Ida B. Wells fought lynching and injustice in the South with the courage of her convictions. Mae Bertha Carter was the unpretentious mother who persevered the backlash of bullets and increased poverty to send her seven children to desegregate an all-white school system. Oprah Winfrey is the media mogul and darling born to poverty and struggle in Mississippi who rose to take the talk show genre by storm and build a media empire worth millions. Works Cited http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ida_B._Wells Curry, Constance.
He returned in 1980 making new recordings and expensive tours. He received an honorary doctorate of music from the New England Conservatory in 1986 in honor of his long-standing achievements. Davis’ playing Incorporated many styles, from bop to modal fusion. Oftentimes Davis was the victim of negative criticism because of his adopting sometimes unpopular styles of music, but he is most respected for being one of a few jazz musicians who continually took the music to newer and more creative heights. The musical events Miles Davis created during his so-called electric period (1969-1975), are acts of constant exploring in c... ... middle of paper ... ...und producers argue they are sparing us from," says Teo.
Music is a way for millions of musicians and singers to openly express them selves even if it is not socially acceptable by the dominant paradigm. One distinctive characteristic of music is that each musical piece could be perceived differently by the listening audience. Lastly, the diverse quality of music allows for exploration of the true meaning of its poignant messages. These exuberant pieces defined what jazz really is, and should be attributed to helping develop the diverse historical perspective of American Jazz.
Louis Armstrong is most known for his work of Jazz. Just the nature of music and Jazz was valued more everywhere (Merod, 2011).There was an attitude shift when his music went worldwide, people where more self-asserted and motivated by him. There was a widespread stretch of knowledge of creativity all around the world causing a growing interest in African-American creativity. He strategically worked his way up and was capable of maintaining his composure in the hall of celebrities. According to research, “Armstrong pointed a way out of the rabbit hole in which music in the first decades of the twentieth century was snuggly enclosed, mostly as danceable entertainment, and only that, a diversion within the orderly world of labor’s anxiety and capital’s boredom” which is a hard thing to do in my opinion (Merod, 2011).
Modern jazz, and particularly bebop, because of its hybrid nature has presented cultural critics, and especially critics of music, with a set of unresolvable issues. The music itself embodies contradiction. It can accurately be called both popular and high culture; it has an oral, vernacular lineage and one related to more innovative compositional techniques; it is Afro-American and European, romantic and revolutionary; and it has both escapist (ie, Sun Ra and late-era John Coltrane) and resistant (ie. Archie Shepp, Ornette Coleman) tendencies. As a result, jazz has become one of the most highly discusses and debated modern musical forms with controversial discourse surrounding its development.
She has not gone quite as far as Jane Fonda did in the seventies, but has still used notoriety to influence others. She frequently wears anti-war apparel at her concerts and other Hollywood events, and always sneaks in some sort of “no war” speech into all of her interviews. In 2003 during a March concert in London, Natalie Maines, the lead singer of the Dixie Chicks, took a break from performing to make some very controversial comments. She claimed that, “we’re ashamed the president of the United States is from Texas.” A comment may felt was completely uncalled for, it caused many people to boycott them. Patrons that paid for those tickets did not do so in order to hear a political debate, they paid to hear a concert.
Emily Dickinson’s “The Soul Selects her Own Society” presents herself as absolute and her rights as unchallengeable. The poem puts forward the idea of “friendship or love” which means choosing a significant person and excluding other people. Dickinson reveals that she was shutting people from her life, but because it had been so long, they are no longer interested in taking part of her life. Dickinson’s actions imply that the ability to create and construct a world for oneself, such as choosing your own actions, provides an example of a god-like achievement. Overall, Dickson asserts the importance of “the Self” theme which is shown my just speaking and writing as a ratification of the will to explore and express “the Self” to others.
I always enjoy listening to jazz since I think of jazz as an art form in which musicians are allowed to express their original ideas and opinions to an audience who are always open to new sensations. As I was watching the documentary on the infamous Blue Note recording company, one of the jazz musicians that they interviewed made an interesting comment about the African-American jazz artists in the 1950s-1960s composing songs about their struggle for civil rights. I found that interesting because I never knew that I was listening to instrumental songs about civil rights protesting. I really wanted to do an I-Search paper on jazz, but I decided to research bebop since bebop is an extension of jazz. I wanted to find both bebop's and jazz's roots, so that I could have a better understanding of the jazz musician and his approach to playing bebop.
Jazz music is thought of as a symbol of the Civil Rights Movement—the music’s conception and growing popularity, during a time of social strife, served as a foundation for reconciliation between the different races. Today, if jazz were able to serve the same purpose, its popularity would be revived, or increase exponentially. Moskowitz claims, “Quite a few new bands are revitalizing the form in exciting ways, mixing elements of jazz (theory, improvisation, culture and composition) with other styles to create music that is often hard to label or categorize” (Moskowitz 1). People’s inability to categorize the new music as jazz, or having characteristics of jazz, is what makes some conclude the genre is entirely
Cultural capital is a theory formulated by Pierre Bourdieu (1986) that describes the cultural possessions that determine social prestige in a system of exchange. Cultural capital is always in flux, continuously transitioning through low-brow, middle-brow, and high-brow art forms. Since the early 1920s, Jazz has been constantly growing its cultural capital and its intellectual property as a scholarly art form. Miles Davis was an American jazz musician, trumpeter, bandleader, and composer. With works such as “Birth of the Cool” and “Kind of Blue” being regarded as important intellectual advancements in jazz by many music critics.