Teacher notes for lecture: Jacob Lawrence painted a series called The Migration Series. The series, a moving portrayal of
the migration of hundreds of thousands of African Americans from the rural South to the North after World War I and
their struggle to adjust to Northern cities, was shown in New York, and brought him national recognition. Paintings
often portrayed the African American struggle.
Teacher notes for lecture: Georgia O'Keeffe (November 15, 1887 – March 6, 1986) was an American artist. Born near Sun
Prairie, Wisconsin, O'Keeffe first came to the attention of the New York art community in 1916, several decades before
women had gained access to art training in America’s colleges and universities. She made large-format paintings of
enlarged blossoms, presenting them close up as if seen through a magnifying lens, and New York buildings, most of
which date from the same decade. Beginning in 1929, when she first began working part of the year in Northern New
Mexico—which she made her permanent home in 1949—O’Keeffe depicted subjects specific to that area.
Dream Boogie
Good morning, daddy!
Ain't you heard
The boogie-woogie rumble
Of a dream deferred?
Listen closely:
You'll hear their feet
Beating out and beating out a You think
It's a happy beat?
Listen to it closely:
Ain't you heard
something underneath
like a What did I say?
Sure,
I'm happy!
Take it away!
Hey, pop!
Re-bop!
Mop!
Y-e-a-h!
Teacher notes for lecture: Langston Hughes wrote novels, short stories and plays, as well as poetry, and is also known
for his engagement with the world of jazz and the influence it had on his writing. (wrote jazz poetry) His life and work
were enormously important in shaping the artistic contributions of the Harlem Renaissance of the 1920s. Unlike other
notable black poets of the period—Claude McKay, Jean Toomer, and Countee Cullen—Hughes refused to differentiate
between his personal experience and the common experience of black America. He wanted to tell the stories of his
people in ways that reflected their actual culture, including both their suffering and their love of music, laughter, and
language itself.
Teacher notes for lecture: Steinbeck's novels can all be classified as social novels dealing with the economic problems of
rural labor. Wrote The Grapes of Wrath.
Teacher notes for lecture: F Scott Fitzgerald(September 24, 1896 – December 21, 1940) was an American author of
novels and short stories, whose works are the paradigm writings of the Jazz Age, a term he coined himself. He is widely
regarded as one of the greatest American writers of the 20th century.[1] Fitzgerald is considered a member of the "Lost
Generation" of the 1920s. He finished four novels: This Side of Paradise, The Beautiful and Damned, Tender Is the Night,
and his most famous, The Great Gatsby. A fifth, unfinished novel, The Love of the Last Tycoon, was published
posthumously. Fitzgerald also wrote many short stories that treat themes of youth and promise along with despair and
age.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qDQpZT3GhDg
Teacher notes for lecture: Edward Kennedy "Duke" Ellington (April 29, 1899 – May 24, 1974)[1] was an American
composer, pianist, and big-band leader. Ellington wrote over 1,000 compositions. A major figure in the history of jazz,
Ellington's music stretched into various other genres, including blues, gospel, film scores, popular, and classical. His
career spanned more than 50 years and included leading his orchestra, composing an inexhaustible songbook, scoring
for movies, composing stage musicals, and world tours. Several of his instrumental works were adapted into songs that
became standards. Due to his inventive use of the orchestra, or big band, and thanks to his eloquence and extraordinary
charisma, he is generally considered to have elevated the perception of jazz to an art form on a par with other
traditional genres of music.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CT4z847-hyc
Teacher notes for lecture: Bessie Smith - Nicknamed The Empress of the Blues, Smith was the most popular female blues
singer of the 1920s and 1930s.[1] She is often regarded as one of the greatest singers of her era and, along with Louis
Armstrong, a major influence on subsequent jazz vocalists
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wyLjbMBpGDA
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E2VCwBzGdPM
Teacher notes for lecture: Louis Armstrong (August 4, 1901 – July 6, 1971),[2] nicknamed Satchmo or Pops, was an
American jazz trumpeter and singer from New Orleans, Louisiana. Coming to prominence in the 1920s as an "inventive"
cornet and trumpet player, Armstrong was a foundational influence in jazz, shifting the focus of the music from
collective improvisation to solo performance.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oZciIDZxLJo
Teacher notes for lecture: Aaron Copland (November 14, 1900 – December 2, 1990) was an American composer,
composition teacher, writer, and later in his career a conductor of his own and other American music. Instrumental in
forging a distinctly American style of composition, he is often referred to as "the Dean of American Composers" and is
best known to the public for the works he wrote in the 1930s and 1940s in a deliberately accessible style often referred
to as Populist and which the composer labeled his "vernacular" style
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cH2PH0auTUU
Teacher notes for lecture: George Gershwin (September 26, 1898 – July 11, 1937) was an American composer and
pianist. Gershwin's compositions spanned both popular and classical genres, and his most popular melodies are widely
known. Among his best known works are the orchestral compositions Rhapsody in Blue and An American in Paris, as well
as the opera Porgy and Bess. Gershwin's compositions have been used in numerous films and on television, and several
became jazz standards recorded in many variations. Countless singers and musicians have recorded his songs.
Teacher notes for lecture: Edward Hopper (July 22, 1882 – May 15, 1967) was a prominent American realist painter and
printmaker. While he was most popularly known for his oil paintings, he was equally proficient as a watercolorist and
printmaker in etching. Both in his urban and rural scenes, his spare and finely calculated renderings reflected his
personal vision of modern American life.
Teacher notes for lecture: Luigi Lucioni, best known for his Realist landscapes and still lifes, immigrated to the U.S. in
1911 and settled in New Jersey. Lucioni's amazing attention to detail comes as a result of his work as an etcher (1922),
which stressed sharp, linear precision. Showed “smoothness” and texture.
The Wasteland (excerpt)
I. THE BURIAL OF THE DEAD
APRIL is the cruelest month, breeding
Lilacs out of the dead land, mixing
Memory and desire, stirring
Dull roots with spring rain.
Winter kept us warm, covering
Earth in forgetful snow, feeding
A little life with dried tubers.
5
Teacher notes for lecture: Thomas Stearns Eliot OM (September 26, 1888 – January 4, 1965) was a publisher, playwright,
literary and social critic and "arguably the most important English-language poet of the 20th century.” Although he was
born an American, he moved to the United Kingdom in 1914 (at age 25) and was naturalized as a British subject in 1927
at age 39. Wrote in a modernist style. The poem(wasteland) is often read as a representation of the disillusionment of
the post-war generation.
Ts'ai Chi'h
The petals fall in the fountain,
the orange-coloured rose-leaves,
Their ochre clings to the stone.
Teacher notes for lecture: Ezra Weston Loomis Pound (30 October 1885 – 1 November 1972) was an American
expatriate poet and critic, who became a major figure of the early modernist movement. His contribution to poetry
began with his promotion of Imagism, a movement that derived its technique from classical Chinese and Japanese
poetry, stressing clarity, precision and economy of language.