The first song I am doing a review about is “Let’s Call the Whole Thing Off.” The original version was performed by Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers in the film Shall We Dance(1937). However since then, several artists have recorded this song. The song illustrates a conversation between a man and a woman who are in a romantic relationship. However, because they are from two different social classes, the way they pronounce certain words such as “tomato” and “potato” is making them both reconsider if they should continue with the relationship or not. However, at the end they both realize that it would break their hearts if they parted. Therefore, they decide to continue their romance. The original version of the song has a faster tempo and the singers are accompanied by an orchestra. The sound of the song is structured and typical. Although the song is supposed to be conversant between to lovers, the song does not give off any kind of emotion. I do not hear any romance between Fred and Ginger. …show more content…
The difference with the Ella Fitzgerald and Louis Armstrong version is that it has a slower, jazzier tempo. They were accompanied by a band but the piano is the main instrument displayed. The blue’s tonality is heard throughout the performance, mainly in the voices of the two Blues singers. They perfectly embody the voices of two lovers by making it romantic, as well as playful at times. This version of the song makes me get up and start moving. Not necessarily the way I would with a rap song, but more like a slight swing. It is easier to sing along with because of the flexibility of the
Warriors Don 't Cry is a memoir written by Melba Pattillo Beals. It is about the author herself as a young girl named Melba, who grew up in a society of segregation. Nine students, including Beals, have the chance to integrate a white school called Central High. Mobs of white people were against it and would harass them and even try to kill them. Three elements used in this memoir are first point of view, character and plot. Furthermore, Warriors Don 't Cry has the theme of courage.
Typically when they sing using sadness they sing about negative points in their life, negative subjects all workers relate to, or the pain that comes with their work. When they sang using a sad tone it was called a blue devil or sometimes just blues. They used these names to describe their blue mood. A quote describing why blues are sad by Joe louis: “The man says, why I sing the blues is because I lived it. I know how it feels. When your hurt you gotta tell somebody. Somebody must understand how you feel . The only way to do it is to say it loud and clear. Make sure that everyone will hear. Its the truth the way it is. That’s why I sing the blues. “ The reason people sing blues and sad songs during the time is to let off steam, and to get your emotions out of your system instead of letting steam build up to the point you explode.
The blues is also about saying what you feel the moment expressing yourself without even caring what others think which is kind of like modern day rap. In American history, the blues all started on Southern
As time progressed, music had to continue to evolve to keep up with the ever-changing styles. Blues slowly began to morph into Rock and Roll to engage people of a new era. While many changes occurred in creating Rock and Roll, it continued to carry undertones of the Blues. This can be heard while comparing Son House’s, “Walking Blues” and Elvis Presley’s, “Blue Moon of Kentucky.” These two songs show many similarities, while also having their own identities.
Perhaps the blues was representation of optimism and faith for the entire city of Harlem and all of African-American descent. Music is portrayed fluently and abundantly throughout the entire story of “Sonny’s Blues”. Despite the fact that Sonny frequently plays the piano, there is always a juke box playing, the “humming an old church song”, a “jangling beat of a tambourine”, a tune being whistled, or a revival meeting with the singing of religious words (Baldwin 293-307). The repetition of music in the short story is a realistic portrayal of how regular the blues, musically and emotionally, was present in an African-American’s life during the era of racial discrimination. Flibbert explains that the rooted, burdensome emotion felt by African Americans is difficult to put to words, other than describing it as the blues. He best defines the blues as “a mental and emotional state arising from recognition of limitation imposed-in the case of African-Americans-by racial barriers to the community” (Flibbert). Though a definite definition exists, the blues cannot simply be construed. To cope with this unexplainable feeling of blue, the African-American folk genre of jazz music was created. Finally, the blues was something African-Americans owned and that the white man could not strip them of. Though music appears to show up at the most troublesome times in “Sonny’s Blues”, it brings along “a glimmer of life within the
They don't understand that's life's way of talking. You don't sing to feel better. You sing 'cause that's a way of understanding life. The blues was a way for blacks to speak on the struggles that were going on during that time. Moreover, it would be beneficial for a white audience because Wilson speaks on racial exploitation of blacks and how people in the music industry would try to pay black artists very little and make a huge profit from their music.
Musicologists have dated the ‘birth’ of blues to be around 1890 as a West African tradition involving blue indigo in which mourners at ceremonies would wear blue dyed attires to resemble their suffering . Although, blues derived from times of slavery, the Prohibition Era (1920’s), World War Two (1939-1945), and during the Vietnam War (predominantly 1960’s to 1970’s), it has been a continuously evolved form of music in America, in which the similarities have always remained; melancholy and protest.
Blues music emerged as an African American music genre derived from spiritual and work songs at the end of the 19th century and became increasingly popular across cultures in America. The Blues is the parent to modern day genre’s like jazz, rhythm and blue and even rock and roll, it uses a call-and-response pattern. While Blues songs frequently expressed individual emotions and problems, such as lost love, they were also used to express despair at social injustice. Even though Blues singing was started by men, it became increasing popular among women, creating one of the first feminist movements. Ma Rainey, a pioneer in women’s
In the article " Don't Blame The Eater" By David ZincZenco he expresses his bad eating habits growing up as an American child. David explains how his mother worked extended hours at her job , and didn't have the time to prepare home cooked meals.In consequence to eating bad foods David resulted torpid and obese at the age of fifteen. David blames the little knowledge he had on the health effects caused by fast food; if he knew better ; he would of made wiser choices. Today in America the epidemic of obesity has increased dramatically due to bad eating habits .One of the results in cosequence to those who follows an unhealthy diet high in sugar and fat ;has been the diagnosis of type 2 diabetes . Unfortinitely, type 2 diabetes has increased by 30 percent in children suffering from obesity, and not to mention the medical costs to treat diabetes has increased to 100 billion a year . However, such deseases can be cured if fast food restaurants stated the health risks involved if such foods are consumed just like the tabacco company states the health risk involved when smoking.If David had known then the damage he was causing to his body he wouldn't have risked his health by eating bad food at such a
Louis Armstrong’s rendition of the Hot Chocolates “Black and Blue” is efficient in of displaying the unique characteristics of the music that makes jazz such a special genre and sound. The Hot Chocolates first preformed the song at the end of the 1920s, right when the blues started to become more intertwined with jazz music and performers like Mammie Smith started to become relevant. Louis Armstrong also derived a lot of inspiration from blues which is why his version of the song incorporated blues scales. The Hot Chocolates version of the song relies more heavily on the vocals than Armstrong’s version. In the original, you hear Edith Wilson’s voice come in well before the song’s half way point; in Louis version his trumpet takes
This tune became a jazz standard due to its slow harmonic progression that sounds like blues, and Billie’s recording in 1936 is a true example of just that. The low, crawling music begins and drags on, while Billie begins to croon in a completely soulful way. What we see come from Billie in this is complete sincerity in the form of music, and she popularized this song and led it to become number twelve in the U.S. pop charts, further cementing her stardom. Ella recorded her version some time later in 1958, on her and Louis Armstrong’s Porgy and Bess. Again, Ella sings with clear dictation and is able to express her three octave vocal range freely. Her version does not invoke as much gut-wrenching emotion as Billie’s does, nor does it explicitly stick to the pure blues style, but it conveys the story and message as the lullaby that it is. With both Ella and Billie recording their renditions of this opera piece, interest in the opera and with jazz music has continued on.
...izes non-heteronormative lifestyle and sexual fluidity. Blue is an honest and unbiased depiction of a person experiencing love and multifaceted complications of life.
For Stanley, the blues tell the stories of the African-American community. Some of the stories talk about the harshness of their lives, but they also talk about the good times they had. [People] play the blues to get rid of the blues not to get them." (Lamb, 1). When people play or even listen to the blues, they are letting all of their worries go. They are not worrying about their job, the bills, or their kids. They are just trying to enjoy the moment when the blues are playing. The blues are some people's release from the stresses of their lives.
When the piece was originally written for the Hot Chocolates, it was considered to be “America’s first `racial protest song`… [and] certainly Razaf’s lyric stripped bare essences of racial discontent that had very rarely if ever been addressed by any African American musically” (Singer 219). The music was created to express the hardships of the black community and the intra-racial discrimination, evident by the line: Browns and yellers all have fellers, gentlemen prefer them right. This illustrates that within the black community, those of fairer complexion were preferred. In Armstrong’s performance, the piece was removed from its original context of a Broadway show and placed as a stand-alone piece. In doing this, the emotion created by the Broadway performance and the stage scene were lost and “Black and Blue” became just another bluesy piece. Further, his “recitativo vocal style underscore[d] the song’s plaintive quality, while his exuberant embellished trumpet solos at the beginning and the end … counteract[ed] despair” (Meckna 38). However, Armstrong dropped the verse about intra-racial prejudice and made the chorus a “threnody for blacks of every shade” (Teachout 139). In doing this, he altered the music from being just about intra-racial issues to a global of scale of the battle between black and whites and the prejudices.