Noble Sissle was born in Indianapolis, Indiana, on July 10, 1889. His early interest in music came from his father, a minister and organist. The Sissles moved to Cleveland when Noble was 17, and in 1908, before graduating from high school, he joined a male quartet for a four-week run of the Midwest vaudeville circuit. After graduating, he joined a gospel quartet for a tour on the same circuit.
1. Riding the wave of new interest in black entertainers brought on by the success of James Reese Europe, Sissle was asked to organize his own orchestra, which he led at Indianapolis's Severin Hotel. In 1915, he left the city for Baltimore.
Sissle and Blake became songwriting partners in 1915 after they met as members of Joe Porter's Serenaders. Their
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In 1916, Sissle was invited to work for James Reese Europe in his Clef Club, and within three or four months, he was leading his own group within the organization. The summer of that year, Blake rejoined him.
When war broke out in 1917, Sissle enlisted with Europe and helped him recruit members for the military band he was forming. Blake, too old for military service at 35, stayed stateside, putting music to songs they sent back. When the armistice was signed, Europe and Sissle returned, and the three hoped to work together to bring African-American theatrical shows back to Broadway. It all came to an abrupt end when Europe was killed by a band member.
After Europe's death, Sissle and Blake were encouraged by his manager and the backers of the band to enter the white vaudeville circuit. There were very few black performers besides Sissle and Blake on what was known as the Keith circuit, and never more than one act at the same venue because only one African-American act was included in each show. Sissle and Blake, who billed themselves as "The Dixie Duo," were eventually highly successful. Patterned after their Clef Club presentations, their act was preformed without blackface and with an on-stage piano as their only prop. Their many hit songs in vaudeville included Gee, I'm Glad I'm From Dixie, their opening
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Following the show's successful run and subsequent successful road tours, however, the team that created it broke up.
Soon after, Sissle and Blake wrote a dozen songs for a new white musical, Elsie. The duo then made an early sound-on-film recording. In 1924, Sissle and Blake tried their hand at another production, In Bamville, which was eventually renamed The Chocolate Dandies. However, the show failed because it didn't fit the stereotype of "fast dancing and Negroid humor."
In 1925, Sissle and Blake toured Europe. While abroad, they wrote songs for a British revue and began to have disagreements about the direction of their work: Blake wanted to return to America, and Sissle wanted to stay in Europe. Although they returned to the States, Sissle decided to go back to Europe soon afterwards, and the team broke up.
In the thirties, Sissle put together a successful orchestra, and Blake worked with various African-American songwriters including Henry Creamer and Andy Razaf. He even wrote a song that was used for a Pabst Beer commercial. In 1933, Sissle, Blake, and Flournoy Miller got back together and attempted an unsuccessful revival of , Shuffle
Ellison grew and developed a liking in music where he studied piano and the trumpet. It was during this time that Oklahoma City was famous with several great jazz musicians.
Ever since Cornelius Vanderbilt was little, he had plans to be a boatman and become rich, and he did just that. Cornelius Vanderbilt was born on May 27, 1794, in Port Richmond, Staten Island, New York. He was born into a hardworking family of farmers and he had many siblings as well as a father named Cornelius van Derbilt and a mother named Phebe Hand. At just eleven years old, Cornelius Vanderbilt started working with his
Johannes Brahms was born on Tuesday 7th may 1833, in the city of Hamburg the birthplace also of Mendelssohn. Johann Brahms was himself a musician, and played the double bass for a time at the Karl Schultze Theatre, and later in the Stadttheater orchestra. In 1847 Johannes attended a good Burgerschule (citizens? school), and in 1848 a better, that of one Hoffmann. When he was eight years old his father requested the teachers to be very easy with him because of the time that he must take for his musical studies.
Lieutenant Chandler, in writing of Sherman's March to the Sea, tells that when the troops were halted at Shady Dale, Georgia, the regimental band played 'John Brown's Body,' whereupon a number of Negro girls coming from houses supposed to have been deserted, formed a circle around the band, and in a solemn and dignified manner danced to the tune. The Negro girls, with faces grave and demeanor characteristic of having performed a ceremony of religious tenor, retired to their cabins.
...ts out. In fact that prompted them to play as loud as possible in order to overwhelm the Creoles. Buddy Bolden was one of the blacks that had the ability to do just that. Along with his strong sound that he strived for, he improvised standard ragtime and blues pieces. Unfortunately he didn’t have as much control over his life that he had over his trombone. He became an alcoholic, contracted syphilis, and then ultimately dies in a mental institution. It is sad that he died without knowing his contribution to the development of what we now call jazz. I made a conscious decision to highlight the information in this book that I had never read about in the past. On the contrary you should know that this book contains very detailed information on the parts of black American music history that is popular in today's society. It covers everything from slave songs to Motown.
This type of integration went both ways, as black bands would hire young, adolescent white musicians in an effort to get more gigs. Jazz went to war, too, and would serve to remind men and women of home. On the home front, the music industry found itself struggling once again. Black-outs and late-night curfews darkened some nightclubs and dance halls. “The rationing of rubber and gasoline eventually drove most band buses off the roads, and the draft stole away good musicians.
Art Menius said, “The African-American music of the rural south provided the source for gospel, jazz, and blues, while the often ignored black contribution to country music and hillbilly music went far beyond providing the banjo and Charley Pride.” In 1928, A.P. Carter, the patriarch of the legendary Carter Family, the first family of country music, met a blues guitarist by the name of Lesley “Esley” Riddle. Lesley Riddle had created a unique picking and sliding technique on the guitar while he was recovering from an accident on the job. The Carter Family was looking for a new sound of music, and they were so overwhelmed by the sound that Lesley produced, they wanted him to teach them how to play that way. Lesley Riddle influenced Maybelle Carter’s style of guitar playing called the “Carter Scratch,” which became legendary. According to birthplaceofcountrymusic.org, Riddle’s influe...
Sousa was born on November 6, 1854 at a small place on 636 G Street, in southeast Washington D.C., near the Marine Barracks that would later have some influence on his music. (Sousa) His father played trombone in the Marine Band. Sousa was the third of ten children from John Antonio Sousa and Maria Elisabeth Trinkhous. Young Sousa grew up around military band music, and when he was just 6, he began learning a variety of instruments, such as; violin and piano. He also played flute, cornet, baritone, trombone, and alto horn. (Sousa)
They were performed by successors of black song and dance routine actors. The first Minstrel
Before the war started, a wealthy white man by the name of John Hammond worked to integrate black and white music.1 Since his childhood, he enjoyed the music of numerous black artists, and he wanted to share his love with the rest of America. He used much of his inherited fortune to make this possible. He went against the general opinion of society and his parents, who despised black people. Hammond refused to ignore black artists’ musical abilities because of their color, “I did not revolt against the system, I simply refused to be a part of it.”2 He used his money to organize the most eclectic group of musicians ever assembled, for an integrated audience of his time. Hammond’s efforts made an indelible impact on the music industry. The musicians Hammond introduced in...
1970 their contract with Capitol Records expired and they then were offered their own record label ‘ Brother Records’ through Warner-Reprise. They produced their first album with the new management called ‘Sunflower’ it was a critical success but a commercial disaster.
On May 3, 1933, James Brown was born in Barnwell, South Carolina, a few miles east away of the Georgia border. His parents separated when he was very young, and at the age of 4, Brown was
living in Harlem during the preJim Crow era, but his love for jazz music helps him connect
laboratory. He took a job with a law firm, but left when a white secretary refused to take dictation from him. He decided to leave the practice of law and use his artistic talents in theater and music to promote African American history and culture.
We have the South to thank for birthing the best sounds of music, jazz. Jazz fills the streets of Harlem with the tunes of sultry saxophone fused together with a trumpet, drum and keyboard. Just as Jazz has migrated from the South so has one of Harlem’s famous Jazz club owners, Samuel Hargrass Jr. Sam prides himself in stating that he is what is different among all the Jazz scenes in Harlem today. Located in the heart of Harlem, the Paris Blues has provided jazz lovers the satisfaction of live entertainment every night for the past 49 years.