Mike Duke

In a music hall of Vienna, the pianist Friedrich Gulda performed Beethoven’s “Emperor” Concerto with his superb skills and receive lasting applause. After the concert, Gulda rushed to a nightclub and start to play the jazz, behaved like another person. Surprisingly, he played Beethoven’s masterpieces and intoxicated jazz music equally well. It made people wonder, how would that be by mixing jazz and classical music? In the article “Jazz, America’s Classical Music”, Dr. Billy Taylor introduces…

American Jazz sensation, Miles Dewey Davis III was born in Alton, Illinois, on May 26th 1926. The nine time Grammy winner is considered to be one of the top musicians of his era. He forever changed the style of jazz and history of music. Throughout his years in music, he has proven to be a universal musical genius that was able to stretch his style of sound for miles. Davis grew up in a middle class home with his parents, Miles Davis Jr. and Cleota Henry. His father was a successful oral…

influenced by those before them. Joe King Oliver influenced Louis Armstrong by training him and because of Oliver moving to Chicago, Armstrong got his start in Kid Ory’s band. Jelly Roll Morton, Joe King Oliver, Sidney Bichet, Louis Armstrong, and Duke Ellington all changed things for musicians today. Jelly Roll Morton grew up in New Orleans and started playing piano at the age of 10. In 1904 he began traveling, playing the piano in places like Louisiana, Alabama, Mississippi and Florida. He was…

Sharon Zukin’s “Why Harlem is Not a Ghetto” explores upon the reinvention and Manhattanization of Harlem. Zukin goes in depth about how Harlem went “from a dark ghetto into a middle-class, racially integrated, cosmopolitan community” (93). She examines the factors that pushed for gentrification, the influence it had on the neighborhood’s metamorphosis, and the effects of the displacement of traditional residents and businesses through new commercial activity. Through her detailed analysis of the…

Charlie Parker, or the ‘Bird’, was one of the best saxophone players in the world. His unique style of playing combined with this ability to combine chords rarely used in jazz, flowing seamlessly between them made Parker one of the greats. As a teenager, Parker was allowed the opportunity to play with the famous drummer Jo Jones, drummer of the Count Basie band, a most popular swing bands of the time. Parker enters his solo and starts to show off his unique style, but then he messes up, losses…

Racism was always mixed with jazz. But it just “created tension and strengthened” around the community at times but that changed in the 1930s. In the 1930s the Great Depression hit America which made a big impact in the economy and affected every part of America. Jazz music was mostly affected by the depression, people began staying “home and listening to the radio, instead of spending their money and going to nightclubs” (History of Jazz). In effort to save the jazz music and its popularity,…

Edward Kennedy Ellington was one of the most famous jazz composers and performers of the twentieth century. It is a well-known fact that Duke Ellington went down in history of jazz music as one of the most significant composers, as well as outstanding bandleader, who led his own musical group of about fifty years. Thus, the main aims of this project are to think about Duke Ellington, and discuss how he fits into the history of jazz, dwelling on his style and other details with more attention.…

For the Jazz Concert that I attended I saw the Nico Lembo Trio perform at Venkman’s in the Historic Fourth Ward of Atlanta. The Trio, consisting of drums, trombone, and electronic keyboard, had a sound that was heavily inspired by the “Cool Style” of Jazz in the early 1950’s with some hints of John Coltrane inspired Free Jazz elements. Throughout most of the performance the Trio played traditional instrumental jazz including classic songs by artists such as Miles Davis along with some original…

development of band jazz and swing music. He was one of the most prolific black musical arrangers and his influence was vast. He was often known as Smack Henderson (apparently due to his college baseball hitting skills) .Fletcher is ranked along with Duke Elington as one of the most influential arrangers and band leaders in jazz history, and helped bridge the gap between the dixieland and swing era. Fletcher Henderson was born in Cuthbert, Georgia in 1897. He grew up in a middle-class…

There has never been anyone like Art Tatum, who is one of the greatest jazz musicians in history. Tatum was born on October 13, 1909, in Toledo, Ohio, and he was the child of amateur musicians. His father was a mechanic, and his mother was a housemaid who worked in white homes. Although he was not born into a wealthy family, his unique talents helped propel him into the spotlight. If anything, Tatum proved that it was not impossible to become a world-class extraordinaire despite growing up with…