The Harlem Renaissance
🎶 Music 🎶
Famous City Under Bright Lights
New York City is where it all started. Jazz was the sound of Harlem Renaissance music! The jazz music was loud and syncopated, performed by artists such as Louis Armstrong, Billie Holiday, Chick Webb, and other notorious artists. Nightclubs like the Savoy Ballroom, Apollo Theater, and the Cotton Club were perfect venues to display the intimacy of jazz in the Roaring Twenties, playing the famous music with blaring trumpets and saxophones, catchy drumbeats, and raspy voices.
Billie Holiday http://historyoftheharlemrenaissance.weebly.com/musicians.html
Billie Holiday also known as "Lady Day" started her singing career when she was 18. Her first record was with Benny Goodman and she was the first African American woman to work with a white orchestra.
Chick Webb http://historyoftheharlemrenaissance.weebly.com/musicians.html
Chick Webb became a professional drummer at age 11. He was know as "the daddy of them all" and part of the new "Swing" style. He sold newspapers to save enough money for his fist drum set which he took to New York City when he moved there at the age of 17.
Louis Armstrong http://historyoftheharlemrenaissance.weebly.com/musicians.html
Louis Armstong was one of the most famous musicians of the Harlem Renaissance. He started off playing in small clubs and at funerals but he was asked to move to Chicago to play in a Creole Jazz Band. Two years later he moved to N.Y.C. to play for the Fletcher Henderson Orchestra.
Nights Out on The Town
The Roaring 20's
While alcohol was illegal, at the fancy Cotton Club, people grouped together, secretly drank and listened to the great Jazz performers who made this era the Jazz Age. "Jazz is a heartbeat" said Langston Hughes who wrote many songs and poems in this era and he wanted to "highlight concerns and challenges that African Americans faced during this time period.
"Harlem Renaissance and Modernism". Orlando: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2012.
The Jazz Age of the 1920's