1920s – 1930s
JAZZ
DANCE
ART
LITERATURE: POETRY, DRAMA, NOVELS

World War I had just ended

The 18th Amendment made alcohol illegal

Warren Harding, Calvin Coolidge, Herbert Hoover, and
Franklin Delano Roosevelt were presidents

Radio hit the airwaves
That’s a radio.
She’s a flapper.
Great Migration from the rural South, 1914-1918
Former slaves were heading North to find work
in the urban centers/cities because
Reconstruction had failed.
Created their own culture of music, art,
literature, and fashion in response to their new
surroundings

Type of jazz music

Charlie Parker, saxophone

Dizzy Gillespie, trumpet

Charles Mingus, bassist

Scat: Be de be do be do be do be do

Horns played cleanly, like a piano

Emphasis on 8th and 16th notes

Very fast, many solos in one song

Chords are a reference, not a melody

Integrated/quoted/sampled from other songs
Roots of Jazz in the
Southern Spiritual
They played their music here
Dance and music
blended together…

Rented hall + flyers + cheap food, + good,
live music + dime admission + red lights =
 Musicians
like Charlie Parker or Billie
Holiday would show up after their paid gig
and play for free
 These
were called “Jumps!” or “Shouts!”
IT WAS THE JAZZ AGE
Just as colorful as the music

Some hearkened back to Africa
Like the work of Aaron Douglas
Reflected
the
dancing.
This
is
the
Charleston


Were always in the back of their minds
The reality: lynching and the Ku Klux Klan
This is
Denver,
CO
in 1930

Langston Hughes, Theme for English B:
The instructor said,
Go home and write
a page tonight.
And let that page come out of youThen, it will be true.
I wonder if it's that simple?
I am twenty-two, colored, born in Winston-Salem.
I went to school there, then Durham, then here
to this college on the hill above Harlem.
I am the only colored student in my class.
The steps from the hill lead down into Harlem
through a park, then I cross St. Nicholas,
Eighth Avenue, Seventh, and I come to the Y,
the Harlem Branch Y, where I take the elevator
up to my room, sit down, and write this page:
It's not easy to know what is true for you or me
at twenty-two, my age. But I guess I'm what
I feel and see and hear, Harlem, I hear you:
hear you, hear me-we two-you, me, talk on this
page.
(I hear New York too.) Me-who?
Well, I like to eat, sleep, drink, and be in love.
I like to work, read, learn, and understand life.
I like a pipe for a Christmas present,
or records-Bessie, bop, or Bach.
I guess being colored doesn't make me NOT like
the same things other folks like who are other
races.

So will my page be colored that I write?
Being me, it will not be white.
But it will be
a part of you, instructor.
You are white--yet a part of me, as I am a part of you.
That's American.
Sometimes perhaps you don't want to be a part of me.
Nor do I often want to be a part of you.
But we are, that's true!
As I learn from you,
I guess you learn from me--although you're older---and white--and somewhat more free.
This is my page for English B.
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http://www.jazzwise.com/catalog/media/Ae
berHbk/37.pdf
http://www.robinurton.com/history/Harlem.h
tm
http://www.huntfor.com/arthistory/C20th/ha
rrenaiss.htm
http://www.1920-30.com/
http://uptownflavor.files.wordpress.com/200
8/03/1996.jpg
http://www.artlex.com/ArtLex/h/harlemrenai
ssance.html