A sound bouncing off the surrounding walls illuminates your soul. The musical instrument of the musician blowing through the saxophone speaks to your heart to fill it with the rhythm of life and for you to fall in love. The big band behind the lead performer boasts with enthusiasm and spirit as they provide a sense of unity, family, and culture. The resulting effect is a fantastic sound.
Music is the cornerstones of our lives – we live and breathe the sound profoundly each day. The creative words placed on paper creates a scene to remember for future generations, it instills in our mind...shaping our world. Our passion for a particular issue shapes our viewpoints to speak our thoughts and projections on life.
Political literature brings up the dirty laundry to focus on in order for the cleaning process to begin. The eccentric speeches proclaiming the need for self-respect, cultural empowerment, and the ability to live freely as one chooses uplifts us and bring anew way of thinking.
With these two areas of black creativity, the twenties demonstrated a need to build the establishments, in order, to house these giants of wonderful expressions, in which, prominent black architects from Tuskegee and Howard University made these golden years of the 1920’s {and early prior years} soar to the heavens. The magnificent buildings they designed and built were a testimony of what color folk could, as well as did, achieve given the opportunity.
In my second series of review of Harlem, The 1920s, I will analyze these three areas and the individual contributors that made this era phenomenal and influential.
Music
The first individual I will highlight is Louis Daniel Armstrong.
He was born on August 4, 1901 in the Storyville District of New Orleans of a supporting family. His parents managed to keep the family together during the extremely hard times of living in a poor neighborhood, in which, took its toll. When Louis was a young boy, he chose to sing on street corners for nickels and dimes.
He would hang out in bars and listen to the new sound of music; jazz. Louis mentor became Peter Davis and later on Joe “King” Oliver with the Kid Ory Band. By his early twenties Louis Daniel Armstrong was in St. Louis playing his musical instrument along with prominent bands.
Armstrong followed his dreams of a musician to Chicago by Oliver’s request to join Oliver’s Creole Jazz Band. The center stage for his profound talent in the city that was also known as the renaissance, Chicago, which made Armstrong more recognizable in the musical arena and the cultural arena of literature and the arts enlightenment boom in Harlem.
The copyright of the article Harlem: The 1920s Part Two in Writing from Harlem is owned by . Permission to republish Harlem: The 1920s Part Two in print or online must be granted by the author in writing.
10.
Dec 14, 2001 4:24 AM
In response to message posted by pudden83:
Hi Pudden83,
Thank you for visiting my topic and reading my part two series of ...
-- posted by Nichel
9.
Dec 5, 2001 8:46 AM
I have enjoyed reading part two of Harlem: The 1920s. Keep up the excellent work.
-- posted by pudden83
8.
Dec 3, 2001 7:56 PM
In response to message posted by Renie_Burghardt:
Hi Renie, my good friend. I am so pleased that you enjoyed part two of "Ha ...
-- posted by Nichel
7.
Dec 2, 2001 1:33 PM
Another outstanding article about that great, creative era of the 1920s, and some of the wonderful talented people of those times. I remember hearing Louis Armstrong for the first time in the 1950s, ...
-- posted by Renie_Burghardt
6.
Dec 2, 2001 5:24 AM
In response to message posted by ladybaa:
Hi LadyBaa!
Thank you for stopping by and checking out my part two article of H ...
-- posted by Nichel
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