Blue

passion, exercise, therapy, and fun. Music has changed dramatically in the last fifty to sixty years. Rhythm and Blues music was once known as rock and roll but was changed when the two different types of music took their own way. Rhythm and Blues started big in the 40’s and 50’s. It was the biggest and most popular type of music and made the most impact in history. R&B (Rhythm and blues), which consists of soulful singing and a strong backbeat, was the most popular music created by and for…

Blues music is something that has moved me from a very young age. The authenticity and soul of the blues is something I instantly connected with growing up. Watching the true legends of blues music, like Stevie Ray Vaughan and Eric Clapton, play their guitars with effortless expression is inspiring. They successfully combined the creativity of Jimi Hendrix with the intensity of Albert King, but managed to execute each bend and vibrato with the sophistication of a world class jazz musician. They…

The sky is a Carolina blue. The clouds look like wisps that have been painted with a paintbrush. The temperature is 68 degrees. The sun is partially blocked by the clouds but is slowly starting to show its full self. The pond ripples as a little kid skips a rock into it. The kid is wearing a Duke blue shirt and navy blue jeans. The water is a dirt brown and camo green color. The dirt swirls under the water like a tornado. There are long lime green plants coming out of the water on the right…

tell you that that R&B stands for ‘rhythm and blues,’ but some will still argue that it stands for Ruth Brown. A talented R&B singer throughout the 1950s and later in life a successful theater actress, Ruth Brown reshaped the music industry with her bluesy, storytelling ballads and her signature squeaks. Nicknamed “Miss Rhythm” by “Mr. Rhythm” Frankie Laine and called the original diva, Ruth Brown was influential in bridging the gap between the blues and R&B. Ruth Brown faced segregation and…

Music is a powerful language which speaks to us, move us, and fills us with emotions. In “Sonny’s Blues”, the voice of jazz reflects the relationship between two brothers. The unnamed narrator who represents one of the one of the sides of the African American experience. Sonny the titular character of the story, Sonny represents the other side of the African American experience. In “Sonny’s Blues” we find an important description of how a musician can express his feeling through his music. The…

In the short story, named Sonny's Blues, by author James Baldwin, the dark streets of Harlem, New York, get young people and children to take drugs as a way to relieve themselves from the inevitable darkness of their lives and futures. The narrator's brother, Sonny, a pianist struggles to show his emotions and instead releases them by playing music, he needed his brother to listen and understand. Music is his way of structuring his life and a way to keep him away from drugs. Sonny wants to be…

style of early blues and spirituals. When listening to early slave era music you can hear certain elements or Africanisms that make connections to early blues and spiritual music such as the call-and-response style. Songs like “Daniel,” performed by Georgia Sea Island Singers (Week 1 Lecture pg. 17) depict the call-and-response and polyrhythmic pattern of hand clapping that is very common in ring shouts and slave songs. Another key element that shares this connection is the use of “blue notes”…

traits of the blues are the familiar “blue notes,” a three-line AAB verse form, and a characteristic use of the familiar blues chord progression. Historically, the popularity of blues coincides with the rise of the commercial recording industry, the introduction of “race” records aimed at black record-buyers after 1920, and the emigration of black Americans from the rural South to the urban North. Many of the earliest black American recording stars were blues singers. The first blues songs to be…

Blue is psychologically at the border of suicide. (podcast tip sound effects taste) Colors affect our psychology. Food establishments use yellow and red because of the powerful effects. Pink shows a strong affects to physical athletes, improving aggression and response time. While it also makes you score lower on tests. The most interesting of the colors though, is the most common. You know the one. The invented one. If you are not familiar. Its from a Radiolab podcast but based on the book…

Miles Davis - Kind of Blue One of the greatest albums in jazz - Miles Davis’s Kind of Blue has received innumerable commendations ever since its release in 1959 and has been admired by jazz fans far and wide. Miles Davis and his sterling band that consisted of top performers at that time together brought this masterpiece to the world. This album features Miles Davis on trumpet, Julian "Cannonball" Adderley on alto saxophone, John Coltrane on tenor saxophone, Wynton Kelly and Bill Evans on piano,…