Af Am Music – Unit 2

Oh Mary Don’t You Weep

Fisk Jubilee Singers

• stylistically different, thematically similar
• more structured
• classical aspects: harmony, vibrato, very smooth and clear timbre, tonality, no improvisation

Harry T Burleigh, spiritual

• standardization of song – act of preservation
• stable, written score (instead of variation, improv)

Will Marian Cook

• popular music, catcy
• tonality more characteristic of blues scale
• bent pitches
• syncopation

R. Nathaniel Dett

• typically classical form (follows patterns of different movements)
• syncopation of top melody – swinging feeling, looser sense of time
• elements of ragtime piano (jumping octaves)

W.C. Handy, perf.;Bessie Smith w/Louis Armstrong – Classic/urban blues

• 12 Bar Blues
• AABC
• call and response
• heavy use of blue notes and dips (written and improvised)
• mimicking of speech;by instruments
• lyrics: lament over love gove wrong;

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Charlie Patton, Country blues (Mississippi Delta blues)

• complete story, personal experience – typical blues themes (despair, poverty, alcoholism, oppression)
• guitar mimicking speech
• call and response
• loose version of 12 bar blues
• aab line structure
• gritty timbre – evidence of folk tradition
• encoded lyrics

That Black Snake Moan

Blind Lemon Jefferson, Country blues (East Texas Style)

• AAB verse
• vocalizations
• clearer lyrics (;high lonesome sound;)
• guitar: linear melody, call and response, mimicking voice
• irregular rhythm, phrasing
• poetic metaphor, sexual innuendo
• NOT based on 12 Bar Blues

Robert Johnson, Delta Blues

• frequent use of blue notes (express tension, anguish)
• AAB line structure
• crossroads as a place of uncertainty, danger, opportunity, destiny (West Afr mythology)
• guitar style: slide/bottle neck, finger picking, plays rhythm and lead (method attributed specifically to Johnson)

Scott Joplin, Ragtime

• prototype for all other rags
• stride (some walking bass)
• form follows basic WAM traditions (ABAC…)
• lively, syncopated, but straight 1/8ths – NOT swung

Jelly Roll Morton, Ragtime

• looser style but more harmonically complex (move into jazz)
• blues tonality
• swung sound, but still steady rhythm in left hand
• overall more complex than Maple Leaf Rag

Louis Armstrong, New Orleans classic jazz

• prominent cornet solo at the beginning
• call and response btwn clarinet and voice
• close relationship btwn sound of instruments and sound of voices
• slower feel

Sugar Foot Stomp

Fletcher Henderson, Early Big Band

• orchestrated sound, reflects influence of classical art music
• sm section that harkens back to collective improv

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Duke Ellington, Big Band Swing

• virtuosic playing (set the standard)
• growling trumpet
• vocalizations, scat-feel (in instruments)

Count Basie, Kansas City Swing

• piano intro
• riffs

Mary Lou Williams

• repetition of syncopated riffs, introduced at the beginning
• antiphony btwn reeds and brass
• polyrhythm
• ensemble texture, trading solos
• 12 bar blues
• longer paino intro, greater depth
  • ragtime practices (left hand stride bassline)

Schubert, perf. Marion Anderson