Jewish American History Month: Jews in Jazz

Jazz is the quintessential American musical form, developed by African Americans in New Orleans and popularized through recording and radio.  Musician of other ethnicities have also contributed to the art, including many Jews:

Woody Allen, actor, director, and avid amateur jazz clarinetist.  He plays the New York clubs when he's not busy with his film career.

Herb Alpert, (b. 1935) is a famous trumpet player and crossover artist best known for his hits with the Tijuana Brass (none of whom were Mexican!)

Brecker Brothers (Randy, b. 1945 and Michael, 1949-2007)  Trumpeter Randy and sax man Michael have been two of the most influential musicians of the late twentieth century and the beginning of the twenty-first.  They have performed with each other as The Brecker Brothers and have collaborated with the leading musicians of our time.

Harry Connick, Jr. (b. 1967), pianist and crooner, is the son of an Irish-American father and Jewish-American mother.  He won a Grammy award for his work on the soundtrack to When Harry Met Sally, establishing him as America's top jazz vocalist.

Sammy Davis, Jr., one of the famed "Rat Pack" Las Vegas crooners, converted to Judaism after a near-fatal car wreck.

Leonard Feather  (1914 - 1994) wrote reference books and was also a performer and songwriter.

Béla Fleck  (b. 1958), banjo player, is the leader of Béla Fleck and the Flecktones.




Stan Getz

Stan Getz, (1927 - 1991), played tenor sax with a suave, cool sound.  His is best known for his Latin-themed recordings including his collaboration with João Gilberto on the song,"The Girl from Ipanema."

Garry Giddins (b. 1948) is a writer who has covered jazz for decades in The Village Voice.  His books cover all of jazz history and include biographies of great jazz artists.



Benny Goodman

Benny Goodman (1909 - 1986) was the leader of the Benny Goodman Orchestra, one of the leading big bands of the 1930s and 1940s.  He was also an accomplished soloist on the clarinet.



Norman Granz (1918-2001) was an influential producer, who helped the cause of civil rights through jazz.



Nat Hentoff (b. 1925) is a prolific writer about jazz and civil rights.  Well into his 80s, he continues to contribute a column to Jazztimes.  He has written several books and penned the inserts for many recordings.

Harry James (1916-1983) was the featured trumpet soloist with the Benny Goodman Orchestra and then started his own band with a young Frank Sinatra as his lead singer.  He is still revered today for his impeccable tone and virtuosic technique.

Kenny G

Kenny G (b. 1956) is the top-selling jazz instrumentalist of our time.  His soprano sax solos are the epitome of the "smooth jazz" style.  He is also known for his unique off-center embrochure.



Lee Konitz  (b. 1927) has played alto sax as a soloist and with almost every famous jazz musician of the past 60 years.



Mel Lewis



Mel Lewis (1929 - 1990) was drummer and co-leader of the Thad Jones/Mel Lewis Orchestra, then performed weekly at the Village Vanguard after Jones' departure.



Herbie Mann (1930 -2003) fused jazz with world music, especially Latin rhythms.  He was a popular crossover artist and one of the few artists of any style to perform regularly on the flute.

Buddy Rich (1917-1987) was one of the best drummers of history, starting out in the big band era and continuing his career as a leader.  He frequently appeared on television during the 1960s and 1970s.



Artie Shaw

Artie Shaw (1910-2004, born Abraham Arthur Arshawsky) was a clarinetist and bandleader of the Big Band Era who also wrote short stories and studied mathematics.

Mel Tormé (1925 - 1999) was a singer nicknamed "The Velvet Fog" for his smooth vocal tone.  His best-known song is "The Christmas Song" (Chestnuts Roasting on an Open Fire).

Paul Whiteman (1890 - 1967) was one of the first bandleaders, leading record sales in the 1920s when bands were still called "dance bands."  His band backed Paul Robeson's famous recording of Ole Man River.

May is Jewish American Heritage Month

What would American music be without the Jewish composers who helped define it?  Many of American's most famous and innovative composers are of Jewish heritage, thought not necessarily religious.  Several were also New Yorkers who both inspired and were inspired by the creativity of the country's largest and most creative city.  Others came to the United States to escape Nazi Germany and the freedom the found here.


Milton Babbitt  (1916 - 2011) Composer of electronic music.  His famous essay, "Who Cares if you Listen," defined the rarified experimentalist atmosphere of midcentury composition within academia.



Leonard Bernstein



Leonard Bernstein's (1918 - 1990) recasting of Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet as a battle between ethnic groups in New York is the famous West Side Story.  He conducted the New York Philharmonic for many years and appeared in a series of televised Young Peoples Concerts for children.

Aaron Copland

Aaron Copland's (1900 - 1990) "Appalachian Spring" is perhaps the quintessential sound of Americana.  He collaborated with dance troupes and frequently conducted his own works with orchestras around the country.



Jacob Druckman (1928 - 1996) worked in electronic music as early as the 1950s, long before digital audio workstations were a compositional commonplace!

Morton Feldman (1926 - 1987) is known for his work in indeterminacy, or chance music

Leo Ornstein (1893 - 2002) was born in Russia then migrated to the Lower East Side.  He pioneered the tone cluster, close-knit groups of notes with a harsher sound than traditional chords.

Leo Ornstein

Arnold Schoenberg (1874-1951) was an Austrian Jew who migrated to California when Hitler rose to power in 1933.  His twelve-tone serial technique ushered in a new era of musical aesthetics, and would have been suppressed by the Nazis.  In California he was free to develop it further and teach it to others.  His influence is still felt and heard today.

Morton Subotnick (1933 - ) was a pioneer of multimedia and electronic music in San Francisco.

Kurt Weill

Kurt Weill (1900 - 1950) trained as a classical composer in Germany, and fled to the United States because of Nazi persecution.  He embraced the musical theatre style of his adopted country.

John Zorn (1953 - ) blends popular music genres with classically-derived forms in experimental music.  He has also composed film scores.

April Fools Day!

In honor of April Fool's Day, check out some of these foolish songs and singers on CD and DVD:

Stan Freberg Presents the United States of America, a 1961 parody of American History told in Vaudevilian humor and song.  "Take an Indian to Lunch" is a classic.

Compact Disc 3360

The Best of Allan Sherman starts with one of the best known novelty songs: Hello Muddah, Hello Fadduh!
Comapct Disc 18804

Homer & Jethro: America's Song Butchers

Folk/country hillbilly humor from 1949 to 1965.  Don't miss "The Battle of Kookamonga!"

Compact Disc 18764

An Evening Wasted with Tom Lehrer includes many of the math professor's greatest hits, such as "The Masochism Tango," from 1959.
Compact Disc 18766

Tom Lehrer's That was the Year that Was  addresses some of the pressing social issues of the 1960s.
Compact Disc 18767

Weird Al Yankovic Poodle Hat

Weird Al takes on recent hits with songs like "Party at the Leper Colony"

Compact Disc 21076

Ray Stevens Laughter is the Best Medicine includes his big hit from the 1970s, "The Streak."

Compact Disc 18805

Dr. Demento 20th Anniversary Collection: The Greatest Novelty Records of All Time sums up the genre in two crazy discs.

The First Anna Russell Farewell Special

She just couldn't retire!  Soprano Anna Russell took on silly operettas and the super-serious operas of Richard Wagner.

DVD Video 5273

Victor Borge Classic Collection

6 Hilarious DVDs of the pianist over the span of his long career

DVD Video 5787  (Educational Resources Collections)

P.D.Q. Bach (the pen name of Peter Schikele) takes on Mozart with The Abduction of Figaro

DVD Video 4380

Spike Jones is Murdering the Classics features the comedian known for silly sounds in parodies of well known classical works such as the Flight of the Bumble Bee.

Compact Disc 1739

Or search these subject categories:

Musical Parodies

Women's History Month: The Sopranos




Leontyne Price

The soprano range is the highest vocal range.  It is the range of children's voices and women with the highest voice range.  In operas, the most important vocal part is often the soprano role.  She is usually the heroine of the story, often coming to a tragic but well-sung demise.  Famous sopranos of the opera stage have been known as the prima donna (first lady, or most important woman) or "diva," the Italian word for goddess.

Famous Sopranos of the 20th Century

• Birgit Nilsson  (1918 - 2005) was a Swedish dramatic soprano best known for her performances in Wagnerian operas and roles requiring similar vocal power, such as Richard Strauss's Elektra
• Maria Callas (1923 - 1977) American-born Greek soprano whose unique tone and wide range enabled her to sing a wide variety of roles.  She was the most influential singer of the middle of the century.  Her Carmen is classic.

• Dame Joan Sutherland (1926 -2010)  Her most famous role is Lucia, in Lucia di Lammermoor, especially the final "Mad" scene that pairs Lucia with the orchestra's flutes in imitation of bird songs.
• Renata Tebaldi (1922 - 2004) was known as much for her powerful lower range as for her splendid high notes. She performed Puccin's Tosca 162 times, 45 of them at the Metropolitan Opera.
• Leontyne Price (1927 - ) was one of the first African-American performers at the Metropolitan Opera.  She has been a champion of American music, and she sang at Lyndon B. Johnson's state funeral.  Her best-known roles are Verdi's Aida and Il Trovatore
• Beverly Sills (1929 - 2007) nicknamed "Bubbles," was an American diva who went into management after her retirement from singing.  Her voice encompassed a very wide range yet remained nimble in even the highest register.  She frequently appeared on television, including live opera broadcasts and talk shows.    Many consider her interpretation of Donizetti's Roberto Devereux to be her finest performance but she reached her widest audience when she sang "Pigoletto" on the Muppet Show in 1979.

• Montserrat Caballé (1933-  is a Spanish-born soprano, whose best-known role is the title character in Bellini's Norma.  She is also known as the soprano whose Barcelona concert with Queen's lead singer Freddie Mercury was one of his final performances.
• Mirella Freni (b. 1935) debuted as Carmen at the age of 19 and continued singing on stage until age 70.  In the 1970s she starred in filmed versions of operas.
• Jessye Norman (b. 1945) is an American dramatic soprano.  She made her operatic debut performing in Richard Wagner's Tannhauser but her other operatic roles have ranged from Handel to Stravinsky and Schoenberg.  She has also sung lieder for voice and orchestra, having the nuance of a lieder singer but the power of an opera diva. 

Famous Sopranos of the Current Generation

• Kathleen Battle (b. 1948), born in Portsmouth, Ohio, is a light-lyric coloratura who performed in both lyric and coloratura roles before giving up the opera stage for the concert stage.  Her repertoire ranges from Baroque to jazz, and includes African-American spirituals.
• Renée Fleming (b. 1959), born in the town of Indiana, Pennsylvania.  Conductor George Solti likened her vocal quality to that of Renata Tebaldi. Able to sing both coloratura and lyric roles, she has performed a wide variety of repertoire including operatic animated movie characters.  She has released several CDs of opera arias and is one of the few performers to take on the Czech language, in Dvorak's Rusalka.  She is often in the public eye, performing for President Obama's inauguration at the Lincoln Memorial and at the World Trade Center site.  She won a Grammy Award in 2013 for her all-French album, Poèmes. 

• Deborah Voigt (b. 1960) is an American singer famous as much for having gastric bypass surgery after being fired by Covent Garden for not fitting into her costume.  Her diaphragm survived the operation and subsequent weight loss and she continues to sing demanding roles by Richard Wagner, Richard Strauss, Bellini, and others.
• Natalie Dessay (b. 1969), born in France, began her career singing Mozart and now is in demand for the famous roles by Puccini, Verdi, and Richard Strauss, including Ariadne auf Naxos. 

• Diana Damrau (b. 1971), born in Bavaria, has an agile, light voice that is perfect for the famous "Queen of the Night" aria from Mozart's Magic Flute and other Mozart roles.  She has branched out to other roles and also performs song and aria albums.

• Anna Netrebko (b. 1971), born in Russia, is one of the most sought-after sopranos of our time.  She has performed all the major soprano roles of the standard repertoire and also has sung in her native Russian under the baton of her mentor, conductor Valery Gergiev.  Her first recording on DVD was Ruslan and Lyudmila by Glinka.  She has appeared many times in the Metropolitan Opera live broadcasts including Donizetti's Lucia di Lammermoor.

Soprano Voice Types

Soprano voices are categorized by their tone coloring, from richer, deeper tones to light and pure tones.  There are also differences in the range, though all sing in the soprano range.  The system of classification is called the Fach system.

Coloratura sopranos have a very high range and nimble voices capable of quick turns and runs.  An example is Diana Damrau, whose "Queen of the Night" aria from Mozart's Magic Flute is a classic performance.  Another famous performance is Joan Sutherland's "mad scene" in Donizetti's Lucia di Lammermoor.

Dramatic sopranos have a heavier voice, as required by composers such as Richard Wagner.  The dramatic soprano can be heard over heavy orchestration.

Lyric sopranos also have powerful voices but do not have the depth of dramatic sopranos.  They can often perform a wider range of roles than other singers.  Renée Fleming, Anna Netrebko, and  Mirella Freni are examples.

Light lyric-coloratura, for example Kathleen Battle, is a soprano who has a youthful sound despite ample power and control.

Lirico-spinto is halfway between dramatic and lyric voice types.  They can perform perhaps the widest range of operatic roles.  Examples are Leontyne Price and Renata Tebaldi.

For more about the Fach system, read The Opera Singer's Career Guide: Understanding the European Fach System.  ML3795 .M354 2010

That Old Song And Dance: The Hollywood Musical

Singing and dancing have gone hand-in-hand since prehistoric times, but at no time was the marriage more harmonious than during the heyday of the Hollywood Musical.  The stories may have been cheesy but the dancing was spectacular!  Check these out from the Educational Resources Counter:

The Busby Berkeley Collection  Busby Berkeley's choreography was some of the most elaborate ever seen.  From kaleidoscopic transformations filmed from overhead to gigantic sets and synchronized swimming, his imagination was boundless.

• Gold Diggers of 1933
• Footlight Parade (1933)
• 42nd Street (1933)
• Dames (1934)
• Gold Diggers of 1935
• Gold Diggers in Paris (1938)
• Varsity Show (1937)
• Hollywood Hotel (1937)

Flying Down to Rio (1933)

Fred Astaire and Ginger Rodgers, with Gloria del Rio as the Brazilian beauty who threatens their relationship.

The Gay Divorcée (1934)
Fred Astaire and Ginger Rodgers.  Oscar-winning song, "The Continental" is a 22-minute production number!

Top Hat (1935)
Fred Astaire and Ginger Rodgers, with music by Irving Berlin.

The Great Ziegfeld (1936)
Biopic about the song-and-dance master, Florenz Ziegfeld, with musical numbers that show why he was the master.  Be sure to see "A Pretty Girl is Like a Melody," filmed with 180 performers.

Swing Time (1936)
Silly romance starring Ginger Rogers and Fred Astaire.

The Wizard of Oz (1939)
The first Hollywood musical many children see.

Holiday Inn (1942)
A singer and a dancer compete for the love of the same lady, starring Bing Crosby and Fred Astaire.  Guess which is the singer and which is the dancer!

Cabin in the Sky (1943)
Vincente Minelli's story features the Nicholas Brothers, Ethel Waters, Lena Horne, Louis Armstrong, Duke Ellington, and an all-black cast.

Stormy Weather (1943)

Cab Calloway and the Nicholas Brothers collaborated on one of the most famous dance scenes in history.

The Gang's All Here (1943)
Busby Berkely choreographed this wartime romance.

Anchors Aweigh (1945)
Frank Sinatra and Gene Kelly as sailors on shore leave.  Special guest appearance by cartoon mouse Jerry, of Tom and Jerry fame.

Easter Parade (1948)
Judy Garland and Fred Astaire star as dancers in a love triangle.

The Barkleys of Broadway (1949)
Fred Astaire and Ginger Rodgers as a bickering show biz couple.  It was their final film together.  Don't miss the "Shoes with Wings" number, in which shoes dance by themselves.

On the Town (1949)

Frank Sinatra and Gene Kelly as sailors on shore leave.  Some ideas are so good they bear repeating!  (see Anchors Aweigh, above)  Music by Leonard Bernstein.

Royal Wedding (1951)

Fred Astaire and Jane Powell as British dancers.  Features Astaire's famous "ceiling dance."

An American in Paris (1951)

Gene Kelly and Leslie Caron dance their way through a complicated love triangle.  Gene Kelly was also the choreographer.

Singin' in the Rain (1952)
Gene Kelly, Donald O'Connor, Debbie Reynolds an Cyd Charisse in a movie about the movies.

The Belle of New York (1952)
Fred Astaire as a turn-of the-century playboy.

Black History Month: 20th Century Composers

David Baker

David Baker (b. 1931) is an Indianapolis native who composes in a symphonic-jazz idiom.  He teaches at Indiana University.

Margaret Bonds (1913 - 1972) collaborated with poet Langston Hughes to creat art songs and settings for voice and orchestra.  She also composed for the stage.

Leo Brouwer (b. 1935) is a Cuban composer of African descent who has composed music for guitar and film music.

Ulysses Kay (1917 - 1995) composed in a Neo-Classical style and taught composition at the City University of New York.

Undine Smith Moore

Undine Smith Moore (1904 - 1989), known as the "Dean of Black Women Composers," she composed in a variety of genres but is best known for her choral works.

Zenobia Powell Perry (1908 - 2004) composed in many vocal and instrumental genres.  She taught for many years at Wilberforce University in Ohio (near Dayton), the first university owned by blacks.

Hale Smith (1925 - 2009) composed mainly instrumental music, sometimes incorporating jazz and other African-American idioms.

Howard Swanson (1907 - 1978) is best known for his songs, especially settings of poetry by his friend, Langston Hughes.

Olly Wilson

George Walker (1922 - 2012) won the 1996 Pulitzer Prize for his work, Lilacs, which sets a Walt Whitman poem for voice and orchestra.

Olly Wilson (b. 1937) is professor emeritus at the University of California, Berkeley, where he taught for over thirty years.  His works reflect the diversity of his interests, including electro-acoustic music, jazz and West African music.

For more information on African-American composers:

International Dictionary of Black Composers,

edited by Samuel A. Floyd, Jr. 

Reference ML 105 .I5 1999 v.1-2

From Spirituals to Symphonies: African-American Women Composers and their Music, by Helen Walker-Hill 

ML 390 .W16 2002

The Music of Black Americans: A History, by Eileen Southern (3rd edition) 

ML 3556 .S74 1997

Racial Uplift and American Music, 1878-1943, by Lawrence Schenbeck.

ML 3556 .S37 2012

CardCat Subject Search:

African Americans - Music - History and Criticism

Black Music Research Journal

AfriClassical blog: http://africlassical.blogspot.com/

Grammy Winners in the Music Collection

Congratulations to the hard-working musicians who won Grammy Awards last night.  The Music Collection includes the best music from every genre or style.  Check out these winners:

• Album of the Year:  Babel, by Mumford & Sons, Compact Disc 21349
• Best New Artist, and Song of the Year ("We are Young") by Fun.   Compact Disc 21078
• Best Rock Album:  El Camino, by The Black Keys, Compact Disc 21015
• Best Pop Vocal Album:  Stronger, by Kelly Clarkson, Compact Disc 20871
• Best Alternative Music Album, Making Mirrors by Gotye  On Order
• Best R&B Album:  Black Radio, by The Robert Glasper Experiment  Compact Disc 21253
• Best Country Album:  Uncaged, by the Zac Brown Band, Compact Disc 21403
• Best Jazz Vocal Album: Radio Music Society, by Esperanza Spalding Compact Disc 21255
• Best Americana Album: Slipstream by Bonnie Rait  Compact Disc 21188
• Best Soundtrack for Visual Media: The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo Compact Disc 21237
• Best Boxed or Limited Edition Package:  Woody (Guthrie) at 100:  Compact Disc 21328
• Best Classical Vocal Solo:  Poèmes, Renée Fleming  On Order

Black History Month: Classical Music and the Harlem Renaissance

The Harlem Renaissance of the 1920s and beyond was known primarily as a literary movement, but also encompassed the visual arts and music.  The goal of the movement was to venerate Afro-centric themes and artistic styles within art forms developed in Western Europe.  In the visual arts, African design was a main element, but African-American scenes were also depicted.  (Romare Bearden and Jacob Lawrence exemplify the movement in painting)  The most famous poet of the movement was Langston Hughes.

In 1918, R. Nathaniel Dett, composer and vocal music director at the historically black college, The Hampton Institute, published an article titled The Emancipation of Negro Music, in which he expressed the mixed feelings of a black classical composer attempting to incorporate African-American music within European art forms.  Although he was not part of the Harlem Renaissance per se, his work embodied its goals.



His generation was far enough removed from slavery to have been impacted more by the Reconstruction and other post-war influences.   There were two competing visions of the music of black Americans.  One, embodied by minstrelsy, consisted of white people with black make-up ("blackface")

The second, exemplified by The Fisk Jubilee Singers, an accomplished choir that sang spirituals on concert tours to the Northern United States and Europe, promoted the spiritual as a true art form, and sought to elevate the position of black artists in general.  Singer and arranger Harry T. Burleigh  (1866 - 1949) published art song versions of many spirituals, and he helped spread their popularity indirectly, by singing them for composer Antonin Dvorak.

Alain Locke (1885 - 1954) was the primary philosopher of the Harlem Renaissance (he called it "The Negro Renaissance).  A Rhodes Scholar who earned a Ph.D. in philosophy at Harvard, he encouraged writers and artists of African descent to embrace African and African-American themes in their art.  To that end he edited an athology of poetry, fiction, and essays titled The New Negro: An Interpretation, published in 1925. 

Locke contributed an essay about spirituals, and there are references to music throughout the book. Locke cites American Negro Songs and Spirituals, a collection compiled by John Work, and discusses the work of the Fisk Jubilee Singers and other choirs from black colleges to dignify the genre.  Although jazz is today the musical style associated with Harlem of the 1920s, Locke encouraged composers to use spirituals as their inspiration.  He would later write a whole book on The New Negro and His Music.

The New Negro includes a poem by Langston Hughes, titled "Minstrel Man."  It echoes Dett's feelings about minstrely with the beginning stanza: Because my mouth Is wide with laughter And my throat Is deep with song, You do not think I suffer after I have held my pain So long. p. 144

An example of blacks as portrayed in blackface minstrelsy

Florence Price (1887 - 1953) lived in Little Rock and then Chicago.  Despite never living in Harlem, her works embody the spirit of the Harlem Renaissance.  She drew on themes from African-American life, and especially religious music.  She was the first black female classical composer of the United States.  Her works were performed by many revered musicians, including The Chicago Symphony and Marian Anderson.

William Grant Still, (1898 - 1975) belonged to a later generation, and he was not part of the circle of artists and thinkers of the Harlem Renaissance despite living in New York.  After graduation from Oberlin College, he performed in the popular music styles of the day.  Later he achieved success with his classical compositions, including his best-known work, the Afro-American Symphony, which incorporates both spirituals and popular music idioms.  He composed in every classical form, and although he frequently referenced African-American or African themes, they were only some of the many inspirations that influenced his works.

Cardcat links:
Music of Harry T. Burleigh
Music of R. Nathaniel Dett
Music of Florence Price
Writings and Music of William Grant Still



Black History Month: Music in the 19th Century

Slave culture of the American South famously gave rise to diverse genres of song, from field hollars to spirituals.  In other areas, men (mostly) of color in both Europe and the Americas cultivated European music throughout the century.  A few rose to prominence as performers and composers:

"Blind Tom" Wiggins (1849 - 1908) was a child prodigy born into slavery, who learned to play the plantation owner's piano.  He concertized from the age of eight, though more a curiosity than an artist to his audiences.  The plantation owner, General Bethune was his manager for much of his life.  He may have been a savant, having the ability to reproduce a piece he had heard only once.  He toured the United States and Europe, and in his twenties began to compose (though he published under pseudonyms).  He was the first African-American musician to perform at the White House, in 1860.  You can find some of his published music, such as The Battle of Manassas, online at the Library of Congress.  To mimic the sound of cannons, Tom used the flat of his left hand, a technique that would not be used by other composers until fifty years later.
(Read more: links to CardCat)

Samuel Coleridge-Taylor (1875 - 1912) was born to an English mother and a Creole father from Sierra Leone.  His mother's family encouraged him in music, and he studied at the prestigious Royal College of Music.  His best-known work is the cantata, The Song of Hiawatha, one of several works he composed on the theme of Hiawatha.  (He also named one of his children Hiawatha!)  Though he lived in England, he was influenced by African-American leaders of his day and by the Fisk Jubilee Singers.  He made it his mission to ennoble the black man through his music.  His best known works in that vein are 24 Negro Melodies, Op. 59 (for piano) and his African Suite, Op. 35 (for orchestra).

Read more: links to CardCat; Oxford Music Online biography (log-in required).  Listen online at Naxos Music Library (log-in required)