1. |
FREEDOM
02:48
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Contrary to what some people believe, the blues is not “slave music.” Although it was cultivated by the descendants of slaves, the blues was the expression of freed African Americans. The Great Migration directly influenced the blues’ many evolutions. As Black people moved from the South to northern cities, the music reflected the new urban terrain in which the people set up communities.
The beginnings of the blues can be traced to the late 1860s, arguably the most vicious and violent period in the United States. Vigilante justice was at an all-time high, and by 1889, the lynching of African Americans surged dramatically. The bluesman and blueswoman emerged in this difficult period, along with the stories of folk heroes translated to song and the new venues in which the music would be performed.
The blues did not speak of the life of the enslaved but of the experiences of freed men and women during the periods of Reconstruction and Jim Crow.
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2. |
Field Hollers
02:57
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The field holler has origins in the music of West Africa, where the majority of enslaved Africans in America came from. Field hollers, cries and hollers of the slaves working in cotton fields, prison chain gangs and railway gangs are seen as the precursor to the blues and to jazz.
The Black communities in New Orleans created jazz in the late 19th & early 20th centuries. Slaves were forbidden from owning drums as they were used to communicate. New Orleans was the only city where they could legally own drums. Hundred of slaves would gather each Sunday to trade, sing, dance and play music. This led to the birth of jazz.
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3. |
da Blues
02:48
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The “blues” is one of the first wholly American styles of music to gain recognition around the world. Blues music is heavily influenced by "field holler" songs, sung by the slaves as they worked in the fields.
It was developed in the American South by African slaves, many of whom were Muslim. The Muslim slaves added their own flair to their field holler songs. Their singing was very reminiscent of the Islamic call to pray.
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4. |
Wailing Women
03:06
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'Wailing Women" (Jeremiah 9:17-20) were called by God to lament the beleaguered people of Judah and serve as a powerful symbol of survival. The victims of violent attacks will fall into oblivion without the wailing women's voices bearing witness to their pain and suffering.
Jeremiah, the "weeping prophet,” was one of the major prophets of Judaism, Christianity and Islam. The book of Jeremiah offers us a window into a traumatized world. Around 600 BCE, the people of Judah experienced the terrifying invasion of their country by the Babylonian army who destroyed their city, their temple and sent them into exile.
From the depths of these anguished times, we witness a poetic expression of people seeking to come to terms with the terror around them.
History does repeat itself.
“Do not be daunted by the enormity of the world’s grief. Do justly, now. Love mercy, now. Walk humbly, now. You are not obligated to complete the work, but neither are you free to abandon it.“
~ The Talmud
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5. |
Roots In Slavery
02:45
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"Jazz is about the human soul, not appearances. Jazz teaches us to live in the moment, to work together and above all to respect others.
When musicians get together to play, you have to respect and understand what the other is doing. Jazz is an international language that represents freedom, because of its roots in slavery."
- Herbie Hancock
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6. |
Africa
03:00
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Africa is considered to be the oldest inhabited territory on Earth.
"The Scramble for Africa" describes the invasion, annexation, division, and colonization of most of Africa by seven Western European powers. The 10 percent of Africa that was under formal European control in 1870 increased to almost 90 percent by 1914, with only Liberia and Ethiopia remaining independent.
Between the 15th and the 19th centuries, the Atlantic slave trade took an estimated 10 million slaves to the New World.
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7. |
PURE CRUELTY
03:01
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“This attack was a campaign of PURE CRUELTY — not just hate, but pure cruelty — against the Jewish people. The past few days have been a solemn reminder that hate never goes away.”
- President Joe Biden
Violence breeds more violence. If Palestinians are ever to regain the moral high ground, they must hope for the destruction of Hamas. As long as Hamas can claim to represent them, the evil it has perpetrated will taint their cause.
“My childhood did not prepare me for the fact that the world is full of cruel and bitter things.“
- J. Robert Oppenheimer
“The world will not be destroyed by those who do evil, but by those who watch them without doing anything.”
- Albert Einstein
"What is most difficult is to love the world as it is, with all the evil and suffering in it."
- Hannah Arendt
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8. |
Hidden Intentions
02:41
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“There are no mistakes, just chances to improvise. Honor Your Mistakes as HIDDEN INTENTIONS." - Miles Davis
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9. |
Forced Immigrants
02:25
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African American life in the United States has been framed by forced migrations. The nightmarish weeks and sometimes months locked in the holds of stinking slave ships speak to the traumatic loss of freedom, the degradation of enslavement, and the long years of bondage that followed.
These forced migrations represent the will to survive, the determination of black people not to be dehumanized, and the confidence that freedom would eventually be theirs.
Slowly these survivors made the new land their own. Their children, who knew no other land, took root in American soil and made the land that had been forced on their parents their own. Like most other Americans, they too were the children of immigrants, but immigrants of a very different kind.
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10. |
Be Who You Are
02:59
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“The privilege of a lifetime is being who you are.” — Joseph Campbell
“Be yourself; everybody else is already taken.” — Oscar Wilde
“They laugh at me because I’m different; I laugh at them because they’re all the same.” —Kurt Cobain
“I pay no attention whatever to anybody’s praise or blame. I simply follow my own feelings.” —Mozart
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11. |
Unforeseen
03:23
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Improvisation is the activity of making or doing something not planned beforehand, using whatever can be found. The origin of the word itself, is in the Latin 'improvisus', which literally means UNFORESEEN.
The skills of improvisation can apply to many different faculties, across artistic, scientific, physical, cognitive and academic disciplines.
“Thinking outside the box.” Unpredictability is valued as the hallmark of pioneering creative research. Major scientific discoveries are often unplanned discoveries, made by chance, which then open whole new domains of inquiry.
“My whole life has been one big improvisation.” - Clint Eastwood
“Improvisation is too good to leave to chance.” - Paul Simon
“Those who have learned to collaborate and improvise have prevailed.” - Charles Darwin
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Steve Shapiro Oakland, California
Steve Shapiro has composed music for hundreds of radio and TV commercials, documentary films, infomercials and other TV programs. He was the music director at Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, which produced hundreds of award-winning educational films and recordings. He has a BA in Music from Brown University and an MA in Music from the Manhattan School of Music. ... more
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