A Women’s History Month Profile — Bessie Smith
Bessie Smith biographer Chris Albertson talks about the life of “The Empress of the Blues,” one of popular music’s most important figures during the 1920’s and 1930’s
...March 23rd, 2023
Bessie Smith biographer Chris Albertson talks about the life of “The Empress of the Blues,” one of popular music’s most important figures during the 1920’s and 1930’s
...March 23rd, 2023
An interview with The Art of Jazz author Alyn Shipton, whose book is an exploration of how jazz influenced sheet music art, album art, posters, photography, and individual works of fine art.
...April 25th, 2021
“Charles Ingham’s Jazz Narratives” connect time, place, and subject in a way that ultimately allows the viewer a unique way of experiencing jazz history. This edition’s narratives are “The Entrance of Bessie Smith into San Diego”, “Lionel Hampton Is Coming to Dinner at Dr. Gordon’s House”, and
“Lionel Hampton: Central Avenue Breakdown”
June 15th, 2020
While he was a jazz pianist known to frequently accompany blues singers, he was also a composer (“Royal Garden Blues,” “West End Blues,” “Taint Nobody’s Business If I Do”), show producer, song publisher, emcee with a minstrel show, artist manager (including Bessie Smith, whom he helped get started), A & R man for Okeh Records, and one of the most successful African American businessmen of his era. Who is he?
Meade Lux Lewis
Albert Ammons
Eddie Heywood
Teddy Wilson
Jimmy Blythe
Clarence Williams
Tommy Flanagan
Herbie Nichols
Jimmy Rowles
Go to the next page for the answer!
...
June 22nd, 2018
Although it only encompasses about six square miles, the New York City neighborhood of Harlem has played a central role in the development of American culture. Originally rural farmland, then an affluent suburb, since 1911 Harlemhas been predominantly an African American community. Its residents havehad a disproportionately large impact on all aspects of American culture,leaving their mark on literature, art, comedy, dance, theater, music, sports, religion and politics.
...March 18th, 2013
What’s Ours
it may be that a long time ago, as a baby,
we chose the way we tasted sugar
felt cotton and heard Bessie Smith
at 3 a.m. in the back of a dream
February 25th, 2009
With just forty-one recordings to his credit, Robert Johnson (1911-38) is a giant in the history of blues music. Johnson’s vast influence on twentieth-century American music, combined with his mysterious death at the age of twenty-seven, has allowed speculation and myths to obscure the facts of his life. The most famous of these legends depicts a young Johnson meeting the Devil at a dusty Mississippi crossroads at midnight and selling his soul in exchange for prodigious guitar skills.
...November 12th, 2003
Considered by many to be the greatest blues singer of all time, Bessie Smith was also a successful vaudeville entertainer who became the highest paid African-American performer of the roaring twenties.
First published in 1971, author Chris Albertson ‘s Bessie was described at the time by critic Leonard Feather as the most devastating, provocative, and enlightening work of its kind ever contributed to the annals of jazz literature. New Yorker critic Whitney Balliett called it the first estimable full-length biography not only of Bessie Smith, but of any black musician.
...September 22nd, 2003
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