West African-American Slavery

People were going from here to there which allowed for the clash of ethnic cultures. The blues were started before Jazz, it came from work songs, field hollers, minstrel show music, ragtime, church music, and folk music. (Blues, para. 5) Unlike Jazz, the blues were first

Early blues originated in Africa when griots sung accompany songs. Griot is a respectable and the oral poet of a tribe. Griots are story tellers of a tribe; they share stories about the history of their leaders. A griot songs have a rough and expressive characteristics and follows a dual rhythm patterns. After a two rhyming notes it changes.

The Reconstruction is the first thing I would talk about. I believe many people still have the impression that once slaves were freed in the South, that was it—all of a sudden everything was great for them, when in reality, they were essentially still slaves. I never knew about the black codes, vagrant laws, and sharecropping that took place in the South until this class. Slavery is covered as early as 7th grade, and I believe that the Reconstruction period following it is a significant enough event that it should be addressed sooner, perhaps in high school, so even those who choose to not attend college have the chance to hear about it.

What is the Blues? In the words of B.B. King, “Blues is a simple music and I’m a simple man” (qtd. in King and Ritz). From its simple and primitive origins, not only has the Blues affected culture throughout the Deep South, but Southern culture has had a strong influence on the creation of the Blues and its musicians. The Blues’ unique sound came from the slave songs, such as the work songs and field hollers of the enslaved African Americans (PBS). Nearly every song on the radio today has its roots in the Delta Blues.

Throughout my time so far in class, I have been able to listen, read, and watch new types of music that all have formed from African American music. This music has served as a means of communication, expression, and hope for enslaved Africans

“The Harlem Renaissance and the Blues” Birthed in the Mississippi Delta, the blues would have un-denying roots from the South. However, long before any form of blues genre came about, slave music expressed the sorrows of the African American experience. At the turn of the 20th century black communities in the south continued the tradition of musical expression by performing in small shacks all around the Delta. It was in these juke joints, that famous artist such as Robert Johnson and Muddy Waters first performed. With the cotton industry taking a turn for the worst many African Americans were living very undesirable.

There are many controversies and interpretations surrounding this novel. Some argue that it is a story about going from invisibility to visibility, from ignorance to enlightenment through the naming of the self and identity (Neighbors). Yet others like Gene Bluestein argue that it is a story that through the blues shows the story of the American identity and equality (Bluestein). I will mostly agree with Bluestein that this novel does show obvious “bluesy” tendencies since it backs my understanding of the novel which is a story, like Neighbors said, about coming “from ignorance to

Prior to the Emancipation Proclamation, most music was work music or spirituals which were sung without musical instruments. While students of history know the musical classes that moves the blues, there isn 't much data regarding why the class was made. Modest and convenient instruments including the harmonica and guitar was effortlessly acquired and added to the spirituals as of now made by African Americans. The expansion of instruments could be the making of the blues. The blues rapidly got to be prominent among the African American audience members and the sound would in the long run be perfected bringing about sub-classifications including the Delta blues which started in the Mississippi Delta.

Sonny's Blues was written in 1957, 37 years after the roaring twenties had come to an end. Long after the great Migration, where millions of blacks moved to northern cities to escape Jim Crow, and embrace the new found possibilities offered. During this period African-Americans in New York, collectively gathered in Harlem mainly, it was usually alluded to as the black capital. There blacks shared culturally and also, influenced music greatly. This is also where the "new negro" persona was crafted, blacks were no longer going to be referred to as someone's mammies or boy.

The blues is the earliest genre of music to come from the United States. It started as the poor, often slaves, singing or playing music on whatever they could afford. Blues can trace its origins back to slaves and the poor of the U.S., who sang and played whatever acoustic instruments they could find. As the blues became more popular and mainstream, it began to take shape as a real genre. One of the first mainstream musicians was Charley Patton.

Blues music as a genre and form was developed by African Americans in the south of the United States at the end of the 19th century. The genre has origins in many cultures such as in African music, African-American work songs and European-American folk music. Blues music incorporates field hollers, shouts, chants, etc. The blues form, found in jazz, rhythm and blues and rock and roll, is characterized by the call-and-response pattern, and also the twelve-bar blues structure, which is the most common feature. Early traditional blues verses consisted of a single line repeated four times.

1. Scansion and Analysis The Harlem Renaissance was a period of revolutionary styles of music, dance, and literature that presented the hardships and culture of African Americans. The “Trumpet Player,” by Langston Hughes portrays the theme of the therapeutic effects of music through the development of an African American trumpeter’s music. The free verse poem “Trumpet Player” epitomizes the Harlem Renaissance and Jazz through the unique use of inconsistent rhymed and unrhymed lines mixed with the use of colloquialisms.

There are four reasons why Blues is the most interesting form american music. First, this blues was born from form of African people in America and now more than 100 years old. the blues have strongly influenced almost all popular music including jazz, country, and rock and roll and continues to help shape music worldwide. The second is this blues music has lots of genres and depend on the place.

In this case repetition is used to regularly insinuate a sense of desperation and isolation. In addition to this, the first two lines of the stanza rhyme. Blues music was created and first sung by the African slaves who would sing to convey their hardship and isolation from others. Blues music to the African slaves was a strategy to explain their feelings and help them cope with their suffering.

“The only things artistic that have yet sprung from American soil and been universally acknowledged as distinctive American products.” (Revered African American poet James Weldon Johnson,1920s) From James, we can know the importance of blues in American music history, certainly, it also confirms that that music which belongs to black music is received public recognition even if society exists racial discrimination. Blues was a tool people used to express their moods at the beginning. “The blues is both a state of mind and a music which gives voice to it.