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influence of sexism at a young age
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The Rise of Lady Day
Lady Day, considered by many to be greatest jazz vocalist of all time, was praised during her career and even after her death. Holiday is looked at as one of the most influential women jazz music has ever had, but not many think of the journey she went through to become so widely respected. Through the the early years of her life, Billie dealt with abuse, rape, prostitution, and the death of a loved one. Even after going through these awful and traumatic events, she still overcame the loss of her childhood innocence and did amazing things with her life. Billie Holiday overcame the loss of childhood innocence by becoming a strong influential woman in a time of oppression, a significant jazz musician and by using her lyrics to spread messages like injustice and hope to the masses.
Holiday was able to show her strength to overcome her loss of innocence by being able to trust after being through such traumatic events. Even though Holiday had been raped multiple times and worked as a prostitute from a young age (Holiday15),she was able to move past that and still put all of herself in a relationship. Holiday had two meaningful marriages and each time she put most of herself in them. According to Farah Griffin, the author of If You Can’t Be Free, Be A Mystery: In Search of Billie Holiday, Holiday even said her last husband was her “hero” and was putting her on the “right path” with his love for her. This shows how much she looked up to her significant other, and how she was able to trust them enough to guide her through extremely important aspect of her life. In her first marriage, Holiday also dreamed of having a baby and a house of her own, and she only dreamed of doing this with her husband (Griffin 81). W...
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...e Holiday.” Encyclopedia of World Biography. Detroit: Gale, 1998. Biography In Context. Web. 21 Mar. 2014.
Blackburn, Julia. With Billie. New York: Random House, Inc., 2005. Print.
Conklin, Michael, “Holiday, Billie.” The Thirties in America. Salem Press. Web, 29 Mar. 2014.
Griffin, Farah Jasmine. If You Can’t Be Free, Be a Mystery: In Search of Billie Holiday. New York, NY: A Division of Simon & Schuster, Inc., 2001. Print.
Holiday, Billie, and William Duffy. Lady Sings the Blues. New York: Harlem Moon, 2006. Print.
Nicholson, Stuart. Billie Holiday. Boston: Northeastern University Press, 19995. Print.
Stewart, Jasmyne. “Art Analysis: “All of Me” by Billie Holiday.” Women art and culture. n.p 13 May 2012. Web. 30 Mar. 2014.
Ward, Geoffrey C. “Billie Holiday.” American Heritage. Dec94, Vol. 45 Issue 8, P14. Ebsco Student Research Center. Web, 29 Mar. 2014.
Eleanora Fagan (April 7, 1915 – July 17, 1959), professionally known as Billie Holiday, was an American jazz artist and artist musician with a vocation traversing almost thirty years. Nicknamed "Woman Day" by her companion and music accomplice Lester Young, Holiday affected jazz music and pop singing. Her vocal style, firmly propelled by jazz instrumentalists, spearheaded another method for controlling stating and rhythm. She was known for her vocal conveyance and improvisational aptitudes, which compensated for her restricted range and absence of formal music instruction. There were other jazz vocalists with equivalent ability, however Holiday had a voice that caught the consideration of her crowd.
Williams, Iain Cameron. Underneath a Harlem Moon: The Harlem to Paris Years of Adelaide Hall. London: Continuum, 2002. Print.
...ng to this day, she is one of few who could compete with the men of hip-hop, but she never pretended to be anything but a woman. She not only sang about female empowerment, but she wrote about being a woman from the insecurities that we as women sometimes feel to the nirvana of being in love. Sensuality and femininity were always as important to her which was her strength, and message to get out to women especially those of color.
Annie Oakley is regarded as the most famous and remembered woman from the western time period. She transformed the stereotypes that women were fighting against in the time period. Women faced pressures in their social and physical lives. Every thing they did was scrutinized by men and other women if not within the stereotype of a typical woman. Annie Oakley’s legacy after her death is that of a woman that stood out regardless of what others thought. She is remembered as the greatest woman shooter in history. She was “the first to create a picture of the cowgirl in the public mind” (Riley 34) Annie Oakley through her life and her accomplishments not only changed the stereotype of western women but also changed the way that women live their life.
“Strange Fruit” by Billie Holiday conveys the inhumane, gory lynchings of African-Americans in the American South, and how this highly unnatural act had entrenched itself into the society and culture of the South, almost as if it were an agricultural crop. Although the song did not originate from Holiday, her first performance of it in 1939 in New York City and successive recording of the song became highly popular for their emotional power (“Strange fruit,” 2017). The lyrics in the song highlight the contrast between the natural beauty and apparent sophistication of the agricultural South with the brutal violence of lynchings. Holiday communicates these rather disturbing lyrics through a peculiarly serene vocal delivery, accompanied by a hymn-like
...women, Jews, and Negroes were just some of the many things she believed in and worked for. With more equality between the different kinds of people, there can be more peace and happiness in the world without all the discrimination. Her accomplishments brought about increased unity in people, which was what she did to benefit mankind. All of her experiences and determination motivated her to do what she did, and it was a gift to humanity.
The movie Lady Day: The Many Faces Of Billie Holiday paints an interesting, and thought provoking portrait of one of jazz and blues most charismatic, and influential artists. The incomparable talent of Billie Holiday, both truth and legend are immortalized in this one-hour documentary film. The film follows Holiday, also referred to as “Lady Day” or “Lady”, through the many triumphs and trials of her career, and does it’s very best to separate the facts from fiction. Her autobiography Lady Sings The Blues is used as a rough guide of how she desired her life story to be viewed by her public. Those who knew her, worked with her, and loved her paint a different picture than this popular, and mostly fictional autobiography.
It is no secret that no matter how much women continue to strive in the workplace, politics, etc., inequality will always persist. Throughout American history, the oppression of women has caused an adverse effect on humanity. Some men believed that embracing women as worthy of equal opportunities was a threat to them, as all the rules would be changing. However, the 1900s witnessed a change in that trend, as women started to fight and stand up for their rights. Women have stood on the frontline of this conflict, but at the end of the day they are only requesting “The power or privilege to which one is justly entitled” So, how did women’s role in society evolve from 1919 to 1941?
Known as the “Empress Of Blues”, Bessie Smith was said to have revolutionized the vocal end of Blues Music. She showed a lot of pride as an independent African-American woman. Her style in performance and lyrics often reflected her lifestyle. Bessie Smith was one of the first female jazz artists, and she paved the way for many musicians who followed.
To commerate Black History Month, I have decided to do reasearch on an exceptionally talented musician Ella Fitzgerald. She was essentially the Aretha Franklin of the Jazz Age. She was an incredibly talented jazz singer who was considered the best by almost everyone. The reason she’s been chosen as today’s Black History Month is because she holds the distinction of being the first Grammy Award Winner who was both Black and female. Ella Fitzgerald had an everlasting impact on, not only how jazz music sounded, but also who performed it. When looking at a compulsive life as Ella’s, I was inspired by the huge impact she brought throught out music; especially jazz.
Different documents in the Gilded Age prominently illustrated gender inequality in their portrayal of men and women within society. Many photographs in the time period by Jacob Riis and Lewis Hine did not shed light on a woman’s hardships, but rather undermined their domestic work. Society failed to give women credit for their work at home due to the common misconception that a woman’s work was easier than that of a man’s. Margaret Byington’s article Homestead: The Households of a Mill Town contrastingly gave an accurate portrayal of the distress women faced in their everyday life. The representation of women in the Gilded Age varies significantly between that in the photographs, and their domestic, weak personification, and in Byington’s article, which gives women a more accurate depiction through their domestic duties.
Jackson, Buzzy. A Bad Woman Feeling Good Blues and The Women Who Sing Them. New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 2005. N. pag. Print.
Glasser, Ruth, My Music is My Flag: Puerto Rican Musicians in New York and their Communities, 1917-1940. (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1996).
Josephine Baker was an African American woman who had to overcome discrimination and abuse in achieving her dream of becoming a singer and dancer. She did this during the 1920s, when African Americans faced great discrimination. She had a hard childhood. Her personal life was not easy to handle. Furthermore, she overcame poverty and racism to achieve her career dream.
Koenig, Karl. "Something About Ragtime." Jazz in Print (1859-1929): An Anthology of Early Source Readings in Jazz History. New York: Pendragon, 2002. 97-98. Print.