Harlem Renaissance:

Jazz and Blues

Brian K
Jin K
Kevin O
Jon Y
 Jazz and Blues: The Origin
• African American
music existed long
before the term “jazz”
was ever made.
• African American
music started when
the slaves from the
West Africa brought
their musical
traditions with them to
the United States.
 Development of Jazz
• When the African Americans were introduced
to European Instruments, they added their
own traditional hymns and rhythms to form
Blues.
• The first instruments that they were
introduced to were the violins. Gradually,
African Americans were introduced to more
instruments
• Jazz came from Blues and Jazz immediately
became popular in cites just as Chicago and
New York during the Great Migration after
World War I
 Reason Jazz Formed
• The African Americans had to create a new
identity for themselves in the New World.
• So, they created Jazz to show how unique
their culture was to the world.
• However, jazz music became popular
worldwide.
• Black music provided the root of the Harlem
Renaissance
• Black writers such as Langston Hughes
valued the blues as an indigenous art form of
the country’s most oppressed people, and a
secular equivalent of the spirituals.
 Jazz in Harlem Renaissance
• Jazz and Blues only existed in the South.
• However, after World War I, during the
Great Migration, many jazz players ended
up at Harlem in New York City.
• There, they performed at the bars and
cabarets of Harlem
• Jazz orchestras traveled across the
country and Jazz was soon recognized as
a form of high art.
 Jazz: The Significance
• Jazz introduced African American from the
South and Midwest to bars in Harlem.
• Ranged from Marriage of blues to
instrumentation and orchestration
 Apollo Theater
• The world famous Apollo Theater is so
much more than a historic landmark
• It is a source of pride and a symbol of the
brilliance of American artistic
accomplishment.
• With its rich history and continued
significance, the Apollo Theater, is
considered the bastion of African-
American culture and achievement.
 •The theater is located at 253 W . 125th
Street in the New York City,
specifically in Harlem.

•Originally, it was named Hurtig and

Seamon’s New Burlesque Theatre and
African-Americans were not allowed
in the audience.
• In 1935 the Apollo Theater quickly
became known the place “Where Stars
are Born and Legends are Made” and
“home” to thousands of major
performance artists, fans, and patrons
of the arts from around the world.
•Popular arena for emerging and established
African-American and Latino performers.
 Regal Theater in
Chicago

Howard Theater in
Washington D.C.
Joe “King” Oliver
 Biography
• Born in 1885 in New Orleans
• Died in 1938 in Savannah
• Was mentor and teacher to Louis
Armstrong
• Known to be the starter of the Harlem
Renaissance Jazz
 Examples of Work
• I Must Have It
• Jackson Blues
• Buddy’s Habit
• Weatherbird Rag
 Music
• Mentor and teacher of Louis Armstrong
• Hot Jazz is King Oliver’s style of collective
improvisation instead of solos
• He used his mutes, derbies, bottles and
caps to make a range of different sounds
through his horn
• Started to play around 1908
• Ended as a janitor
Fletcher Henderson
 Biography
• Henderson was born in to a stable, middle
class family.
• When Henderson was young, he wanted to
have a job in chemistry.
• However, he found out that finding a job in
chemistry would be nearly impossible
because of his race.
• He became manager of Harry Pace's Black
Swan Record Company, playing piano on
many of the company's record dates.
• He then organized a band to support Blues
singer Ethel Waters.
• In 1922, he was leading a band at the Little
Club near Broadway.
• In 1924, he hired Louis Armstrong from
Chicago.
• While Louis was in his band, Henderson was
the first to acquire a wide reputation in Jazz.
• Henderson led the most commercially
successful of the African-American Jazz
bands of the 1920s.
Louis Armstrong
• Born in New Orleans
1901
• Shot a pistol on New
Year’s Eve when 11
years old
– Went to Juvenile court
– Stayed for 18 months
 Louis Armstrong
• Mentor was Joe
“King” Oliver
• American Jazz
trumpeter and singer
• Also skilled at “scat
singing” which is
wordless vocalizing
 Louis Armstrong
• He played with many
other musicians.
Including Joe Oliver,
he played with
Fletcher Henderson,
Bessie Smith, and
more
 Louis Armstrong
• Traveled a lot
• Went from New Orleans to Chicago to
New York back to Chicago back to new
York for Broadway
• Most significant artist by late 30s and
created a sensation in Europe
 Louis Armstrong
• In 1957, Armstrong publicly condemned
violence in Little Rock
• Called President Eisenhower “two-faced”
and “gutless”
Billie Holiday
• Billie Holiday was born
Eleanora Fagan on
April 7, 1915, in
Baltimore, Maryland.
(She borrowed the
name "Billie" from one
of her favorite movie
actresses, Billie Dove. )
• Holiday suffered from
poverty in her childhood
years.
Life in New York-
• Holiday auditioned for a
singing job and was
hired. For the next few
years she sang in
Harlem clubs,.
• Through a series of
recordings made
between 1935 and 1939,
her international
reputation was
established.
•Worked with the group Count
Basie, Artie Shaw.
•Young named her "Lady Day
and that title became her jazz
world name from the mid-1930s
on.

•Holiday's relationship with

Basie's star tenor
saxophonist Lester Young
(1909–1959) is the stuff of
legend.
•Then, in 1939, she began an engagement
at Cafe Society , and she recorded for a
song about the lynching of blacks called
Strange Fruit.
•
•She started to have success with slow,
melancholy songs ,particularly Gloomy
Sunday (1941), a suicide song, and Lover
Man (1944).
• Holiday’s career went down with the use of
drugs.
• Holiday is often considered the foremost
female singer in jazz history.
• On March 6, 2000, Holiday was inducted into
the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in the Early
Influences category.
Duke Ellington
 Biography
• Duke Ellington’s real name is Edward Kennedy
Ellington
• Born April 29, 1899 in Washington D.C.
• Died May 24, 1974 in New York City
• He was an American pianist who was the
greatest Jazz composer and bandleader.
• Ellington led his band for more than half a
century, composed thousands of records, and
created one of the most unique cohesive sounds
in all of Western music
 Examples of Work
• New World a-Comin’
• Black, Brown and Beige Suite
• Three Black Kings
• Harlem, For Jazz Band and Orchestra
 Music
• Ellington is known for being daring with his music and
inserting new types of sounds into his songs
• Ellington’s most significant works were written
specifically for his own band members and soloists
• His arrangements of music have been remarkable and
have achieved a blend of individual and cohesive
qualities
• However, since Ellington’s most significant works were
for his band members and soloists, the works were
interpreted by others as satisfactory and sometimes
lower.
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