African American Studies in Credo: Music

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.

A kind of Christian music based on American folk music, marked by strong rhythms and elaborated refrains, and incorporating elements of spirituals, blues, and jazz.

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

Rap music is a central feature of hip hop culture, comprising just one of hip hop’s four basic elements: graffiti, break dancing, DJing and rapping (or MCing).

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

Any of a class of percussion instruments consisting of a frame or hollow vessel of wood, metal, or earthenware with a membrane of hide or plastic stretched across one or both ends. Drums are usually sounded by striking the membrane with the hands, a stick, or pair of sticks.

Plucked, fretted string instrument. It may be called the classical guitar, the Spanish guitar (because of its origins), or the acoustic guitar (to differentiate it from the electric guitar). A musical instrument with a body generally shaped like a figure eight, a long fretted neck, and strings. The fingerboard has frets (strips of metal showing where to place the finger to obtain different notes), and the 6 or 12 strings are plucked or strummed with the fingers or a plectrum.

Or pianoforte, musical instrument whose sound is produced by vibrating strings struck by felt hammers that are controlled from a keyboard. The piano's earliest predecessor was the dulcimer. The first piano was made c.1709 by Bartolomeo Cristofori (1655–1731), a Florentine maker of harpsichords, who called his instrument gravicembalo col piano e forte.

Brass wind musical instrument of cylindrical bore, twice bent on itself, having a sliding section that lengthens or shortens it and thus regulates the pitch.

Brass wind musical instrument of part cylindrical, part conical bore, in the shape of a flattened loop and having three piston valves to regulate the pitch.

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).

Musician, born in St Louis, Missouri, USA. As a singer-guitarist who drew from blues, rockabilly, and country-and-western styles, and wrote songs about teenage concerns, he was the biggest influence on pre-Beatles rock.

Singer, pianist, and composer, born in Albany, Georgia, USA. He lost his sight (from glaucoma) when he was six.

Musician, born in Montgomery, Alabama, USA. By 1950 he had become the first black male to attain mainstream acceptance as a popular singer, and he released a continual series of hit records over the remainder of his career.

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.

Singer, actor, and dancer, born in New York City, USA. He began his career tap-dancing in vaudeville with his father, and went on to solo performing and recording success in the 1950s and 1960s.

American jazz singer known for her scat singing and her interpretations of the work of important American songwriters. Her recordings include Ella Sings Gershwin (1950), The Intimate Ella (1960), and A Classy Pair (1979).

Soul singer, born in Memphis, Tennessee, USA. Although she began recording at age 18, it was at Atlantic Records (1966) that she worked with experienced rhythm-and-blues musicians and was encouraged to use her gospel roots.

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.

Rock guitarist, singer, and songwriter, born in Seattle, Washington, USA. After his 1965 discharge from the army, he explored electronic tricks on his guitar at ear-splitting amplitude, to which he added stage gimmicks, playing behind his back or with his teeth. He learned basic blues licks as a sideman for Little Richard and the Isley Brothers.

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.

Singer and film actress, born in Newark, New Jersey, USA. In 1988 she broke a US chart record with seven consecutive number 1 hits, overtaking the previous record of six achieved by The Beatles and The Bee Gees.

Popular singer and songwriter, born in Gary, Indiana, USA.

Composer and pianist, born in Texarkana, Texas, USA.

Musician, born in Itta Bena, Mississippi, USA.

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.

U.S. soul singer and songwriter. His recordings include “Respect” (1965), Dictionary of Soul (1966), and “(Sittin' on) The Dock of the Bay” (1968).

Popular singer and film actress, born in Detroit, Michigan, USA. Lead singer of the extremely successful trio, the Supremes, she went solo in 1969, recording the hits ‘Reach Out and Touch Somebody’s Hand’ and ‘Ain’t No Mountain High Enough’ in 1970. She portrayed singer Billie Holliday in the film Lady Sings the Blues (1972) and by the late 1970s achieved superstar status with live and televised concerts.

Briefly one of the nineties most popular and controversial rap stars, Tupac (or 2Pac) Shakur mixed successful gangsta rap recordings with film work.

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.

Musician, born in Saginaw, Michigan, USA. Motown singer, songwriter, and multi-instrumentalist. His recordings include Up-Tight (1966), “Superstition” (1972), Innervisions (1973), Songs in the Key of Life (1976), and “I Just Called to Say I Love You” (1985).