Music in Credo: Folk, Jazz, and Blues

Slow melancholy jazz music of Black American origin, a typical piece consisting of three four-bar phrases and making use of blue notes. Popular music has evolved over many decades and has now divided and sub-divided into hundreds of different styles and genres. Blues music has influenced popular music through its style, mood, lyrics, and structure.

Music which is played on traditional instruments or sung in the tradition style, handed down from generation to generation, and relating to the music of a particular area or group of people. Folk music often springs from rural areas, where it is passed on by listening and repeating, and is usually performed by amateurs.

An eclectic, expanding collection of 20th century styles, principally instrumental and of Black American creation.

A religious folk song of American origin, particularly associated with African-American Protestants of the southern United States.

American religious musical form that owes much of its origin to the Christian conversion of West Africans enslaved in the American South.

Perhaps the most influential group in the history of country music, they helped to bring folk and country into America's cultural mainstream.

US singing group. In 1841 Jesse (1813-1853) became the musical director and manager of a quartet made up of four of his siblings: (Adoniram) Judson (1817-1859), John (1821-1908), Asa (1823-1884), and Abby (1829-1892).

From Encyclopedia of Activism and Social Justice
Woody Guthrie was an influential song-writer, the musical voice of the working class and political left, championing labor unions, peace, antifascism, civil liberties, and much more. Guthrie pursued his idiosyncratic fusion of Marxism and Protestantism. In particular, “This Land Is Your Land” would become the unofficial national anthem by the 1960s.

US band leader, singer, and actor. He was a pioneer of scat singing with his catch phrase ‘Hi-de-ho’, used in his theme song ‘Minnie the Moocher’ (1931).

Musician, born in Shenandoah, Pennsylvania, USA. He was a Swing Era bandleader who began with local dance bands in Scranton, PA.

Jazz trumpeter and singer, born in New Orleans, Louisiana, USA. His melodic inventiveness, expressed with uninhibited tone and range on the trumpet, established the central role of the improvising soloist in jazz, especially in a series of recordings known as the ‘Hot Fives’ and ‘Hot Sevens’ (1925–8).

Jazz trumpeter, born in Alton, Illinois, USA. During 1949–69, he was at the forefront of jazz, developing or advancing several significant and contrasting styles and trends, all of which highlighted his intensely personal sensibilities.

Jazz trumpeter and composer, born in Cheraw, South Carolina, USA. John Birks “Dizzy” Gillespie worked in prominent swing bands (1937–44), including those of Benny Carter and Charlie Barnet.

Billie Holiday is considered one of the greatest jazz singers of all time. Her inimitable phrasing – singing slightly behind the beat – gave her songs an air of wistfulness that was purely instinctive, for she had no training or technical knowledge.

Jazz musician, born in Rocky Mount, North Carolina, USA. One of the key innovators of modern jazz. As a jazz pianist and composer, Monk's spare style and unusual harmonic sense made him one of the most influential modern jazz musicians.

Jazz musician and composer, born in Kansas City, Kansas, USA . A leader of the bop movement in jazz, Parker is best remembered for his smooth, moody improvisations.

Jazz pianist and composer, born in Montreal, Quebec, SE Canada.

A protean figure of modern jazz, drummer Roach came to prominence in the forties, accompanying bebop founder Charlie Parker.

Musician, born in Rolling Fork, Mississippi, USA. One of the last of the great country blues singers and a primary innovator of modern Chicago blues. Guitarist, singer, and songwriter; his songs include “Rollin' Stone” (1948) and “Got my Mojo Working” (1954). Raised on the Stovall Plantation in Clarksdale, MS, where Waters began playing harmonica and guitar while working as a sharecropper.