanton and tenor saxophonist Ben Webster and reached a creative peak. Some years later following a low-profile period, an appearance by Ellington and his orchestra at the Newport Jazz Festival in July 1956 led to a major revival and regular world tours. Ellington recorded for most American record companies of his era, performed in and scored several films, and composed
2416-475: A gig of Fate Marable in St Louis. The short-lived Blanton transformed the use of double bass in jazz, allowing it to function as a solo/melodic instrument rather than a rhythm instrument alone. Terminal illness forced him to leave by late 1941 after around two years. Ben Webster's principal tenure with Ellington spanned 1939 to 1943. An ambition of his, he told his previous employer, Teddy Wilson , then leading
2567-410: A group of ten players; they developed their own sound via the non-traditional expression of Ellington's arrangements, the street rhythms of Harlem, and the exotic-sounding trombone growls and wah-wahs, high-squealing trumpets, and saxophone blues licks of the band members. For a short time, soprano saxophonist and clarinetist Sidney Bechet played with them, reportedly becoming the dominant personality in
2718-413: A handful of stage musicals. Although a pivotal figure in the history of jazz , in the opinion of Gunther Schuller and Barry Kernfeld , "the most significant composer of the genre", Ellington himself embraced the phrase "beyond category", considering it a liberating principle, and referring to his music as part of the more general category of American Music. Ellington was known for his inventive use of
2869-410: 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
3020-742: A magazine that he co-edited with Martin Williams until 1961. In 1960 he served as artists and repertoire ( A&R ) director for the short-lived jazz label Candid Records , which released albums by Charles Mingus , Cecil Taylor , and Max Roach . Around the same time, Hentoff began freelance writing for Esquire , Playboy , Harper's , New York Herald Tribune , Commonweal , and The Reporter . From 1958 to 2009, he wrote weekly columns on education, civil liberties, politics, and capital punishment for The Village Voice . He also wrote for The New Yorker (1960–1986), The Washington Post (1984–2000), and The Washington Times . He worked with
3171-460: 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,
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#17327873983313322-402: A new recording contract with Columbia Records which yielded several years of recording stability, mainly under producer Irving Townsend , who coaxed both commercial and artistic productions from Ellington. In 1957, CBS (Columbia Records' parent corporation) aired a live television production of A Drum Is a Woman , an allegorical suite which received mixed reviews. Festival appearances at
3473-660: 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
3624-584: A regular pattern, Ellington's longer works were generally not well received. A partial exception was Jump for Joy , a full-length musical based on themes of African-American identity, which debuted on July 10, 1941, at the Mayan Theater in Los Angeles. Hollywood actors John Garfield and Mickey Rooney invested in the production, and Charlie Chaplin and Orson Welles offered to direct. At one performance, Garfield insisted that Herb Jeffries, who
3775-439: 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 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
3926-427: A roadhouse combo. Film historians have recognized the score "as a landmark—the first significant Hollywood film music by African Americans comprising non-diegetic music, that is, music whose source is not visible or implied by action in the film, like an on-screen band." The score avoided the cultural stereotypes which previously characterized jazz scores and rejected a strict adherence to visuals in ways that presaged
4077-404: A severe effect on the financial viability of the big bands, including Ellington's Orchestra. His income as a songwriter ultimately subsidized it. Although he always spent lavishly and drew a respectable income from the orchestra's operations, the band's income often just covered expenses. However, in 1943 Ellington asked Webster to leave; the saxophonist's personality made his colleagues anxious and
4228-593: A short film, featured his extended piece 'A Rhapsody of Negro Life'. It introduced Billie Holiday , and won the Academy Award for Best Musical Short Subject. Ellington and his Orchestra also appeared in the features Murder at the Vanities and Belle of the Nineties (both 1934). For agent Mills, the attention was a publicity triumph, as Ellington was now internationally known. On the band's tour through
4379-604: A short-lived 1933–34 switch to Victor when Irving Mills temporarily moved his acts from Brunswick). As the Depression worsened, the recording industry was in crisis, dropping over 90% of its artists by 1933. Ivie Anderson was hired as the Ellington Orchestra's featured vocalist in 1931. She is the vocalist on " It Don't Mean a Thing (If It Ain't Got That Swing) " (1932) among other recordings. Sonny Greer had been providing occasional vocals and continued to do in
4530-492: 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 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
4681-416: 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 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
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4832-595: A specific instrumentalist, such as "Jeep's Blues" for Johnny Hodges , "Yearning for Love" for Lawrence Brown , "Trumpet in Spades" for Rex Stewart , " Echoes of Harlem " for Cootie Williams and "Clarinet Lament" for Barney Bigard . In 1937, Ellington returned to the Cotton Club, which had relocated to the mid-town Theater District . In the summer of that year, his father died, and due to many expenses, Ellington's finances were tight. However, his situation improved in
4983-579: A thousand brass and make a dramatic gesture and every studio arranger can nod his head and say, Oh, yes, that's done like this. But Duke merely lifts his finger, three horns make a sound, and I don't know what it is!" However, by 1955, after three years of recording for Capitol , Ellington lacked a regular recording affiliation. Ellington's appearance at the Newport Jazz Festival on July 7, 1956, returned him to wider prominence. The feature " Diminuendo and Crescendo in Blue " comprised two tunes that had been in
5134-452: A weekly jazz program on Boston radio station WMEX . In the 1940s, he hosted two radio shows on WMEX: JazzAlbum and From Bach to Bartók . In the early 1950s he continued to present a jazz program on WMEX, and as a Staff Announcer for WMEX, he regularly hosted remote broadcasts from the Savoy , and Storyville , two Boston clubs run by George Wein , and during that period was an announcer on
5285-801: A worldwide sensation and gave both Ellington and Hall their first hit record. Miley had composed most of " Creole Love Call " and " Black and Tan Fantasy ". An alcoholic, Miley had to leave the band before they gained wider fame. He died in 1932 at the age of 29, but he was an important influence on Cootie Williams , who replaced him. In 1929, the Cotton Club Orchestra appeared on stage for several months in Florenz Ziegfeld 's Show Girl, along with vaudeville stars Jimmy Durante , Eddie Foy, Jr. , Ruby Keeler , and with music and lyrics by George Gershwin and Gus Kahn . Will Vodery , Ziegfeld's musical supervisor, recommended Ellington for
5436-525: A youth phenomenon, particularly with white college audiences, and danceability drove record sales and bookings. Jukeboxes proliferated nationwide, spreading the gospel of swing. Ellington's band could certainly swing, but their strengths were mood, nuance, and richness of composition, hence his statement "jazz is music, the swing is business". From 1936, Ellington began to make recordings with smaller groups (sextets, octets, and nonets) drawn from his then-15-man orchestra. He composed pieces intended to feature
5587-500: 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 the 1920s Jazz Age , it has been recognized as a major form of musical expression in traditional and popular music . Jazz
5738-529: 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 the first jazz group to record, and Bix Beiderbecke was one of the most prominent jazz soloists of
5889-693: 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
6040-469: 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 the early 1910s, combining earlier brass band marches, French quadrilles , biguine , ragtime and blues with collective polyphonic improvisation . However, jazz did not begin as
6191-524: Is dedicated to her. He played soprano saxophone and clarinet as a youth, and became interested in jazz after listening to Artie Shaw play. He received his Bachelor of Arts degree with highest honors, in 1946 from Northeastern University . That same year he enrolled for graduate study at Harvard University . In 1950, he attended Sorbonne University in Paris , France, on a Fulbright Scholarship. Hentoff began his career in broadcast journalism while hosting
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6342-493: 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
6493-400: 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 is a reminder of "an oppressive and racist society and restrictions on their artistic visions". Amiri Baraka argues that there
6644-513: Is the largest recorded personal jazz legacy, and many of his pieces have become standards . He also recorded songs written by his bandsmen, such as Juan Tizol 's " Caravan ", which brought a Spanish tinge to big band jazz. At the end of the 1930s, Ellington began a nearly thirty-year collaboration with composer-arranger-pianist Billy Strayhorn , whom he called his writing and arranging companion. With Strayhorn, he composed multiple extended compositions, or suites, as well as many short pieces. For
6795-476: 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 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
6946-559: The 2008 U.S. presidential election , his view changed after looking into Obama's voting record on abortion. During President Obama's first year, Hentoff praised him for ending policies of CIA renditions , but criticized him for failing to end George W. Bush's practice of "state torture" of prisoners. Hentoff was named a Guggenheim Fellow in 1972. He won the American Bar Association 's Silver Gavel Award in 1980 for his columns on law and criminal justice . In 1983, he
7097-666: The American Civil Liberties Union for many years, he criticized the organization in 1999 for defending government-enforced speech codes in universities and the workplace. He served on the board of advisors for the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education , another civil liberties group. His book Free Speech for Me—But Not for Thee outlined his views on free speech and criticized those who favored censorship "in any form." Hentoff agitated against
7248-625: 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
7399-642: The Cato Institute , a libertarian think tank, as a senior fellow in February 2009. In 2013, The Pleasures of Being Out of Step , a biographical film about Hentoff, explored his career in jazz and as a First Amendment advocate. The independent documentary, produced and directed by David L. Lewis, won the Grand Jury prize in the Metropolis competition at the DOC NYC festival and played in theaters across
7550-586: The High Holidays to listen to various cantors and compare notes on their performances. He said cantors made "sacred texts compellingly clear to the heart," and he collected their recordings. In later life, Hentoff was an atheist , and sardonically described himself as "a member of the Proud and Ancient Order of Stiff-Necked Jewish Atheists ". He expressed sympathy for Israel's Peace Now movement. Hentoff married three times, first to Miriam Sargent in 1950;
7701-569: The Jazz Foundation of America to help American jazz and blues musicians in need. He wrote many articles for The Wall Street Journal and The Village Voice to draw attention to the plight of America's pioneering jazz and blues musicians. Hentoff also wrote many novels for young adults, including I'm Really Dragged But Nothing Gets Me Down (1968), This School is Driving Me Crazy (1976), Blues for Charlie Darwin (1982), and The Day They Came To Arrest The Book (1983). Writing about
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#17327873983317852-474: The Roseland Ballroom , "America's foremost ballroom". Australian-born composer Percy Grainger was an early admirer and supporter. He wrote, "The three greatest composers who ever lived are Bach , Delius and Duke Ellington. Unfortunately, Bach is dead, Delius is very ill but we are happy to have with us today The Duke". Ellington's first period at the Cotton Club concluded in 1931. Ellington led
8003-726: The Salle Pleyel in Paris) and the Netherlands before returning to New York. On June 12, 1933, the Duke Ellington Orchestra gave its British debut at the London Palladium ; Ellington received an ovation when he walked on stage. They were one of 13 acts on the bill and were restricted to eight short numbers; the booking lasted until June 24. The British visit saw Ellington win praise from members of
8154-465: The Vietnam War and against the United States' participation . Although he said he was a "hardcore anti-communist " since the age of 15, he had "no illusions about the corrupt, undemocratic government of South Vietnam." After the war's end , Hentoff, Joan Baez , and Ginetta Sagan of Amnesty International repeatedly protested what he called "the horrifying abuses of human rights [committed] by
8305-442: The diatonic scale , with the consequent alteration of the harmonic character of his music, it's broadening, The deepening of his resources. It has become customary to ascribe the classical influences upon Duke— Delius , Debussy , and Ravel —to direct contact with their music. Actually, his serious appreciation of those and other modern composers, came after he met with Vody. Ellington's film work began with Black and Tan (1929),
8456-703: The segregated society of the day. When his drummer Sonny Greer was invited to join the Wilber Sweatman Orchestra in New York City, Ellington left his successful career in D.C. and moved to Harlem , ultimately becoming part of the Harlem Renaissance . New dance crazes such as the Charleston emerged in Harlem, as well as African-American musical theater , including Eubie Blake 's and Noble Sissle 's (the latter of whom
8607-471: 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 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,
8758-948: 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 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
8909-451: 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
9060-659: The Arts , thus becoming the first nonmusician in history to win this award. That same year, the Boston Latin School honored him as alumnus of the year. In 2005, he was one of the first recipients of the Human Life Foundation's "Great Defender of Life" award. Hentoff grew up attending an Orthodox synagogue in Boston. He recalled that as a youth, he would travel around the city with his father during
9211-509: 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
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#17327873983319362-529: The Brunswicks were usually issued as The Jungle Band. Whoopee Makers and the Ten BlackBerries were other pseudonyms. In September 1927, King Oliver turned down a regular booking for his group as the house band at Harlem's Cotton Club ; the offer passed to Ellington after Jimmy McHugh suggested him and Mills arranged an audition. Ellington had to increase from a six to 11-piece group to meet
9513-464: 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
9664-665: 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
9815-507: The Vietnamese Communist regime." Hentoff defended the existence of the state of Israel. He criticized Israeli policies such as the absence of due process for Palestinians and the 1982 invasion of Lebanon. His opposition to Israel's invasion of Lebanon led three rabbis symbolically to "excommunicate" him from Judaism. He commented, "I would have told them about my life as a heretic, a tradition I keep precisely because I am
9966-416: The band's book since 1937. Ellington, who had abruptly ended the band's scheduled set because of the late arrival of four key players, called the two tunes as the time was approaching midnight. Announcing that the two pieces would be separated by an interlude played by tenor saxophonist Paul Gonsalves , Ellington proceeded to lead the band through the two pieces, with Gonsalves' 27-chorus marathon solo whipping
10117-552: 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
10268-473: 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, 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
10419-402: The cost of hiring big bands had increased, club owners now found smaller jazz groups more cost-effective. Some of Ellington's new works, such as the wordless vocal feature "Transblucency" (1946) with Kay Davis , were not going to have a similar reach as the newly emerging stars. Ellington continued on his own course through these tectonic shifts. While Count Basie , like many other big bands at
10570-415: The country. Hentoff espoused generally liberal views on domestic policy and civil liberties, but in the 1980s, he began articulating more socially conservative positions especially in regard to medical ethics and reproductive rights . He was opposed to abortion, voluntary euthanasia, and the selective medical treatment of severely disabled infants. He believed that a consistent life ethic should be
10721-484: The crowd into a frenzy, leading the Maestro to play way beyond the curfew time despite urgent pleas from festival organizer George Wein to bring the program to an end. The concert made international headlines, and led to one of only five Time magazine cover stories dedicated to a jazz musician, and resulted in an album produced by George Avakian that would become the best-selling LP of Ellington's career. Much of
10872-555: 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
11023-509: 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
11174-480: 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
11325-593: 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 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
11476-895: The end of each performance. The group was initially called Elmer Snowden and his Black Sox Orchestra and had seven members, including trumpeter James "Bubber" Miley . They renamed themselves The Washingtonians. Snowden left the group in early 1924, and Ellington took over as bandleader. After a fire, the club was re-opened as the Club Kentucky (often referred to as the Kentucky Club). Ellington then made eight records in 1924, receiving composing credit on three including "Choo Choo". In 1925, Ellington contributed four songs to Chocolate Kiddies starring Lottie Gee and Adelaide Hall , an all–African-American revue which introduced European audiences to African-American styles and performers. Duke Ellington and his Kentucky Club Orchestra grew to
11627-525: 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 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
11778-556: 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 ",
11929-414: The era's Jim Crow laws. At the age of seven, Ellington began taking piano lessons from Marietta Clinkscales. Daisy surrounded her son with dignified women to reinforce his manners and teach him elegance. His childhood friends noticed that his casual, offhand manner and dapper dress gave him the bearing of a young nobleman, so they began calling him "Duke". Ellington credited his friend Edgar McEntee for
12080-400: The eyes in the back of my head, my brain waves in his head, and his in mine". Strayhorn, with his training in classical music, not only contributed his original lyrics and music but also arranged and polished many of Ellington's works, becoming a second Ellington or "Duke's doppelgänger". It was not uncommon for Strayhorn to fill in for Duke, whether in conducting or rehearsing the band, playing
12231-415: 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
12382-514: The following years. After leaving agent Irving Mills, he signed on with the William Morris Agency . Mills, though, continued to record Ellington. After only a year, his Master and Variety labels (the small groups had recorded for the latter) collapsed in late 1937. Mills placed Ellington back on Brunswick and those small group units on Vocalion through to 1940. Well-known sides continued to be recorded, " Caravan " in 1937, and "I Let
12533-476: The freedom of the press. Hentoff was formerly a columnist for: Down Beat , JazzTimes , Legal Times , The Washington Post , The Washington Times , The Progressive , Editor & Publisher and Free Inquiry . He was a staff writer for The New Yorker , and his writings were also published in: The New York Times , Jewish World Review , The Atlantic , The New Republic , Commonweal , and Enciclopedia dello Spettacolo . Hentoff
12684-456: The group, with Sonny Greer saying Bechet "fitted out the band like a glove". His presence resulted in friction with Miley and trombonist Charlie Irvis , whose styles differed from Bechet's New Orleans-influenced playing. It was mainly Bechet's unreliability—he was absent for three days in succession—which made his association with Ellington short-lived. In October 1926, Ellington made an agreement with agent-publisher Irving Mills , giving Mills
12835-532: 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
12986-512: 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 is a construct" which designates "a number of musics with enough in common to be understood as part of
13137-424: 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,
13288-438: The instrumental colors Ellington had at his disposal. Recordings exist of Nance's first concert date on November 7, 1940, at Fargo, North Dakota . Privately made by Jack Towers and Dick Burris, these recordings were first legitimately issued in 1978 as Duke Ellington at Fargo, 1940 Live ; they are among the earliest of innumerable live performances which survive. Nance was an occasional vocalist as well, although Herb Jeffries
13439-460: 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
13590-578: 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
13741-455: 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 the 21st century, such as Latin and Afro-Cuban jazz . The origin of the word jazz has resulted in considerable research, and its history
13892-615: The latter for The Washington Post , Alyssa Rosenberg commented that "One of the useful — or depressing — things about reading Hentoff’s YA polemic, which was published all the way back in 1982, is how similar the novel’s conflicts are to our present debates." Beginning in February 2008, Hentoff was a weekly contributing columnist at WorldNetDaily . In January 2009, The Village Voice , which had published his commentary and criticism for fifty years, announced that he had been laid off. He then went on to write for United Features , Jewish World Review , and The Wall Street Journal . He joined
14043-406: The lyrics were written by Dorothy Fields (later Harold Arlen and Ted Koehler ), with some Ellington originals mixed in. (Here, he moved in with a dancer, his second wife Mildred Dixon ). Weekly radio broadcasts from the club gave Ellington national exposure. At the same time, Ellington also recorded Fields-JMcHugh and Fats Waller – Andy Razaf songs. Although trumpeter Bubber Miley was a member of
14194-955: 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
14345-728: The marriage was childless and the couple divorced that same year. His second wife was Trudi Bernstein, whom he married on September 2, 1954, and with whom he had two children, Miranda and Jessica. (Jessica Hentoff is the founder of Circus Harmony, a non-profit social circus and circus school in St. Louis, Missouri.) He divorced his second wife in August 1959. On August 15, 1959, he married his third wife, Margot Goodman, with whom he had two children: Nicholas and Thomas. The couple remained together until he died of natural causes at his Manhattan apartment on January 7, 2017, aged 91. ——————— Jazz Jazz
14496-571: The music for a stage production by Orson Welles . Titled Time Runs in Paris and An Evening With Orson Welles in Frankfurt , the variety show also featured a newly discovered Eartha Kitt , who performed Ellington's original song "Hungry Little Trouble" as Helen of Troy . In 1951, Ellington suffered a significant loss of personnel: Sonny Greer, Lawrence Brown, and, most importantly, Johnny Hodges left to pursue other ventures. However, only Greer
14647-697: 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
14798-583: 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
14949-460: The music on the LP was, in effect, simulated, with only about 40% actually from the concert itself. According to Avakian, Ellington was dissatisfied with aspects of the performance and felt the musicians had been under-rehearsed. The band assembled the next day to re-record several numbers with the addition of the faked sound of a crowd, none of which was disclosed to purchasers of the album. Not until 1999
15100-480: The new Monterey Jazz Festival and elsewhere provided venues for live exposure, and a European tour in 1958 was well received. Such Sweet Thunder (1957), based on Shakespeare's plays and characters, and The Queen's Suite (1958), dedicated to Britain's Queen Elizabeth II , were products of the renewed impetus which the Newport appearance helped to create. However, the latter work was not commercially issued at
15251-576: The new president to deal with the "noxious residue of the Bush-Cheney war against terrorism ". According to Hentoff, among the casualties of that war have been "survivors, if they can be found, of CIA secret prisons (' black sites '), victims of CIA kidnapping renditions, and American citizens locked up indefinitely as 'unlawful enemy combatants ' ". He wanted lawyer John Yoo to be prosecuted for war crimes . Hentoff stated that while he had been prepared to support Barack Obama enthusiastically in
15402-478: The nickname: "I think he felt that in order for me to be eligible for his constant companionship, I should have a title. So he called me Duke." Though Ellington took piano lessons, he was more interested in baseball. " President [Theodore] Roosevelt would come on his horse sometimes, and "stop and watch us play," he recalled. Ellington went to Armstrong Technical High School in Washington, D.C. His first job
15553-404: 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
15704-618: 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
15855-402: The occasion. He also had a messenger job with the U.S. Navy and State departments, where he made a wide range of contacts. Ellington moved out of his parents' home and bought his own as he became a successful pianist. At first, he played in other ensembles, and in late 1917 formed his first group, "The Duke's Serenaders" ("Colored Syncopators", his telephone directory advertising proclaimed). He
16006-669: The orchestra by conducting from the keyboard using piano cues and visual gestures; very rarely did he conduct using a baton. By 1932 his orchestra consisted of six brass instruments, four reeds, and a rhythm section of four players. As the leader, Ellington was not a strict disciplinarian; he maintained control of his orchestra with a combination of charm, humor, flattery, and astute psychology. A complex, private person, he revealed his feelings to only his closest intimates. He effectively used his public persona to deflect attention away from himself. Ellington signed exclusively to Brunswick in 1932 and stayed with them through to late 1936 (albeit with
16157-528: The orchestra for only a short period, he had a major influence on Ellington's sound. As an early exponent of growl trumpet, Miley changed the sweet dance band sound of the group to one that was hotter, which contemporaries termed Jungle Style, which can be seen in his feature chorus in East St. Louis Toodle-Oo (1926). In October 1927, Ellington and his Orchestra recorded several compositions with Adelaide Hall . One side in particular, " Creole Love Call ", became
16308-500: The orchestra, or big band, as well as for his eloquence and charisma. He was awarded a posthumous Pulitzer Prize Special Award for music in 1999. Ellington was born on April 29, 1899, to James Edward Ellington and Daisy (née Kennedy) Ellington in Washington, D.C. Both his parents were pianists. Daisy primarily played parlor songs , and James preferred operatic arias . They lived with Daisy's parents at 2129 Ida Place (now Ward Place) NW, in D.C.'s West End neighborhood. Duke's father
16459-513: The orchestra. " Cotton Tail ", "Main Stem", " Harlem Air Shaft ", "Jack the Bear", and dozens of others date from this period. Strayhorn's " Take the "A" Train ", a hit in 1941, became the band's theme, replacing " East St. Louis Toodle-Oo ". Ellington and his associates wrote for an orchestra of distinctive voices displaying tremendous creativity. The commercial recordings from this era were re-issued in
16610-500: 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
16761-455: The piano, on stage, and in the recording studio. The decade ended with a very successful European tour in 1939 just as World War II loomed in Europe. Two musicians who joined Ellington at this time created a sensation in their own right, Jimmy Blanton and Ben Webster . Blanton was effectively hired on the spot in late October 1939, before Ellington was aware of his name, when he dropped in on
16912-494: 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
17063-459: 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
17214-676: 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
17365-763: The program Evolution of Jazz on WGBH-FM . In 2013, the Evolution of Jazz series was contributed to the American Archive of Public Broadcasting by the University of Maryland's National Public Broadcasting Archives as part of the National Association of Educational Broadcasters (NAEB) collection. By the late 1950s, he was co-hosting the program The Scope of Jazz on WBAI-FM in New York City. He went on to write many books on jazz and politics. In 1952, Hentoff joined Down Beat magazine as
17516-456: The requirements of the Cotton Club's management for the audition, and the engagement finally began on December 4. With a weekly radio broadcast, the Cotton Club's exclusively white and wealthy clientele poured in nightly to see them. At the Cotton Club, Ellington's group performed all the music for the revues, which mixed comedy, dance numbers, vaudeville, burlesque, music, and illicit alcohol . The musical numbers were composed by Jimmy McHugh and
17667-410: 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
17818-417: The saxophonist was regularly in conflict with the leader. Musicians enlisting in the military and travel restrictions made touring difficult for the big bands, and dancing became subject to a new tax, which continued for many years, affecting the choices of club owners. By the time World War II ended, the focus of popular music was shifting towards singing crooners such as Frank Sinatra and Jo Stafford . As
17969-400: The segregated South in 1934, they avoided some of the traveling difficulties of African Americans by touring in private railcars. These provided accessible accommodations, dining, and storage for equipment while avoiding the indignities of segregated facilities. However, the competition intensified as swing bands like Benny Goodman 's began to receive widespread attention. Swing dancing became
18120-572: The serious music community, including composer Constant Lambert , which gave a boost to Ellington's interest in composing longer works. His longer pieces had already begun to appear. Ellington had composed and recorded "Creole Rhapsody" as early as 1931 (issued as both sides of a 12" record for Victor and both sides of a 10" record for Brunswick). A tribute to his mother, "Reminiscing in Tempo", took four 10" 78rpm record sides to record in 1935 after her death in that year. Symphony in Black (also 1935),
18271-427: The show. According to John Edward Hasse's Beyond Category: The Life and Genius of Duke Ellington , "Perhaps during the run of Show Girl , Ellington received what he later termed 'valuable lessons in orchestration from Will Vody." In his 1946 biography, Duke Ellington , Barry Ulanov wrote: From Vodery, as he (Ellington) says himself, he drew his chromatic convictions, his uses of the tones ordinarily extraneous to
18422-561: The summer of 1914, while working as a soda jerk at the Poodle Dog Café, Ellington wrote his first composition, "Soda Fountain Rag " (also known as the "Poodle Dog Rag"). He created the piece by ear, as he had not yet learned to read and write music. "I would play the 'Soda Fountain Rag' as a one-step , two-step , waltz , tango , and fox trot ", Ellington recalled. "Listeners never knew it
18573-450: The summer. He would sometimes hear strange music played by those who could not afford much sheet music, so for variations, they played the sheets upside down. Henry Lee Grant, a Dunbar High School music teacher, gave him private lessons in harmony . With the additional guidance of Washington pianist and band leader Oliver "Doc" Perry, Ellington learned to read sheet music , project a professional style, and improve his technique. Ellington
18724-512: The three-CD collection, Never No Lament , in 2003. Ellington's long-term aim, though, was to extend the jazz form from that three-minute limit, of which he was an acknowledged master. While he had composed and recorded some extended pieces before, such works now became a regular feature of Ellington's output. In this, he was helped by Strayhorn, who had enjoyed a more thorough training in the forms associated with classical music than Ellington. The first of these, Black, Brown, and Beige (1943),
18875-553: The time, was forced to disband his whole ensemble and work as an octet for a time, Ellington was able to tour most of Western Europe between April 6 and June 30, 1950, with the orchestra playing 74 dates over 77 days. During the tour, according to Sonny Greer, Ellington did not perform the newer works. However, Ellington's extended composition, Harlem (1950), was in the process of being completed at this time. Ellington later presented its score to music-loving President Harry Truman . Also during his time in Europe, Ellington would compose
19026-499: The time. The late 1950s also saw Ella Fitzgerald record her Duke Ellington Songbook (Verve) with Ellington and his orchestra—a recognition that Ellington's songs had now become part of the cultural canon known as the ' Great American Songbook '. Around this time Ellington and Strayhorn began to work on film scoring . The first of these was Anatomy of a Murder (1959), a courtroom drama directed by Otto Preminger and featuring James Stewart , in which Ellington appeared fronting
19177-500: 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
19328-575: 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
19479-593: The viewpoint of a genuine civil libertarian, arguing that all human rights are at risk when the rights of one group of people are diminished, that human rights are interconnected, and that people deny others' human rights at their peril. Hentoff believed antisemitism was rampant. Hentoff was a civil libertarian and free speech activist who opposed abortion and capital punishment . The American Conservative magazine called him "the only Jewish, atheist, pro-life, libertarian hawk in America." Although he supported
19630-498: 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
19781-500: 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
19932-515: Was a permanent departee. Drummer Louie Bellson replaced Greer, and his "Skin Deep" was a hit for Ellington. Tenor player Paul Gonsalves had joined in December 1950 after periods with Count Basie and Dizzy Gillespie and stayed for the rest of his life, while Clark Terry joined in November 1951. André Previn said in 1952: "You know, Stan Kenton can stand in front of a thousand fiddles and
20083-665: Was also inspired by his first encounters with stride pianists James P. Johnson and Luckey Roberts. Later in New York, he took advice from Will Marion Cook , Fats Waller , and Sidney Bechet . He started to play gigs in cafés and clubs in and around Washington, D.C. His attachment to music was so strong that in 1916 he turned down an art scholarship to the Pratt Institute in Brooklyn . Three months before graduating, he dropped out of Armstrong Manual Training School, where he
20234-610: Was also the group's booking agent. His first play date was at the True Reformer's Hall, where he took home 75 cents. Ellington played throughout the D.C. area and into Virginia for private society balls and embassy parties. The band included childhood friend Otto Hardwick , who began playing the string bass, then moved to C-melody sax and finally settled on alto saxophone; Arthur Whetsel on trumpet; Elmer Snowden on banjo; and Sonny Greer on drums. The band thrived, performing for both African-American and white audiences, rare in
20385-675: Was an American jazz pianist , composer, and leader of his eponymous jazz orchestra from 1923 through the rest of his life. Born and raised in Washington, D.C. , Ellington was based in New York City from the mid-1920s and gained a national profile through his orchestra's appearances at the Cotton Club in Harlem . A master at writing miniatures for the three-minute 78 rpm recording format, Ellington wrote or collaborated on more than one thousand compositions; his extensive body of work
20536-648: Was awarded the American Library Association 's Imroth Award for Intellectual Freedom. In 1985, he received an honorary Doctorate of Laws from the Northeastern University. In 1995, he was honored with the National Press Foundation 's Award in recognition of his lifetime distinguished contributions to journalism. In 2004, Hentoff was named one of six NEA Jazz Masters by the U.S. National Endowment for
20687-588: Was born in Lincolnton, North Carolina , on April 15, 1879, and in 1886, moved to D.C. with his parents. Daisy Kennedy was born in Washington, D.C., on January 4, 1879, the daughter of two former American slaves . James Ellington made blueprints for the United States Navy . When Ellington was a child, his family showed racial pride and support in their home, as did many other families. African Americans in D.C. worked to protect their children from
20838-580: Was born on June 10, 1925, in Boston , Massachusetts , the firstborn child of Simon, a traveling salesman, and Lena (née Katzenberg). His parents were Jewish Russian immigrants. As a teen, Hentoff attended Boston Latin School and worked for Frances Sweeney on the Boston City Reporter , investigating antisemitic hate groups . Sweeney was a major influence on Hentoff; his memoir, Boston Boy ,
20989-423: Was dedicated to telling the story of African Americans and the place of slavery and the church in their history. Black, Brown and Beige debuted at Carnegie Hall on January 23, 1943, beginning an annual series of Ellington concerts at the venue over the next four years. While some jazz musicians had played at Carnegie Hall before, none had performed anything as elaborate as Ellington's work. Unfortunately, starting
21140-497: 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 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
21291-515: Was his neighbor) Shuffle Along . After the young musicians left the Sweatman Orchestra to strike out on their own, they found an emerging jazz scene that was highly competitive with difficult inroad. They hustled pool by day and played whatever gigs they could find. The young band met stride pianist Willie "The Lion" Smith , who introduced them to the scene and gave them some money. They played at rent-house parties for income. After
21442-407: Was light-skinned, should wear makeup. Ellington objected in the interval and compared Jeffries to Al Jolson . The change was reverted. The singer later commented that the audience must have thought he was an entirely different character in the second half of the show. Although it had sold-out performances and received positive reviews, it ran for only 122 performances until September 29, 1941, with
21593-433: 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
21744-578: Was selling peanuts at Washington Senators baseball games. Ellington started sneaking into Frank Holiday's Poolroom at age fourteen. Hearing the music of the poolroom pianists ignited Ellington's love for the instrument, and he began to take his piano studies seriously. Among the many piano players he listened to were Doc Perry, Lester Dishman, Louis Brown, Turner Layton , Gertie Wells, Clarence Bowser, Sticky Mack, Blind Johnny, Cliff Jackson , Claude Hopkins , Phil Wurd, Caroline Thornton, Luckey Roberts , Eubie Blake , Joe Rochester, and Harvey Brooks . In
21895-465: Was shut down by the U.S. government in 1917. Cornetist Buddy Bolden played in New Orleans from 1895 to 1906. No recordings by him exist. His band is credited with creating the big four: the first syncopated bass drum pattern to deviate from the standard on-the-beat march. As the example below shows, the second half of the big four pattern is the habanera rhythm. Duke Ellington Edward Kennedy " Duke " Ellington (April 29, 1899 – May 24, 1974)
22046-651: 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 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
22197-469: Was studying commercial art. Working as a freelance sign painter from 1917, Ellington began assembling groups to play for dances. In 1919, he met drummer Sonny Greer from New Jersey, who encouraged Ellington's ambition to become a professional musician. Ellington built his music business through his day job. When a customer asked him to make a sign for a dance or party, he would ask if they had musical entertainment; if not, Ellington would offer to play for
22348-403: Was the concert recording properly released for the first time. The revived attention brought about by the Newport appearance should not have surprised anyone, Johnny Hodges had returned the previous year, and Ellington's collaboration with Strayhorn was renewed around the same time, under terms more amenable to the younger man. The original Ellington at Newport album was the first release in
22499-536: 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
22650-498: Was the main male vocalist in this era (until 1943) while Al Hibbler (who replaced Jeffries in 1943) continued until 1951. Ivie Anderson left in 1942 for health reasons after 11 years, the longest term of any of Ellington's vocalists. Once more recording for Victor (from 1940), with the small groups being issued on their Bluebird label, three-minute masterpieces on 78 rpm record sides continued to flow from Ellington, Billy Strayhorn, Ellington's son Mercer Ellington , and members of
22801-494: Was the same piece. I was established as having my own repertoire." In his autobiography, Music is my Mistress (1973), Ellington wrote that he missed more lessons than he attended, feeling at the time that piano was not his talent. Ellington continued listening to, watching, and imitating ragtime pianists, not only in Washington, D.C. but also in Philadelphia and Atlantic City , where he vacationed with his mother during
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