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Black pianists have created some of the most iconic and influential music in American history, from the spirituals of enslaved people to the jazz and R&B of the 20th century. Today, Black pianists continue to contribute to the American music scene significantly.
- A Music Rooted in Africa
- The Negro Spiritual
- The Rise of Ragtime
- The Blues
- "Chicago Blues"
- Jazz
- The Blues and Jazz
- Classical Performers and Composers
- Gospel Music
- Rap
The first Africans transported to this country came from a variety of ethnic groups with a long history of distinct and cultivated musical traditions. Some were able to bring musical instrumentswith them or build new ones in this country. The "banja" or "banshaw," now known asthe banjo, was one of the African instruments that continued to be built ...
One of the most widespread of early musical forms among southern blacks was the spiritual. Neither black versions of white hymns nor transformations of songs from Africa, spirituals were a distinctly African American response to American conditions. They expressed the longing of slaves for spiritual and bodily freedom, for safety from harm and evil...
Ragtime became the first nationally popular form of American music in 1899, when Scott Joplin's (1868-1917) "Maple Leaf Rag" enjoyed unprecedented success, selling over a million sheet-music copies. But ragtime was not new in 1899. Documents reveal that it was being played as early as the 1870s. Black musicians spoke of "ragging a tune" when descri...
The blues is perhaps the simplest American musical form and yet also the most versatile. Along with jazz, blues takes its shape and style in the process of performance, and for this reason it possesses a high degree of flexibility. Although certain musical and lyrical elements of the blues can be traced back to West Africa, the blues, like the spir...
Migration not only changes social order, it also breeds new forms of culture. The history of the blues in the twentieth century provides one example of the link between black migration and cultural change. Industrialization brought about technological advances in recording, the growth of radio, a black "race record" industry, and the development of...
Jazz, which has been called "America's classical music," is perhaps the most creative and complex music the nation has produced. Although no one can say for sure where the origins of jazz lie, it combines the musical traditionsof black New Orleans with the creative flexibility of the blues. By 1918, the term "jazz" was already in wide use. Early ja...
The blues and jazz are unique forms of African American traditional expression that defy the popular belief that in the field of music there are no truly original ideas, only the rehashing of existing traditions. Both musical genres reveal that, within the African American artistic community, there is a drive to create a wonderful "new story." The ...
While a number of black female concert singers have achieved great popularity during the last fifty years, their success is not altogether new. Their way was paved by earlier classical singers like Elizabeth TaylorGreenfield (1809-1876). The first of the widely known black vocalists, Greenfield made her debut in 1853 in Philadelphia in a recital th...
The sound of today's gospel music also has a long history in African American music, having been influenced by everything from the ensemble performances of the jubilee singers during the late 1800s and early 1900s to the predominantly male gospel quartets and choirs of the 1930s and 1940s. By the 1930s, Roberta Martin (1912-1969), Sallie Martin, an...
Rap is the most complex and influential form of hip-hop culture, combining elements of the African American musical tradition (blues, jazz, and soul) with Caribbean calypso, dub, and dance-hall reggae. Two of its earliest innovators were West Indians, DJ Kool Herc and Grand-master Flash (b. 1958). The Jamaican DJ Kool Herc was known for using massi...
African American music cannot be separated from the Transatlantic Slave Trade and the forced transportation of millions of African people across the Atlantic who were then enslaved.
Feb 13, 2019 · We'll be celebrating by spotlighting black musical artists whose voices and songs changed the world, throughout the decades and across genres. We're also posting a series of essays delving into a deep, enduring and ever-evolving body of work. In this entry, we trace a timeline of historic black musical events, with extended riffs on selected items.
Jazz is an American musical form, often improvisational, developed by Blacks and influenced by European harmonic structure and African rhythmic intricacy. It is often characterized by its use of blues and speech intonations.
In the late 19th century, African American musicians combined popular songs and marches with African American folk forms like ragtime, sacred music, and the blues to create a new form of heavily syncopated and improvisatory music.
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African-American music is a broad term covering a diverse range of musical genres largely developed by African Americans and their culture. Its origins are in musical forms that developed as a result of the enslavement of African Americans prior to the American Civil War.
