Made in America: Deep River

Deep River is without a doubt, my very favorite spiritual and this version sung by baritone Bryn Terfel is about as close to perfection as it gets.

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The music of Black America: The Queen of Soul

If you watched yesterdays festivities, you couldn't miss Aretha Franklin. She was the one who sang My Country tis of Thee wearing that incredible hat. It had to have been a proud moment for her.

Aretha Louise Franklin (born March 25, 1942) is an American singer, songwriter and pianist commonly referred to as "The Queen of Soul". Although renowned for her soul recordings, Franklin is also adept at jazz, rock, blues, pop, R&B and gospel. She is widely acclaimed for her passionate vocal style and powerful range. In 2008, the American music magazine Rolling Stone ranked Franklin #1 on its list of The Greatest Singers of All Time.

Franklin is one of the most honored artists by the Grammy Awards, with 21 wins to date, including the Living Legend Grammy and the Lifetime Achievement Grammy. She also sang at the presidential inauguration of 44th President of the United States Barack Obama. She has scored a total of 20 #1 singles on the Billboard R&B Singles Chart, two of which also became #1 hits on the Billboard Hot 100: "Respect" (1967) and "I Knew You Were Waiting (For Me)" (1987), a duet with George Michael. Since 1961, Franklin has scored a total of 45 "Top 40" hits on the Billboard Hot 100 chart.

In 1987, Franklin became the first female artist to be inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

Information Source: Wikipedia

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The music of Black America: Leontyne Price

Mary Violet Leontyne Price (born February 10, 1927) in Laurel, Mississippi in the United States is one of the most renowned opera singers of the 20th Century and one of the very best sopranos of the 1960s. She was best known for her Verdi roles, above all the title role of Aida. Despite being born in the segregated South, she rose to international fame in the 1950s and 60s, and became the first black "superstar" at the once-segregated Metropolitan Opera. For almost 40 years, she was one of America's most beloved and widely recorded sopranos.

Price was a leading interpreter of the lirico spinto (Italian for "pushed lyric", or middleweight) roles of Giuseppe Verdi and Giacomo Puccini, as well as of roles in several operas by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. Her voice ranged from A flat below Middle C to the E above High C. (She said she sang high Fs "in the shower.") The voice is noted for its brilliant upper register, the smoky huskiness in the middle and lower registers (sounding almost like a contralto), its smooth "legato" phrasing, and wide dynamic range. She herself called her singing "soul in opera."

She is a quotable woman whose many bons mots have entered opera lore. Once, when discussing whether she would sing in Atlanta as Minnie, the cowgirl lead in Puccini's La fanciulla del West, the Met's general manager Rudolf Bing warned her she wouldn't be able to stay in the same segregated hotel with the company. She said, "Don't worry, Mr. Bing, I'm sure you can find a place for me and the horse."

After her retirement from the opera stage in 1985, she gave recitals for another dozen years. Among her many honors are the Presidential Medal of Freedom (1965), the Kennedy Center Honors (1980), the National Medal of Arts (1985), numerous honorary degrees, and nineteen Grammy Awards, including a special Lifetime Achievement Award in 1989, more than any other classical singer. In 2005, American talk show host Oprah Winfrey honored Price and 24 other influential African-American women at a Legends Ball.

Information Source: Wikipedia

The following is Ms. Price singing "L'amero saro costante" from Mozart's Il Re Pastore with violinist Iszak Perlman. 1980

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The music of Black America: Kathleen Battle sings Mozart

Kathleen Battle (born August 13, 1948, Portsmouth, Ohio, USA) is an African-American soprano known for her agile and light voice and her silvery, pure tone. One of the most prominent recitalists and opera singers of her generation, she is admired for her wide ranging recital repertoire and performances of the operas of Handel and Mozart. Battle initially became known for her work within the concert repertoire through performances with major orchestras during the early and mid 1970s. She made her opera debut in 1975 and by the early 1980s had become a favorite at many of the world's best opera houses within the soubrette repertoire. Battle expanded her repertoire into light lyric soprano and lyric coloratura soprano roles during the 1980s and early 1990s. In 1985, Michael Walsh of Time magazine called her the best lyric coloratura in the world. Although she no longer appears in operas, Battle remains active in concert and recital performances.

Information Source: Wikipedia

The following is a performance of the "Alleluja" from Mozart's Exultate Jubilate, conducted by Andre Previn.

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The music of Black America: Sammy Davis, Jr.

Samuel George “Sammy” Davis, Jr. (December 8, 1925 – May 16, 1990) was an American entertainer. He was a dancer, singer, multi-instrumentalist (vibraphone, trumpet, and drums), impressionist, comedian, convert to Judaism, and Emmy and Golden Globe-winning actor. He was a member of the 1960s Rat Pack, which was led by his old friend Frank Sinatra, and included fellow performers Dean Martin, Joey Bishop and Peter Lawford.

"Sammy" Davis, Jr. was born in Harlem, Manhattan, New York City, New York to Elvera Sanchez (1905-2000), a Puerto Rican dancer, and Sammy Davis, Sr. (1900-1988), an African-American entertainer. The couple were both dancers in vaudeville. As an infant, he was raised by his paternal grandmother. When he was three years old, his parents split up. His father, not wanting to lose custody of his son, took him on tour. During his lifetime Sammy Davis, Jr. stated that his mother was Puerto Rican and born in San Juan. As a child he learned how to dance from his father, Sammy Davis, Sr. and his "uncle" Will Mastin, who led the dance troupe his father worked for. Davis joined the act as a young child and they became the Will Mastin Trio. Throughout his long career, Davis included the Will Mastin Trio in his billing.

Mastin and his father had shielded him from racism. Snubs were explained as jealousy, for instance. When Davis served in the United States Army during World War II however, he was confronted by strong racial prejudice. As he said later, "Overnight the world looked different. It wasn't one color anymore. I could see the protection I'd gotten all my life from my father and Will. I appreciated their loving hope that I'd never need to know about prejudice and hate, but they were wrong. It was as if I'd walked through a swinging door for eighteen years, a door which they had always secretly held open."

While in the service, however, he joined an integrated entertainment Special Services unit, and found that the spotlight removed some of the prejudice. "My talent was the weapon, the power, the way for me to fight. It was the one way I might hope to affect a man's thinking," he said.

In 1959, he became a member of the Rat Pack, which was led by his old friend Frank Sinatra, and included such fellow performers as Dean Martin, Joey Bishop, Peter Lawford, and Shirley MacLaine. Initially, Sinatra called the gathering of fast-living friends "the Clan," but Sam voiced his opposition, saying that it invoked thoughts about the Ku Klux Klan. Sinatra renamed the group "the Summit"...but nevertheless, the media kept on calling it the Rat Pack all along.

Davis was a headliner at The Frontier Casino in Las Vegas, Nevada for many years, yet was required to accept accommodations in a rooming house on the west side of the city, rather than reside with his peers in the hotels, as were all black performers in the 1950s. For example, no stage dressing rooms were provided for black performers, so they were required to wait outside by the swimming pool between acts.

During his early years in Las Vegas, he and other African-American artists like Nat King Cole and Count Basie could entertain on the stage, but often could not reside at the hotels at which they performed, and most definitely could not gamble in the casinos or go to the hotel restaurants and bars. After he achieved superstar success, Davis refused to work at venues which would practice racial segregation. His demands eventually led to the integration of Miami Beach nightclubs and Las Vegas casinos. Davis was particularly proud of this accomplishment.

Davis died in Beverly Hills, California on May 16, 1990, of complications from throat cancer. Earlier, when he was told he could be saved by surgery, Davis replied he would rather keep his voice than have a part of his throat removed; the result of that decision seemed to cost him his life. However, a few weeks prior to his death his entire larynx was removed during surgery. He was interred in the Forest Lawn Memorial Park Cemetery in Glendale, California next to his father and Will Mastin.

Information Source: Wikipedia

The following clips are from a 1960 television special. It's a "must-watch"! It's classic Sammy Davis Jr. in his prime, at his very best.

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The music of Black America: The Boys Choir of Harlem

The Boys Choir of Harlem (also known as the Harlem Boys Choir) is a choir located in Harlem, New York City, United States.

Founded in 1968 by Dr. Walter Turnbull at the Ephesus Seventh-day Adventist Church in Harlem, the choir grew to be more than just a performing group. The Choir Academy of Harlem also for some time ran a school overseen by the New York City Department of Education and had at its peak a student body of over 500 boys and girls, though they were evicted from the school facility in 2006.

The choir is internationally known. Performers receive rigorous voice training and perform many types of music, including classical, hip-hop, R&B, jazz, and gospel music. Over 150,000 people see the choir live each year across the United States as well as in Canada, France, Japan, The Netherlands, and the United Kingdom. The Boys Choir of Harlem are also the recipients of a Grammy. Unlike its Austrian cousin, the Vienna Boys Choir, the Boys Choir of Harlem does not adhere to a policy of including those young men who have not reached puberty. The range of the music performed is such that it requires natural boy sopranos whose voices have not yet changed and more mature voices of teenagers like tenor and bass voices.

The choir has performed on soundtracks for films including Glory, Malcolm X and many Spike Lee films and has performed for Presidents at the White House, and dignitaries at the United Nations. It also performed live for the visits of Nelson Mandela and Pope John Paul II. It performed on Chicago rapper Kanye West's song, "Two Words" and "Jesus Walks." The choir also performed "America the Beautiful" to open WrestleMania XX. Following the 9/11 attacks on the World Trade Center, the choir performed "God Bless America" at the Cantor Fitzgerald memorial service in Central Park, as seen in In Memoriam: New York City 9/11/01. The boys' voices have also appeared on albums with Michael Jackson, Kathleen Battle, Luciano Pavarotti, Quincy Jones, Kiss and many more.

In 1995 they performed in The Wizard of Oz in Concert: Dreams Come True a musical performance of the popular story at Lincoln Center to benefit the Children's Defense Fund. The performance was originally broadcast on Turner Network Television (TNT), and issued on CD and video in 1996.

The choir for many years enjoyed the sponsorship of the City of New York, which gave them free use of the Arthur Schomburg School on East 127th Street in Harlem by former NYC Mayor David Dinkins. However, the choir has lost this support through a series of scandals. First, a lack of financial controls led to the program running up a $5 million deficit. Second, in 2001, the choir's chief counselor sexually abused a student and Dr. Turnbull did not fire him or report the abuse to authorities. As a result, in early 2006 Dr. Turnbull and other choir staff were kicked out of their long-time home. The Choir has now relocated to the Metropolitan Community Methodist Church.

The majority of the choir's members are African American or Hispanic.

Dr. Walter Turnbull died at age 62 on March 23, 2007 in a New York City hospital. He had reportedly suffered a stroke months earlier.

Information Source: Wikipedia

This video features Soprano Kathleen Battle with the Harlem Boys Choir in the mid 1990's.

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The music of Black America: Nat King Cole

Nathaniel Adams Coles (March 17, 1919 – February 15, 1965), known professionally as Nat King Cole, was an American musician who first came to prominence as a leading jazz pianist. Although an accomplished pianist, he owes most of his popular musical fame to his soft baritone voice, which he used to perform in big band and jazz genres. He was the first black American to host a television variety show and has maintained worldwide popularity over 40 years past his death; he is widely considered one of the most important musical personalities in United States history.

The family lived in the Bronzeville neighborhood of Chicago. Nat would sneak out of the house and hang outside the clubs, listening to artists such as Louis Armstrong, Earl "Fatha" Hines, and Jimmie Noone. He participated in Walter Dyett's renowned music program at DuSable High School.

Inspired by the playing of Earl Hines, Cole began his performing career in the mid-1930s while he was still a teenager, adopting the name "Nat Cole." His older brother, Eddie Coles, a bassist, soon joined Nat's band, and the brothers made their first recording in 1936 under Eddie's name. They were also regular performers at clubs. In fact, Nat got his nickname "King" performing at one jazz club, a nickname presumably reinforced by the otherwise-unrelated nursery rhyme about Old King Cole. He was also a pianist in a national touring revival of ragtime and Broadway theatre legend Eubie Blake's revue, "Shuffle Along." When it suddenly failed in Long Beach, California, Cole decided to remain there.

Cole's first mainstream vocal hit was his 1943 recording of one of his compositions, "Straighten Up and Fly Right," based on a black folk tale that his father had used as a theme for a sermon. Johnny Mercer invited him to record it for the fledgling Capitol Records label. It sold over 500,000 copies, and proved that folk-based material could appeal to a wide audience. Although Nat would never be considered a rocker, the song can be seen as anticipating the first rock and roll records. Indeed, Bo Diddley, who performed similar transformations of folk material, counted Cole as an influence.

On November 5, 1956, "The Nat King Cole Show" debuted on NBC-TV. While commentators have often mistakenly hailed Cole as the first African-American to host a network television show, an honor belonging to jazz pianist and singer Hazel Scott in 1950, the Cole program was the first of its kind hosted by a star of Nat Cole's magnitude.

It initially began as a 15-minute show on Monday night, the program was expanded to a half hour in July 1957. Despite the efforts of NBC, as well as many of Cole's industry colleagues—many of whom, such as Ella Fitzgerald, Harry Belafonte, Mel Tormé, Peggy Lee and Eartha Kitt worked for industry scale in order to help the show save money—The Nat King Cole Show was ultimately done in by lack of a national sponsorship. Companies such as Rheingold Beer assumed regional sponsorship of the show, but a national sponsor never appeared.

The TV show was ultimately canceled because potential sponsors shied away from showcasing a black artist. Cole fought racism all his life and refused to perform in segregated venues. In 1956, he was assaulted on stage during a concert in Birmingham, Alabama (while singing the song "Little Girl") by three members of the North Alabama White Citizens' Council (a group led by Education of Little Tree author Asa "Forrest" Carter, himself not among the attackers), who apparently were attempting to kidnap him. The three male attackers ran down the aisles of the auditorium, towards Cole and his band. Although local law enforcement quickly ended the invasion of the stage, the ensuing "melée" toppled Cole from his piano bench and injured his back. Cole did not finish the concert and never again performed in the South. A fourth member of the group who had participated in the plot was later arrested in connection with the act. All were later tried and convicted for their roles in the crime.

Cole, a smoker of three packs of cigarettes a day, died of lung cancer on February 15, 1965. Valentine's Day, the day before he died, he did a radio interview, stating: "I am feeling better than ever. I think I've finally got this cancer licked."

Information source: Wikipedia

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The music of Black America: The Fabulous Louis Armstrong

One of the most popular and beloved of all American musicians, Louis Armstrong remains "the standard" of jazz. Born to a very poor family in New Orleans on August 4th, 1901, Armstrong came into prominence in the 1920's as an innovative coronet and trumpet virtuoso. He was also known for his "scat" singing, or wordless vocalizing.

Renowned for his charismatic stage presence and deep, instantly recognizable voice, Armstrong's influence extended well beyond jazz, and by the end of his career in the '60s, he was widely regarded as a profound influence on popular music in general: critic Steve Leggett describes Armstrong as "perhaps the most important American musician of the 20th century."

Armstrong died of a heart attack on July 6, 1971, at age 69, 11 months after playing a famous show at the Waldorf-Astoria's Empire Room. Shortly before his death he stated, "I think I had a beautiful life. I didn't wish for anything that I couldn't get and I got pretty near everything I wanted because I worked for it." He was residing in Corona, Queens, New York City, at the time of his passing. He was interred in Flushing Cemetery, Flushing, in Queens, New York City.

Information source: Wikipedia

He's featured here in one of his most thrilling trumpet "jam sessions" ever, in Paris Blues with Paul Newman and Sidney Portier.

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The music of Black America: Marian Anderson

Marian Anderson (February 27, 1897 -- April 8, 1993), was an American contralto, perhaps best remembered for her performance on Easter Sunday, 1939 on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C..

Anderson was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, the daughter of John Rucker Anderson and the former Anna Delilah Rucker. Two sisters followed young Marian, Alice (later spelled Alyce) (1899-1965) and Ethel (1902-1990) who also became singers. Ethel Anderson was mother to James DePreist. Marian Anderson joined a junior church choir at the age of six, and applied to an all-white music school after her graduation from high school in 1921, but was turned away because she was black. The woman working the admissions counter replied, "We don't take colored" when she tried to apply. Consequently, she continued her singing studies with a private teacher. She debuted with the New York Philharmonic on August 26, 1925 and scored an immediate success, also with the critics. In 1928, she sang for the first time at Carnegie Hall. Her reputation was further advanced by her tour through Europe in the early 1930s where she did not encounter the racial prejudices she had experienced in America.

The famed conductor Arturo Toscanini told her she had a voice "heard once in a hundred years." In 1934, impresario Sol Hurok offered her a better contract than she had previously had with Arthur Judson. Hurok became her manager for the rest of her performing career.

In 1939, the Daughters of the American Revolution (DAR) refused permission for Anderson to sing to an integrated audience in Constitution Hall. The District of Columbia Board of Education declined a request to use the auditorium of a white public high school. As a result of the ensuing furor, thousands of DAR members, including First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt, resigned.

The Roosevelts, with Walter White, then-executive secretary of the NAACP, and Anderson's manager, impresario Sol Hurok, then persuaded Secretary of the Interior Harold L. Ickes to arrange an open air Marian Anderson concert on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial. The concert, commencing with a dignified and stirring rendition of "My Country, 'Tis of Thee" attracted a crowd of more 75,000 of all colors and was a sensation with a national radio audience of millions.

The concert mentioned above was held on Easter Sunday in 1939. Anderson was accompanied by the Finnish accompanist Kosti Vehanen, who introduced Marian to Jean Sibelius in 1933. Sibelius was overwhelmed with Anderson's performance and asked his wife to bring champagne in place of the traditional coffee. At this moment Sibelius started altering and composing songs for Anderson, who was delighted to have met a musician of Sibelius' magnitude, who felt that she had been able to penetrate the Nordic soul.

In 1939 Sibelius made a new arrangement of the song Solitude and dedicated it to Anderson. Originally The Jewish Girl's Song from his 1906 incidental music to Belshazzar's Feast, this later became the "Solitude" section of the orchestral suite derived from the incidental music.

In 1943, Anderson sang at the invitation of the DAR to an integrated audience at Constitution Hall as part of a benefit for the American Red Cross. By contrast, the federal government continued to bar her from using the high school auditorium in the District of Columbia.

On January 7, 1955, Anderson broke the color barrier by becoming the first African-American to perform with the New York Metropolitan Opera. On that occasion, she sang the part of Ulrica in Giuseppe Verdi's Un ballo in maschera.

In 1958 she was officially designated delegate to the United Nations, a formalization of her role as "goodwill ambassador" of the U.S. she played earlier, and in 1972 she was awarded the UN Peace Prize.

After an extensive farewell tour, she retired from singing in 1965. However, she continued to appear publicly, narrating Aaron Copland's Lincoln Portrait, including a performance with the Philadelphia Orchestra at Saratoga in 1976, conducted by the composer. Her achievements were recognized and honored with many prizes, including the Kennedy Center Honors in 1978 and a Grammy Award for Lifetime Achievement in 1991.

In 1993, Anderson died of heart failure at age 96 in Portland, Oregon at the home of her nephew, conductor James DePreist. She is interred at Eden Cemetery, in Collingdale, Pennsylvania, a suburb of Philadelphia.

Information source: Wikipedia

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In celebration of our 44th President: The Music of Black America

In honor of our new president, I am going to start a series entitled, The music of black America. I will feature the music, artists, the struggles, unique culture and perspective that black Americans have brought into the American experience and thus contributed to our musical heritage as a nation.

Lena Mary Calhoun Horne (born June 30, 1917), is an iconic American singer and actress. She has recorded and performed extensively, independently and with other jazz notables, including Artie Shaw, Teddy Wilson, Billy Strayhorn, Duke Ellington, Charlie Barnet, and Billy Eckstine. She currently lives in New York City and no longer makes public appearances.

She was originally considered for the role of Julie LaVerne in MGM's 1951 version of Show Boat (having already played the role when a segment of Show Boat was performed in Till the Clouds Roll By) but Ava Gardner was given the role instead (the production code office had banned interracial relationships in films). In the documentary That's Entertainment! III Horne stated that MGM executives required Gardner to practice her singing using recordings of Horne performing the songs, which offended both actresses (ultimately, Gardner ended up having her singing voice overdubbed by another actress (Annette Warren (Smith)) for the theatrical release, though her own voice was heard on the soundtrack album).

*Information Source: Wikipedia

Ms. Horne is featured here singing what has come to be known as her signature song, Stormy Weather.

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