Billie Holiday

A singer, songwriter and classically trained multi-instrumentalist, Alexander Kotz, otherwise known as Elderbrook, developed his love for music at an early age. Building his musical foundations upon the influences of Jazz artists Sam Cooke and Billie Holiday, London-native Kotz would forge his unique vocals with an instrumental knowledge of guitar, bass, piano, and drums. A student of the prestigious Bath Spa University, Kotz began experimenting with his sound, merging his acoustic and…

The first movement literature at no time in American history African-American writers gathered in the same place at the same time, such writers as Langston Hughes, Richard Wright, Paul Lawrence Dunbar and insular Hurston and many more. These writers created an environment and network that had never been seen before they were able to create poetry clubs throughout Harlem given the opportunity for young writers to display their skills and they would not network with each other not meeting weekly…

The saxophone is still considered, and in many ways, will always be the youngest wind instrument to have a foothold in western classical music. Having been developed and patented by instrument creator and businessman Adolphe Sax in 1846, the saxophone had already missed out on much of the literature and masterworks written for other wind instruments centuries before its time. Additionally, much of the major classical musical works written for the instrument happened during its constant…

Diana Ross was born on March 26,1944 in Detroit Michigan. She was the second oldest of Ernestine and Fred Ross. She was originally named Diane but a clerical error resulted in her name being recorded as Diana on her birth certificate. Ross and her family originally lived in the North End section of Detroit near Highland Park, Michigan where she was neighbors with singer Smokey Robinson. When Ross was seven, her mother contracted tuberculosis, causing her and her family to move to Bessemer,…

Fruit” initially performed by Billie Holiday depicts one of the initial repercussions of the Civil Rights movement‒ a lynching. Holiday’s expression of the event delivers an overall timbre and mood for jazz in the coming era. The development of the Civil Rights movement and opposing factions had lasting after effects on jazz music and, consequently, its performers. The Civil Rights movement sparked an influx of songs that used a mournful sound to express their message. Billie Holiday's strange…

Renaissance was an artistic, intellectual and literary movement that helped shape African American culture. It gave African Americans a voice to express themselves through a variety of means. Authors like Langston Hughes and W.E.B Dubois, musicians like Billie Holiday, and artists like Lois Mailou Jones and Aaron Douglas, were some of the most influential people during this movement. Before the new movement black artists rarely concerned themselves subject matters that included their cultures.…

What kinds of fruits emanated to your mind when the word ‘strange’ comes before it? In the song “Strange Fruit” the singer of the song sings about some rather strange fruit. The singer is an African American, female Jazz singer called Billie Holiday. “Strange Fruit” was released during 1939 in the time where segregation was still pretty big in the south. Lynching had been happening for a few years before the song was released. While definitely a way to dehumanize African Americans, which is…

Thanksgiving. Nor did I, until my junior year of high school, when my history teacher assigned us an assignment on the smallpox pandemic of the Patuxets tribe. That year I learned of the true and horrifying tale of Thanksgiving. While I still celebrate the holiday with my family,…

him. He had it in his head that he was the only one she had ever loved, whiched she confessed not to be true. I believe this song would be good for the soundtrack because it was made in the 1920’s. The last song I chose was a song was a song by Billie Holiday called “God Bless The Child”. This song would play just loud enough in the background you hear it. “Besides the owl-eyed man, Nick, and Gatsby's dad, no one comes to the funeral. Is it the rain? Or is the heartless, selfish crowd who was…

BIG TIME RUSH Big Time Rush is an American television series that originally aired on Nickelodeon from November 28, 2009 until July 25, 2013. It was created by Scott Fellows (also the creator of Ned's Declassified School Survival Guide and Johnny Test and the head writer of The Fairly OddParents).[1] It focuses on the Hollywood misadventures of four Hockey players from Minnesota: Kendall Knight, James Diamond, Carlos Garcia, and Logan Mitchell, after they are selected to form a boy band by…