Exam Study Notes
Larger Kanata and Influences
Ordering of Moses based on "Go Down Moses," a Negro spiritual.
Young artists impacted include:
William Grant Still (1930): Afro-American Symphony.
William Dawson (1931): Negro Folk Symphony.
Florence Price (1932): Symphony in E Minor (aka Negro Symphony). Influenced by blues and jazz.
Clarence Cameron White and James P. Johnson
Clarence Cameron White (1930): Orruanga, a Haitian opera in three movements.
James P. Johnson: Jazz pianist known for Harlem Symphony, Symphony in Brown, and American Symphonic Suite.
His song: "Yeah, Me No" (a Negro Rhapsody).
African American Music Characteristics & Racial Uplift
African American music characteristics: call and response, offbeat, and skipbeat.
Classical music was used as a means for racial uplift.
Black intelligentsia preferred Negro spirituals; jazz was tolerated, blues shunned.
Piano as a status symbol; attitude shifted when jazz was played on piano.
James P. Johnson: More recognized for jazz rhythms than classical works. Grew up in the ragtime era.
Quote: "The creator of stride piano music referred to as the father of Stride is James P. Johnson."
Hazel Scott
Hazel Scott: Jamaican-born pianist.
Mother introduced her to piano music and jazz.
Educated at Juilliard School of New York; a child prodigy.
Played in her mother's all-female orchestra.
Worked in Hollywood.
First black person to have their own TV show: The Hazel Scott Show.
Affected by the Red Scare; moved to Paris, then back to the US.
Died in 1981.
Played "Taking a Chance" (video/performance on piano).
Considered one of the greatest jazz pianists.
Stride Artists and Venues
Prominent stride artists: Hazel Scott, Lucky Roberts, Thomas "Fats" Waller, Willie "The Lion" Smith, and Art Tatum (blind, considered the greatest).
Jungle Alley: West 133rd Street between Lenox and Seventh Avenue.
Clubs and Mafia
Most clubs and bars in Jungle Alley owned by the mafia.
Cotton Club (1933): Largest and most elegant club; no blacks policy.
Lena Horne danced there from age 16 in the chorus line.
Originally featured Duke Ellington, later Cab Calloway.
Al Capone (Chicago-based) loved jazz.
Thomas "Fats" Waller played at the Hotel Sherman.
Forced by gunpoint into black limo, taken to Al Capone's headquarters for a surprise birthday.
Capone kept him for three days and paid him a thousand dollars.
Al Capone + Johnny Gotts.
Louis Armstrong shadowed by thugs, considered an investment as a headliner.
Club Incidents and Owners
Plantation Club: Mafia-owned; destroyed by nine men with crowbars, knives, and axes.
Smalls Paradise: Owned by Ed Smalls; most elegant black-owned and occupied club.
Connie's Inn: Owned by two brothers; black people were scarce; mob-owned.
Events and Prohibition
Savoy Ballroom: Used for events;
square feet (size of a city block).
Floor replaced every few years due to overuse.
Speakeasies (1919-1932): Prohibition era.
Places for drinking and dancing.
Race mixing was common.
Generic music.
Orchestra Leaders and Chicago Renaissance
Principal orchestra leaders in New York: Duke Ellington, Cab Calloway, Fletcher Henderson, Billy Eckstein.
Chicago Renaissance (1935-1950): Tangential with the Harlem Renaissance.
Characteristics of the Chicago Renaissance
Three characteristics:
Glorified the African past.
Instilled pride in African values.
Aligned with Pan-Africanism (promoted unity).
Chicago Renaissance Compared to Harlem & Preconditions
Compared to Harlem Renaissance:
Less wealthy patrons.
Occurred during the Great Depression.
Adopted ideas of the Harlem Renaissance.
Fewer superstars.
Chicago geographically far from New York (hub for publication, magazines, opportunities).
Preconditions:
The Great Migration: Southern African Americans moving north post-World War I.
Chicago newspaper exaggerated the city's glamor; distributed nationally.
Challenges for Black Chicago Transplants
Challenge: Locals (old settlers) felt new settlers were ignorant and uncultured, would destroy progress.
Old Settlers Social Club established in 1904 (30+ years in Chicago required).
Housing and Discrimination
Housing restricted: HOAs, realtors, institutions like the University of Chicago.
1917-1921: 58 incidents where bombs were thrown homes of white and black realtors who sold to blacks.
Rent was 15-20% higher than the North Side of Chicago.
Black people could not join labor unions, get loans, or insurance policies.
Segregation and Reform in Chicago
Many settlers worked in steel mills, kitchens, meat packing plants, garment shops.
Black residents increased from to within 20 years after 1910, creating overcrowding.
Blacks segregated themselves and decided they needed reform.
Reform via black churches, social clubs, training clubs, and businesses.
Focused on hard work, upward mobility, and racial autonomy.
Followers of Marcus Garvey (UNIA), new Negro consciousness, reading groups, debate, community split, and racial pride.
Bronzeville and Cultural Hub
Bronzeville: Name for the South Side of Chicago.
1932: George Cleveland Hall Library (First Colored branch of the Chicago Public Library).
Intellectual center and cultural hub; national research hub.
Southside Writers Group and Members
Southside Writers Group: Authors and poets inspired, encouraged, and networked.
Members:
Richard Wright: Leading protest novelist of the 1940s.
Native Son (1940).
Black Boy (1945) - biographical.
Margaret Walker: Poet and novelist who wrote Jubilee.
Gwendolyn Brooks: Poet & novelist, first Black Pulitzer Prize winner in 1948 for Annie Allen.
Also wrote A Street in Bronzeville (1949) - a book of poems.
Arna Bontemps: Poet and novelist (wrote Black Thunder in 1936), based on Gabriel Prosser's slave rebellion.
Lorraine Hansberry: Playwright. Wrote A Raisin in the Sun (1959) appeared on Broadway first black female playwright.
Theater: Minstrel Shows Origin
Minstrel show (circa 1825-1831).
Thomas D. Rice (aka Daddy Rice) credited with initial show (1826).
Rice recalled for doing "Negro routines" between acts at Columbia Street Theater in New York City.
Bistrofsky based on Rice's study of a Negro in Louisville (Summer 1825).
Minstrel Shows: Backstory and Rice's Imitation
Backstory:
Very dark Negro slave worked in a Louisville theater stable.
Slave was decrepit, deformed, had a limp, sang, and danced as he worked.
Songs entitled "I Jump Jim Crow."
Rice imitated the slave, thinking it would be a hit on stage, which it was.
Details of story (time, date, place) are in dispute.
Minstrel Shows: Blackface
Rice used blackface (like many white actors).
Jim Crow was a signature part of Rice's act by 1832.
Blackface methods:
Pulverized burned cork.
Grease paint.
Black shoe polish.
Minstrel Shows: Zip Coon and Success
1834: George Dixon first performed "Zip Coon," mocked free blacks, in arrogant dress.
By 1840s: Minstrelsy became a distinctive American amusement form.
1865: Georgia Minstrels (first successful Negro minstrel company organized by a Negro Charles Hicks).
Black Musical Theatre on Broadway
Black Musical Theatre on Broadway (1895-1911): More than half a dozen black musicals (referred to as "coon shows"); featured blacks and whites.
Development: Black regional theater development/showcasing of talent.
Stock companies formed by writer/performers; theater network support throughout the country; road tours; unsuccessful Broadway runs.
Early Shows of Distinction
Early shows of distinction:
The Creole Show (1890): One of the earliest and most successful.
1890s Transition from minstrelsy added Vaudeville including women as a featured performer, first show to do this.
Oriental America (1896): First show on Broadway with an all-black cast.
Song and dance review modified to include operatic arias/duets.
Black Patti's Troubadours (1896-1915): The review, popular genre of theater at that time.
A Trip to Coontown (1898): First full-length show performed, written, and directed by all blacks.
In Dahomey (1903): First written and acted full black musical to play a major Broadway house.
Had a four-year run, two US tours, one in England.
The Southerners (1905): The first black Broadway musical to have an integrated cast.
Shuffle Along and Chip Woman's Fortune
Shuffle Along (1921):
Broke a twelve-year drought of black musicals on Broadway.
Great financial success; set the standard for black shows for years.
Said to have started a surge of interest in black culture/life, particularly in Harlem and its inhabitants.
Chip Woman's Fortune (1923) by Willis Richardson:
First breakthrough on Broadway for a black playwright.
Performed by the Ethiopian Art Theater players.
Black Shows and Audiences
Majority of black shows (1890s-1930s) intended for black audiences.
Black writers' image of blacks was not very positive until this time (reflected in titles like A Trip to Coontown (1897), Jes Lak White Folks (1901), and Chocolate Dandies (1924)).
These images reinforced black stereotypes new Negroes were trying to destroy.
Black audiences wanted comedy, including comedy at their own expense.
Willis Richardson was the most prolific playwright of the Harlem Renaissance (wrote over 60 plays).
Black Audience Tastes and Locke's Position
Black audience issues: Tastes were lacking; not disturbed by stereotyping of characters.
Locke and DuBois displeased by black musicals for this reason.
Locke's position on black theater:
Stage vehicle to reach blacks.
Problem: Blacks were unaware of their heritage.
If made aware of their culture's past and new achievements, despair and humiliation would dissipate, motivating the New Negro.
Plays for a Negro Theater and Reactions
A change is coming! (1917).
Three Plays for a Negro Theater by Ridgely Torrance (white poet with a black audience in mind).
Plays: Granny Maumee, The Writer of Dreams, and Simon the Cyrenian.
Other white playwrights: Eugene O'Neill (The Emperor Jones, 1920), Paul Green (In Abraham's Bosom, 1927 - Pulitzer Prize), and Marc Connelly (Green Pastures, 1930 - Pulitzer Prize).
Some black critics (e.g., Lester Walton of the New York Age, 1928) were dissatisfied by white efforts.
Felt Harlem/Negroes misrepresented/maligned by white plays/novels.
Felt Negro theaters should present black actors and black plays for better representation of the black experience.
Blacks started to present Broadway dramas with black actors to audiences.
Harlem Theater Movement and Groups
First Harlem Theater Movement (circa 1909-1917).
Coined by Lofton Mitchell.
Two major Harlem theaters: The Lincoln Theater and the Lafayette Theater.
1927: Rise of talkies brought Lafayette Theater to decline.
Three significant theater groups (reformed black plays):
The Provincetown Players: Established in 1915; moved to NYC.
Put off by Broadway commercialism; focused on experimental productions.
Performed Eugene O'Neill plays: The Moon of the Caribbees (1918), The Dreamy Kid (1919), and The Emperor Jones (1920).
Charles Gilpin was the black lead in The Emperor Jones.
Gilpin was the first black professional actor to play within a white company.
The original Provincetown Players dissipated a short time later.
The Ethiopian Art Theater of Chicago (circa 1922-1925).
White producer with black actors.
Goal: Establish a national theater company that would perform for blacks and whites.
Repertoire was diverse.
Played at Lafayette Theatre and on Broadway.
Closed due to financial woes.
The Howard Players.
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