The Art Of Ragtime, Form & Meaning Of An Original Black American Art Pdf Downloa: Fill & Download for Free

I wish. The key here is “ancient instruments.” Just how ancient do you mean? The concepts are pretty simple; the realities are far more difficult.For example, the basic string instrument is characterized in the Hornbostel-Sachs taxonomy as two types of chordophones; let’s call them the harp and the lute. Almost certainly, the harp, involving stretched strings over a resonating board or chamber, is the earliest. Examples include the Greek lyre, the West African Koro, the Persian Chang, and the Chinese/Japanese Zheng or Koto. There is little evidence that these instruments were derived from other continents, and I presume they evolved independently.The lute comes much later, and because it has the flexibility of changing tones via a bridge, it is critical to the development of a “classical” culture, that is, a sophisticated music that includes modes, tunings, melodic forms, and a variety of derivative instruments: the oud, tanbur, pandura, guitar, mandoline.Now we address the question: was there a common culture that combined elements of African and Asian sources? To imagine something of the sort, we would need to go back beyond music, beyond the arts in general. Like all cultural artifacts, the arts follow the social, military, and economic realities of life.Music, after all, is a luxury. It trails far behind the primal needs of civilizations, such as agriculture, food storage, domestic animals, and other basic means of survival. That’s why I claim a kinship between music, religion, and poetry. They can thrive only once the basic needs of society are met.So the answer is simple. No.Conquest, not collaboration, was the overwhelming imperative in the ancient world. The dominant civilization replaced the subordinate one nearly every time, and no “classical” collaboration is truly possible between conqueror and conquered.That doesn’t mean that there aren’t scores of examples of the subordinate culture providing important contributions, just that there really couldn’t be a full collaboration. Influences, yes. Equality no.And because of the slaver cultures in African/Muslim society in West Africa, the closest I can imagine is the long tradition of Africans selling Africans into slavery in the New World.Ironically, the “classical” tradition you vainly seek, is quite likely found in the popular music of the enslaved West Indies and Cuba, whose African culture managed to pervade American slavery, and ended up producing the greatest cultural collaborations yet known: ragtime, the blues, and jazz.

If you are talking about the fusion of jazz with rock/pop, that is generally credited to Miles Davis with three albums in the 60’s culminating in “In A Silent Way”. He didn’t invent fusion, but he did it so well and so inventively, and influenced so many other musicians that he may as well have invented it. As is the case with many genres, Miles may have been a big name in this, but he didn’t do it alone, and every musician who did this contributed to the genre. John McLaughlin is an early innovator, as were Gary Burton and Larry Coryell. Miles’ album “Bitches Brew” was highly influential a little later.If you’re thinking of leading with jazz, then my above paragraph kind of is on that track. But if you’re more interested in rock and pop with jazz influences, try Cream, Blood Sweat and Tears, Chicago, The Grateful Dead, and Frank Zappa.Smooth jazz, which came later, was supposed to be an easier-to-swallow version of jazz-rock fusion, maybe leaning more toward pop grooves and forms, with less aggressive improvisation.But jazz fused with a lot of other styles, too. Chano Pozo in collaboration with Dizzy Gillespie fused Afro-Cuban music with jazz, following the lead set earlier by Machito and his Afro-Cubans, which predated the jazz-rock fusion movement by a couple of decades, while Jobim with Stan Getz made Brazilian-jazz fusion popular (notice I didn’t say he invented it, either!)Pat Metheny fused folk/country with jazz, as did Bill Frizell. In fact, jazz itself is a fusion of ragtime (syncopated marches and two-steps) with blues (which is a kind of folk music), and some would argue that there are other essential influences in there like Spanish music (as filtered through the Caribbean).There was a time when musicians were looking to fuse a lot of different styles together with jazz. The general term for this is “Third Stream” jazz.I know you were looking for an easy, one-name answer. But music, like most art, is seldom so cut-and-dry.

Harriet Beecher Stowe“So, you are the little woman who wrote the book that started this great war.”Legend has it that this was Lincoln’s comment during her visit to the White House in 1862, referring of course to Uncle Tom’s Cabin and the American Civil War.How appropriate would it be to have one of the Northern progenitors of the war stand in for one of its Southern instigators?Sure, she's already, and deservedly, got plaques and memorials in various places but are there any down South?Ellis Marsalis Sr.First black businessman to obtain an Esso (now Exxon) franchise in the state of Louisiana,First black businessman to own a successful business in Jefferson Parish (Metairie/Shrewsbury), Louisiana.Instrumental in the voter registration of Black residents of Jefferson Parish from 1951 to 1966.Helped finance the education of Ernest Nathan Morial ("Dutch"), the first Black student to attend the Louisiana State University Law School, who later became the first Black mayor of New Orleans.Played a role in the election of Judge Lionel Collins, the first Black Judge of the 24th Judicial District Court, in Gretna, Louisiana.AND…patriarch of the Marsalis clan of musicians.Father of Ellis Marsalis Jr., and grandpa to Branford and Wynton, some of the great jazz musicians and black role models of our time.PS to make things even better, in my mind, Marsalis Sr. was a lifelong member of the Republican Party, and a delegate to the Republican Convention of 1964.Major TaylorWho?Arguably one of the first great celebrity athletes. And a black man.Died a pauper, and way too young at the age of 53, his cemetery plaque says this:“Dedicated to the memory of Marshall W. 'Major' Taylor, 1878–1932. World's champion bicycle racer who came up the hard way without hatred in his heart, an honest, courageous and god-fearing, clean-living, gentlemanly athlete. A credit to the race who always gave out his best. Gone but not forgotten.”So…let’s not forget him!Paul RobesonAll American at Rutgers, a multi sport athlete and arguably one of the greatest natural athletes this country ever produced.And… one of the great Shakespearean actors of his time! Set records on Broadway for his portrayal of Othello.And… one of the great singing voices of his time! Sang everthing from spirituals to Yiddish folk tunes.And… one of the first, if not the first, blacks accepted to Columbia Law School.Not without political controversy, he was blacklisted as a subversive and communist during the McCarthy era, living the last years of his life in relative seclusion and poor health.Louis ArmstrongThis ones just too obvious. And not just for music lovers.Son of the South, of New Orleans (who later re-located to my part of the world: Corona, Queens NY), and ambassador to the world.Well….he's already got an airport down in New Orleans named after him. Maybe just one more statue?But, if we can't agree on that….how about another groundbreaking black musician?Scott JoplinAnother Son of the south, of Texarkana, Texas, who ironically as befits this question, was at some point (unwittingly) part of a fund raising effort for Jefferson Davis.The King of Ragtime, a great original American art form, died poor at the age of 49, and was buried in a paupers grave in Elmhurst, Queens NY, that went unmarked for decades. But not without leaving an enduring legacy in music for the US and the world.