Todd Andresen
Lisa Matthes
Jennifer S. Rubenstein

By the end of World War I in 1918, black Americans were facing their lowest point in history since slavery. Large numbers of African Americans migrated to northern cities such as New York and Chicago. It is in New York were the famous "Harlem Renaissance" was born. This renaissance was based on the desire to break the away from white suppression and focus completely on their place in society. The artistic movement with jazz was used as a revolt against restraints.

The largest addition to music during the Renaissance came from the Negro spirituals. These century-old songs would eventually evolve into jazz. Jazz was a form of music that allowed the musician to improvise and "have fun" with the music. Jazz became extremely popular and was featured in numerous clubs in Harlem.

Jazz is played with the feeling that any number of melodies could fit the chord of progression of any composition. The chord progression of a composition is repeated; at the same time the instrumentalist imitates the black vocal styles and tone effects. One form of improvisation was AABA. This contained thirty-two measures in 4/4 meter that were divided into four 8-measure sections forming a pattern.

One of the main reasons that jazz was so popular was that it allowed the performer to create the rhythm. With this in mind, performers realized that there could not be any wrong way to play jazz. Jazz's most typical instruments were the piano, string bass, and drums.

With the migration of many jazz musicians to Chicago, a new form came about called the "Chicago style." This new form emphasized the soloist and added the use of the saxophone. The "Chicago style" became known for its thicker texture and complex rhythms. Also coming about was the form known as the "boogie-woogie." This form involved a short accented bass pattern that played repeatedly while the right hand played freely, using many different rhythms and techniques.

Jazz was a very influential to music during the 1920s. Its free form allowed for many to experiment and enjoy. The style and characteristics would influence many classical composers. Many cities like to take credit for the formation of Jazz, but historians have concluded that it was most influential during the Harlem Renaissance.

Armstrong liked to say that he was born in New Orleans, one of the parent cities of jazz, on the Fourth of July in 1900; actually, he was probably born some time in 1898. His family was extremely poor, and after his parents separated when he was five, he and his mother often went hungry. When he was 13 years old, Armstrong was arrested and sent to the Colored Waifs Home in New Orleans. Luckily for him, this experience gave Louis regular meals as well as gave him time to be taught to play the cornet by both the band director and warden, who were amateur musicians. Armstrong started a recording band in Chicago in 1925. It recorded jazz classics such as "Gut Bucket Blues," "Cornet Chop Suey," and "Heebie Jeebies"; also, he introduced his scat singing style in which the voice is used like an instrument, substituting nonsense syllables for notes. Armstrong proved to be as talented in voice as with his trumpet, and by 1929 he enjoyed worldwide fame in music circles. Armstrong was a great influence on the jazz of decades to come. For more information on Louis Armstrong, visit this site: Louis Armstrong Online

Ella Fitzgerald

Goodbye, Ella!

Duke Ellington

"Duke Ellington's music epitomizes the sophisticated jazz that grew out of the funkier, down-home variety of New Orleans and Memphis and Chicago." (Black Music in America, by James Haskins, 82) While Louis Armstrong was hot jazz, Ellington's was cooler. Born in Washington, D.C. on April 29, 1899, Ellington showed early promise at the piano as well as in drawing. When Ellington graduated from high school, he knew he wanted to pursue a career in music rather than in visual arts. Ellington composed his first piece, "Soda Fountain Rag," when he was 16. Ellington's style of jazz was so popular, it even appealed to whites, and Ellington became immensely popular.
Visit the Duke Ellington Web Site!

Billie Holiday

Born Eleanora Fagan on April 7, 1915, in Baltimore, Maryland. Her mother was only 13, and her father 15. They were not married, so baby Eleanora was given her mother's last name. Because she was a tomboy, her father, a trumpeter, began to call her "Bill," so she changed her name to Billie. Throughout her musical career, Holiday impressed many white musicians and was able to make records with Benny Goodman. She also recorded with the black pianist, Teddy Wilson. For more info on Billie Holiday, go here.

When writing Invisible Man, Ralph Ellison combined the story line of a young man in Harlem with the rhythms of jazz. Since the novel recreates scenes and attitudes of the Harlem Renaissance, the integration of jazz, the music of the time, is very appropriate. Invisible Man takes the same physical journey that jazz did. Jazz began in the South as blues or ragtime. But as more and more blacks migrated north, the music went with them and eventually transformed into the jazz of the Harlem Renaissance. In the same way Invisible Man starts in the South but moves north and undergoes a change when he settles in Harlem. Invisible Man listens to the music of Louis Armstrong, making reference to it several times. He says he enjoys listening to Louis because "...he's made poetry out of being invisible," (8). The song which he likes the most by Louis Armstrong is "What Did I Do to Be so Black and Blue," and the term black and blue is a motif in the novel. He mentions Louis Armstrong once more at the end of the novel when he tells the reader that he is going out into the world again. Invisible Man proclaims that he will shake off his old skin, but just like Armstrong would not throw "...old Bad Air out, because it would have broken up the music and the dance..." (581), he will not throw away all his experiences and ideals. Just as in a piece of jazz music, changes in rhythm and beat occur constantly, Invisible Man possesses a rhythm created by Ellison that expresses the changes that occur in Invisible Man. The ups and downs created by Ellison's words have a jazz-like sound which can be seen, as jazz was, as a revolt against the constraints of the time. A master of writing, Ellison skillfully wove together the story of a young man during the Harlem Renaissance and the beats and rhythms of the music of the period.