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Home , Aaron Copland, Rubin Goldmark, Somebody Loves Me, Stairway to Paradise

Aaron :

Famous American Composer, Copland was born in , , on November 14, 1900. The child of Jewish immigrants from Lithuania, he first learned to play the piano from his older sister. At the age of sixteen he went to Manhattan to study with , a respected private music instructor who taught Copland the fundamentals of and composition. During these early years he immersed himself in contemporary by attending performances at the New York Symphony and Brooklyn Academy of Music. He found, however, that like many other young musicians, he was attracted to the classical history and musicians of Europe. So, at the age of twenty, he left New York for the Summer School of Music for American Students at Fountainebleau, France.

In France, Copland found a musical community unlike any he had known. While in Europe, Copeland met many of the important artists of the time, including the famous composer Serge Koussevitsky. Koussevitsky requested that Copland write a piece for the Boston Symphony . The piece, “Symphony for Organ and Orchestra” (1925) was Copland‟s entry into the life of professional American music. He followed this with “Music for the Theater” (1925) and “Piano ” (1926), both of which relied heavily on the idioms of the time. For Copland, jazz was the first genuinely American major musical movement. From jazz he hoped to draw the inspiration for a new type of symphonic music, one that could distinguish itself from the music of Europe.

In the late 1920s Copland‟s attention turned to popular music of other countries. He had moved away from his interest in jazz and began to concern himself with expanding the audience for American classical music. He believed that classical music could eventually be as popular as jazz in America or folk music in Mexico. He worked toward this goal with both his music and a firm commitment to organizing and producing. He was an active member of many organizations, including both the American Composers‟ Alliance and the . Along with his friend , he began the Copland-Sessions concerts, dedicated to presenting the works of young composers. It was around this same time that his plans for an American music festival (similar to ones in Europe) materialized as the Festival of American Music (1932). By the mid-‟30s Copland had become not only one of the most popular composers in the country, but a leader of the community of American classical musicians.

It was in 1935 with “El Salón México” that Copland began his most productive and popular years. The piece presented a new sound that had its roots in Mexican folk music. Copland believed that through this music, he could find his way to a more popular symphonic music. In his search for the widest audience, Copland began composing for the movies and ballet. Among his most popular compositions for film are those for “Of Mice and Men” (1939), “ ” (1940), and “” (1949), which won him an Academy Award for best score. He composed scores for a number of ballets, including two of the most popular of the time: “Agnes DeMille‟s ” (1942) and ‟s “” (1944), for which he won the Pulitzer Prize. Both ballets presented views of American country life that corresponded to the folk traditions Copland was interested in. Probably the most important and successful composition from this time was his patriotic “A ” (1942). The piece for voice and orchestra presents quotes from Lincoln‟s writings narrated over Copland‟s .

Throughout the ‟50s, Copland slowed his work as a composer, and began to try his hand at conducting. He began to tour with his own work as well as the works of other great American musicians. Conducting was a synthesis of the work he had done as a composer and as an organizer. Over the next twenty years he traveled throughout the world, conducting live performances and creating an important collection of recorded work. By the early ‟70s, Copland had, with few exceptions, completely stopped writing original music. Most of his time was spent conducting and reworking older compositions. In 1983 Copland conducted his last symphony. His generous work as a teacher at Tanglewood, Harvard, and for Social Research gained him a following of devoted musicians. As a scholar, he wrote more than sixty articles and essays on music, as well as five books. He traveled the world in an attempt to elevate the status of American music abroad, and to increase its popularity at home. Through these various commitments to music and to his country, became one of the most important figures in twentieth-century American music. On December 2, 1990, Aaron Copland died in North Tarrytown, New York.

Bessie Smith:

Bessie Smith was born on April 15, 1894. She was an Africa American blues singer and part of the Harlem Renaissance. Sometimes referred to as The Empress of the Blues, Smith was the most popular female blues singer of the 1920s and 1930s. She is often regarded as one of the greatest singers of her era. "Downhearted Blues" is one of her biggest hits.

Smith was raised in poverty in the South, she ran away as a teenager to join a traveling show as a dancer. In 1912, Smith began performing in the same show as blues vocalist Ma Rainey. She continued to perform at various theaters and on the vaudeville circuit. Her career really took off once she started recording.

Signed to , Bessie Smith made her first recording in 1923—the song “Down Hearted Blues” was a big success. With her rich, powerful, and clear voice, she became a successful recording artist and toured extensively for the rest of her life.

During her recording career, Bessie Smith worked with many important jazz performers, such as the legendary jazz artist on several tunes, including “Cold in Hand Blues” and “I Ain‟t Gonna Play No Second Fiddle.” By the late 1920s, Bessie Smith‟s career began to flounder. She stopped working with Columbia in 1931 and made her final recordings in 1933 with John Hammond. A dedicated performer, Smith still continued to tour.

As a blues artist, Bessie Smith could deliver her songs with such emotion. She knew firsthand about struggle and heartbreak. Her first husband, Earl Love, died. Her second marriage to Jack Gee in 1923 was an unhappy union. The couple adopted a son named Jack Gee, Jr. and after they separated in 1929, they feuded over the child. Smith also battled a problem with alcohol.

Bessie Smith died on September 26, 1937, as the result of an automobile accident. Since her death, her music continues to win over new fans and collections of her songs have sold well over the years. Smith has been immortalized in numerous works, including ‟s 1961 play The Death of Bessie Smith.

Duke Ellington

Who was ? Duke Ellington (1899-1974) is America's greatest composer. Duke led an orchestra, played piano and composed over 2000 pieces of music.

How did Duke get his nickname? Duke began his life as Edward Kennedy Ellington in Washington, D.C.. He was nicknamed by a classmate who admired him. This royal nickname was appropriate for Duke because of his elegant and proud manner. Even as a child, Duke had fans.

As a child, Duke disliked his piano lessons. Duke's parents enrolled him in lessons when he was in grade school. He dreaded his lessons and preferred to play baseball instead. His parents insisted that Duke practice piano basics everyday. He grew bored with practicing the same tunes and quit his lessons. Duke didn't become interested in learning piano again until he was a teenager.

Duke Ellington was attracted to girls and they were attracted to piano players. He often joked that he learned to play the piano to attract girls. While washing dishes for his summer job, Duke met a waiter who invited him to go see ragtime pianist, Harvey Brooks. Duke loved the way Brooks expressed himself through his music. Brooks played ragtime in a way that did not follow the rules of classical piano--he had freedom to change the rules and express himself more freely. Duke discovered that he wanted to make his own music too and taught himself how to play piano like Brooks. He practiced until his fingers could fly and even arranged melodies as he played.

Duke began his career performing at his high school dances. Soon Duke began playing for his high school dances. He even composed his own songs like "Soda Rag." When he was 19, he started playing at parties, halls and other venues. He liked to wear flashy clothes and slick his hair back to impress the ladies in the audience.

How did Duke become a bandleader and composer? Duke then moved to New York where performers were in demand. There, he played in different jazz clubs, saloons and dance halls. Soon he was leading his own band, the Washingtonians at The Kentucky Club, located in Times Square. Even at this early stage, musicians and music critics were noticing that Ellington's music was different. In 1927, after getting a gig at the Cotton Club, the hottest jazz spot in Harlem, he began to produce sophisticated arrangements of his own.

Duke's music impressed audiences all over the world. Duke Ellington and His Orchestra played at the Cotton Club for eleven years, though the band took off frequently to tour around the country, and to make movies in Hollywood. Audiences tuned in nightly to listen to live broadcasts of the band on the radio. His years at the club led to a long, successful career. Duke toured the world with his orchestra and composed thousands of songs.

Duke was a brilliant composer and musician. Duke had his own series of concerts starting in 1943 and wrote some his best music for them. They were known as his "extended compositions", which means that they were much longer (sometimes 45 minutes) than most of his other music. Some people have said that his orchestra was his instrument because of the original and beautiful music he composed for it, but he always remained a great jazz piano player.

Duke earned the Presidential Medal of Freedom. In addition to writing jazz songs, he also composed ballets, musicals, film scores, and more. In 1969, President Nixon gave Ellington a 70th birthday party at The White House, and honored Duke by giving him the Presidential Medal of Freedom. This honor was fitting for a man whose maintained a career for half a century based on self- expression, integrity and individuality.

Duke Ellington‟s jazz music was a major part of the Harlem Renaissance! http://pbskids.org/jazz/nowthen/duke.html

F. Scott Fitzgerald

F. Scott Fitzgerald's life is a tragic example of both sides of the American Dream - the joys of young love, wealth and success, and the sadness associated with excess and failure. He was named for Francis Scott Key, his relative, who wrote the Star Spangled Banner, Fitzgerald was born in St. Paul, Minnesota on September 24, 1896.

Fitzgerald started writing at an early age. His high school newspaper published his detective stories, encouraging him to pursue writing more enthusiastically than academics. He dropped out of Princeton University to join the army during World War One, and continued to pursue his obsession, writing magazine articles and even musical lyrics.

At 21 years of age, he submitted his first book for publication and it was rejected, but with words of encouragement. From then on he was always checking and re-writing his stories for the rest of his career. Happily, his book was finally published after Fitzgerald rewrote it for the third time as "This Side of Paradise", and published it a year later. Fitzgerald, suddenly a rich and famous author, married his sweetheart Zelda a week after its publication.

In between writing novels, Fitzgerald was a famous magazine story writer. The Saturday Evening Post in particular served as a showcase for his short works of fiction, most of which revolved around a new breed of American woman - the young, free-thinking, independent "flapper" of the Roaring Twenties.

He and Zelda enjoyed fame and fortune, and his novels reflected their lifestyle, describing in semi- autobiographical fiction the privileged lives of wealthy Americans. After the birth of their first and only child, Scottie, Fitzgerald completed his best-known work: "The Great Gatsby."

The extravagant living made possible by such success, however, took its toll, ad both Zelda and F. Scott Fitzgerald had mental, emotional and physical breakdowns.

Things were looking up for Fitzgerald near the end of his life. He had started writing again - scripts, short-stories, and the first draft of a new novel about Hollywood - when he suffered a heart attack and died in 1940 at the age of 44, a failure in his own mind.

He is most commonly recognized only as someone who lived in excess, who perfectly showed the excess of the Roaring Twenties, Fitzgerald's work did not earn the respect it holds today until years after his death.

http://www.pbs.org/kteh/amstorytellers/bios.html

Fitgerald‟s Writing:

“They were careless people, Tom and Daisy — they smashed up things and creatures and then retreated back into their money or their vast carelessness, or whatever it was that kept them together, and let other people clean up the mess they had made. . . .”

~From the Great Gatsby

George Gershwin

George Gershwin was born in Brooklyn in 1898 to immigrants. He began his musical career as a song-promoter, but was soon writing his own songs. Gershwin‟s first published song, “When You Want „Em, You Can‟t Get „Em,” demonstrated new ways to write songs, but he only made $5. Soon after, however, he met a young lyricist named Irving Ceaser. Together they composed a number of songs including “Swanee,” which sold more than a million copies.

In the same year as “Swanee,” Gershwin wrote a Broadway musical called “La, La Lucille”. Over the course of the next four years, Gershwin wrote forty-five songs; including “” and “.” He also wrote a twenty-five-minute opera called “.”

In 1924, George collaborated with his brother , on a musical called “Lady Be Good”. It included many famous songs. It was the beginning of a partnership that would continue for the rest of George‟s life. Together they wrote many more successful musicals. While continuing to compose popular music for the stage, Gershwin began trying to make his mark as a serious composer.

When he was 25 years old, his jazz-influenced “” premiered in New York. Gershwin followed this success with his orchestral work “Piano , Rhapsody No. 2″ and “”. Some dismissed his work as boring and tiresome, but it always found favor with the general public.

In the early thirties, Gershwin tried some new ideas in Broadway musicals. “Strike Up The Band”, “Let „Em Eat Cake”, and “Of Thee I Sing”. “Of Thee I Sing” was a major hit and the first comedy ever to win the Pulitzer Prize. In 1935 he presented a folk opera “” in Boston with only some success. Now recognized as one of the seminal works of American opera, it included such memorable songs as “It Ain‟t Necessarily So,” “I Loves You, Porgy,” and “Summertime.”

In 1937, after many successes on Broadway, the brothers decided go to Hollywood. After becoming ill while working on a film, he had plans to return to New York to work on writing serious music. He planned a string quartet, a ballet and another opera, but these pieces were never written. At the age of 38, he died of a brain tumor. Today he remains one of America‟s most beloved popular musicians. http://www-tc.pbs.org/wnet/americanmasters/files/2008/08/610_gershwin_intro.jpg

Georgia O’Keeffe

Among the great American artists of the 20th-century, Georgia O‟Keeffe stands as one of the most important. Her paintings of cities (urban) and nature of the southwest filled the canvas with energy that gained her many fans. No one since has been able to paint like her.

Georgia O‟Keeffe was born in Wisconsin in 1887. O‟Keeffe longed to be an artist from an early age. Though her student work was well received she was not happy, and for a short time abandoned painting. She worked briefly as an artist in Chicago before moving to Texas to teach. During the summer of 1915 began painting again.

Soon after O‟Keeffe‟s return to Texas, she made a handful of drawings, which she sent to a friend in New York. The friend showed them to, a photographer and gallery owner. He was enthused with the energy of the work, and asked to show them. So, without her knowledge, Georgia O‟Keeffe had her first exhibition in 1916.

Within two years, O‟Keeffe moved to New York and began to devote all of her time to painting. She had a small following. Living in Lake George, New York, and in , O‟Keeffe painted some of her most famous works. During the 1920s, her large canvasses of flowers had dynamic energy, while her paintings of cities showed beauty in industrial circumstances.

In 1929 O‟Keeffe took a vacation to Taos, New Mexico. The trip would forever alter the course of her life. In love with the open skies and sun-drenched landscape, O‟Keeffe returned every summer to travel and to paint. Eventually, O‟Keeffe took up permanent residence there.

More than almost any of her other works, these early New Mexico paintings have come to represent her unique gifts. The rich texture of the clouds and sky were similar to her earlier paintings of flowers. But beneath these clouds one found the bleached bones of animals long gone.

Throughout the 1950s and 1960s, O‟Keeffe‟s fame continued to grow. She traveled around the world and the U.S.

In 1985 she received the Medal of the Arts from President Ronald Reagan. In March of the next year, at the age of 98, O‟Keeffe passed away at St. Vincent‟s Hospital in Santa Fe, New Mexico. Georgia O‟Keeffe‟s work remains a prominent part of major national and international museums. For many, her paintings represent the beginnings of a new American art.

http://www.pbs.org/wnet/americanmasters/episodes/georgia-okeeffe/introduction/55/

Jacob Lawrence:

Born in New Jersey on September 7, 1917, but raised in Harlem, NY, Jacob Lawrence was an American painter who gave light to black life. This American painter’s works portray scenes of black life and “the Great Migration”. His work combines realism and abstract designs.

He utilized gouache and tempera, making broad strokes with blacks and browns for outlines on canvasses filled with vivid colors. Some of his best known paintings are Life in Harlem (1942) and War (1947).

At age 13 Lawrence moved with his family to the Harlem section of New York City. At free art classes he showed a talent for creating lively, decorative masks, a motif that would later figure strongly in his narrative painting. At the Harlem Art Workshop (sponsored by the Works Progress Administration) in 1932 he studied under Charles H. Alston.

Through the late 1930s and early 1940s, Lawrence completed carefully-researched series of paintings on the lives of Toussaint L'Ouverture, Frederick Douglas and Harriet Tubman. He followed these with paintings that traced the Northward migration of blacks after the Civil War and depicted events in Harlem.

His best-known works are his series on historical or social themes, including And the Migrants Kept Coming (1940), Life in Harlem (1942), and War (1947).

During World War II, he served in the Coast Guard. Afterward, he painted still another series, this one based on wartime experiences.

The civil rights movement and the desegregation of the South during the late 1950s and 1960s provided Lawrence with themes for later paintings. At the same time, he undertook the first of many teaching assignments. Lawrence taught at various schools and colleges and became a professor of art at the University of Washington in Seattle in 1971; he retired in 1986.

John Steinbeck

John Steinbeck was born in 1902 in Salinas, California, and came from a family of moderate means. He worked his way through college at Stanford University but never graduated. In 1925 he went to New York, where he tried for a few years to establish himself as a free-lance writer, but he failed and returned to California. After publishing some novels and short stories, Steinbeck first became widely known with Tortilla Flat (1935), a series of humorous stories about Monterey paisanos.

Steinbeck's novels can all be classified as social novels dealing with the strength of poor migrant workers during the 1930s. In Dubious Battle (1936), which deals with the strikes of the migratory fruit pickers on California plantations. This was followed by Of Mice and Men (1937), the story of the imbecile giant Lennie, and a series of admirable short stories collected in the volume The Long Valley (1938). In 1939 he published what is considered his best work, The Grapes of Wrath, the story of Oklahoma tenant farmers who, unable to earn a living from the land, moved to California where they became migratory workers.

Among his later works should be mentioned East of Eden (1952), The Winter of Our Discontent (1961), and Travels with Charley (1962), a travelogue in which Steinbeck wrote about his impressions during a three-month tour in a truck that led him through forty American states. He died in New York City in 1968.

Langston Hughes

James Langston Hughes was born February 1, 1902, in Missouri. His parents divorced when he was a small child, and his father moved to Mexico. He was raised by his grandmother until he was thirteen, when he moved to Illinois, to live with his mother and her husband, before the family eventually settled in Ohio.

In Illinois, Hughes began writing poetry. After graduating High School, he spent a year in Mexico and a year at Columbia University. In November 1924, he moved to Washington D.C. In 1926, Hughes's first book of poetry, The Weary Blues, was published. In 1930 his first novel, Not Without Laughter, won the Harmon gold medal for literature.

Hughes is mostly known for his interesting poems about African and American cultural roots from the twenties through the sixties.

His life and work were important in shaping the artistic contributions of the Harlem Renaissance of the 1920s.

Langston Hughes died of complications from cancer on May 22, 1967, in New York. In his memory, his residence at 20 East 127th Street in Harlem, New York City, has been given landmark status by the New York City Preservation Commission, and East 127th Street has been renamed "Langston Hughes Place."

In addition to leaving us a large body of poetic work, Hughes wrote eleven plays and countless works of prose, including the well-known “Simple” books: Simple Speaks His Mind, Simple Stakes a Claim, Simple Takes a Wife, and Simple's Uncle Sam. He edited the anthologies The Poetry of the Negro and The Book of Negro Folklore, wrote an acclaimed autobiography (The Big Sea) and co-wrote the play Mule Bone with Zora Neale Hurston.

http://www.poets.org/poet.php/prmPID/83

Langston Hughes Poems

Cross My old man's a white old man And my old mother's black. If ever I cursed my white old man I take my curses back. If ever I cursed my black old mother And wished she were in hell, I'm sorry for that evil wish And now I wish her well My old man died in a fine big house. My ma died in a shack. I wonder where I'm going to die, Being neither white nor black?

Dreams Hold fast to dreams For if dreams die Life is a broken-winged bird That cannot fly.

Hold fast to dreams For when dreams go Life is a barren field Frozen with snow

Louis Armstrong

Louis Armstrong was born on August 4, 1901, in New Orleans, Louisiana, the birthplace of jazz. He is considered the most important improviser in jazz, and he taught the world to swing. Armstrong had a sense of humor, natural and unassuming manner, and positive attitude that made everyone around him feel good. With his big smile, his trumpet playing skill and well-known voice, he won the hearts of people everywhere. He had an exciting and new style of playing that musicians imitate to this day. Throughout his career, Armstrong made jazz more famous. His importance to the music of the 20th century continues today!

Armstrong grew up in a poor family in a rough section of New Orleans. He started working at a very young age to support his family, singing on street corners for pennies, working on a junk wagon, cleaning graves for tips, and selling coal. His travels around the city introduced him to all kinds of music, from the blues to the brass bands that played at New Orleans parades and funerals.

As the young Armstrong began to perform with bands in small clubs and play funerals and parades around town, he captured the attention and respect of some of the older musicians of New Orleans. This experience enabled him to play with many important and famous jazz musicians and to further develop his skills. He learned to read music and play professionally.

In 1922, Armstrong went to Chicago to play in a Band. As a member of this band, Armstrong began his lifetime of touring and recording. In 1924, he moved on to New York City to play at the Roseland Ballroom.

Armstrong continued his touring and recording activities and made recordings with more famous jazz stars. In 1925, Armstrong returned to Chicago and made his first recordings as a band leader with his Hot Five (and later his Hot Seven). From 1925 to 1928 he continued performing and recording, which included Heebie Jeebies, the tune that introduced a new kind of singing to many Americans and West End Blues, one of the most famous recordings in early jazz. During this period, his playing got better, and his traveling and recording activities introduced his music to more and more people.

In 1929, Armstrong came back to New York City and made his first Broadway appearance. During the next year, he performed in several U.S. states, including California, where he made his first film and radio appearances. In 1931, he first recorded When It's Sleepytime Down South, the tune that became his theme song.

In the early 1960's, he continued to record, including two albums with Duke Ellington and the hit Hello Dolly, which reached number one on the Billboard charts. Armstrong performed regularly until recurring health problems gradually ended his trumpet playing and singing. Even in the last year of his life, he traveled to London twice, appeared on more than a dozen television shows, and performed at the Newport Jazz Festival to celebrate his 70th birthday. Up until a few days before his death, on July 6, 1971, he was setting up band rehearsals in preparation to perform for his beloved public. http://www.pbs.org/jazz/biography/artist_id_armstrong_louis.htm