Harlem was the heart of the "Jazz Age". In the 1920 Jazz was the music that made the people dance. Sweet melodies with a driving rhythm, the music which was played in this African American neighborhood in New York was attracting a lot of different people. Not only pleasure seekers were visiting the cabarets of Harlem but also serious artists, actors and producer s who were interested in seeing something new and getting inspiration.
The pioneer work in the artistic development of jazz was done by the Negro artists.
Jazz is very spontaneous in its playing technique. A lot of Negro musicians from the Harlem Renaissance were often imitated but unfortunately rarely equaled.
The special techniques of the best performers, singers and players at this time are far more than just tricks or mechanicals effects, the artists had a lot of inventive and improvising skills which makes it hard to copy them.
Leopold Stokowski says the following about musicians of the Harlem Renaissance: "They are not hampered by convention or traditions, their constant experiment; they are causing new blood to flow in the veins of music. The Jazz players make their instruments do entirely new things, things finished musicians are taught to avoid. They are pathfinders into new realms".
Louis Armstrong had a major impact on Jazz. He brought a soloist's art into the ensemble nature of Jazz and was one of the most important artists when we speak about Harlem Renaissance. He is also famous for his unique voice. He often used an improvised style of singing, with random syllables or sometimes without words, which they called scat singing. With this technique singers used to imitate instrumental solos.He influenced and created a new kind of Jazz with his recordings.
Louis himself said that he was born on th 4th of July in 1900, the day of Independence in the USA. His actual birthday however was on the 4th of August in 1901. He was called "Satchelmouth" because of his wide and huge grin. Later he got his nickname "Satchmo". He grew up in a rough neighborhood. His father was a laborer and his mother was working as a part-time prostitute.
After he had fired a pistol into the air on New Year's eve, Louis was arrested by the police and was sent to the New Orleans Colored Waifs Home for Boys. It was then when young Louis came in contact with the musical world. The musical instructor of the school was Peter Davis. He soon recognized the talent in the young boy and taught singing, rhythm and percussion and how to play the trumpet.
In his youth Louis often went to dive bars where he was listening to jazz bands. "King" Oliver was one of the musicians Louis liked very much. Oliver became his mentor like Peter Davis. Armstrong began to play in numerous bands. 1920 he played in a band called the "Hot Five" and with this band he made his first record for Okeh in 1925. He even had the chance to do a track with Bessie Smith. His star was rising. By 1929 he was famous and became a big jazz star. He had his own performance group called Louis Armstrong and the Stompers and had the chance to tour with the show "Hot Chocolates".
Listen to "What a wonderful World" by Louis Armstrong
Ella was born in Newport News on April 25 in 1917. After her birth her parents (William and Tempie) got divorced. Tempie and Ella moved in with Tempie's longtime boyfriend Joseph da Silva in Yonkers, N.Y.
Ella grew up in a mixed neighborhood and made friends easily. She liked sports such as baseball but also enjoyed singing and dancing. Some nights she and her friends went to Harlem and watched different acts at the Apollo Theater.
On one evening she even had the opportunity to compete in Amateur Night at the Apollo Theater. She originally planned to compete as a dancer but then she was so nervous and her body was shaking that she made a last minute decision to sing. The audience loved her and was demanding an encore.
On stage Ella felt comfortable, was self-confident and seemed to have no fears. However, off the stage she was a very shy girl who was unsecure about her appearance and abilities.
"Once up there, I felt the acceptance and love from my audience," Ella said. "I knew I wanted to sing before people the rest of my life."
Benny Carter (saxophonist and arranger) heard her singing that night and was impressed with her natural Talent. He began pushing her career by introducing her to important people. They became good friends and were often working together.
Ella continued to participate in competition she could find and won almost every talent show. 1935 she was offered to perform for a week with the Tiny Bradshaw band at the Harlem Opera House.
Among other musicians such as Charlie Richard Parker, Bessie Smith, Duke Ellington and Louis Armstrong Ella gave with her voice a special touch to the Harlem renaissance.
Ella's voice was famous for its flexibility, she could sing in a wide range and her intonation was brilliant. She could sing in various styles and imitate every instrument in the orchestra. Her scat singing became very famous.
She had the chance to work with the best Jazz artist of that time from Duke Ellington, Count Basie and Nat King Cole, to Frank Sinatra, Dizzy Gillespie and Benny Goodman.
Duke Ellington was born April 29, 1899 in Washington D.C. His family always encouraged his interests in arts and he began studying piano at age seven. During high-school years he was awarded but he did not accept a scholarship to Pratt Institute, Brooklyn, New York. At age 17 he started to perform professionally, inspired by ragtime performers. He started playing in Broadway nightclubs, then led a sextet which grew into a 10-piece ensemble. Performers such as Bubber Miley or Joe Nanton influenced Ellington's early "jungle style". Many years of playing at the Cotton Club in Harlem stimulated Ellington to enlarge his band to 14 musicians, each one individually chosen and several member were themselves important jazz artists. A high point in Ellington's career came in 1940 when he composed several masterpieces such as "Concerto for Cootie", "Cotton Tail", "Ko-Ko", "Main Stem" or "Harlem Air Shaft". By then Billy Strayhorn became Ellington's composing-arranging partner. It was him who composed what would become the band's theme song "Take the 'A' Train".
A number of the band's hits were introduced by Ivy Anderson, who was the band's female vocalist in the 1930s.
Ellington always charmed audience with his suave humour. His career spanned more than half a century which is most of the documented history of jazz. He was the greatest jazz composer and bandleader, composed thousands of scores and created one of the most distinctive ensemble sounds n all of Western music.
He continued to lead the band until shortly before his dead on May 24, 1974 in New York.
Once she started recording, her career really took off and her first recording – "Down Hearted Blues" – was a big success. For her upcoming recordings she also used many top musicians as sidemen such as Louis Armstrong, Joe Smith (her favorite cornetist), James P. Johnson and Charlie Green.
Bessie Smith was the first major blues and jazz singer on record and one of the most powerful of all times. That must be the reason she earned the title of "The Empress of the Blues".
However, by 1929 the blues was out-of-fashion and Bessie Smith's career began to flounder. In 1933 she made her final recording with John Hammond.
Bessie Smith's talent was to deliver her songs with such an emotion as she knew firsthand about struggle and heartbreak. Her first husband died and her second marriage was a unhappy union. Beside that she also battled a problem of alcohol.
Planning and working on a comeback, Smith died on September 26, 1937, in a car accident. After her death her music still lived on an continued to win over new fans.
I've lived a life
but nothin' I've gained.
Each day I'm full
of sorrow and pain.
No one seems to care
enough for me
to give me a word
of sympathy.
Oh, me! Oh, my!
Wonder what will
the end be?
Oh, me! Oh, my!
Wonder what will
become of poor me?
In Harlem very good piano player had the chance to compete in late-night cutting contest. Those sessions sometimes lasted four or five hours. The striders would show their most original and difficult arrangements to see who was the "top dog" of the pianists. They were given a tune and they had to create/improvise patterns and melodies, which were better, more original than the ones the players done before. The better your individual style in playing was the better chance you had to win. The pianists had to be able to play in all the keys and also to play by ear.
The best dance club in Harlem was called the Savoy. All sorts of people gathered there on open nights to sway their hips and clap their hands. The ballroom was 50 feet wide and 250 feet long. The Savoy unlike other clubs even provided two bandstands. That means the music kept going and never stopped. Jazz with groovy rhythm kept costumers dancing.
