Monday February 10, Harlem Renaissance

How much do I know about the Harlem Renaissance?  Not much.  I always felt that it was one of those topics taught in high school because it was about African Americans, it showed diversity, and it showed them in a good light.  It was a topic that didn't involve slavery but instead highlighted the cultural aspect of the 1920s African American city life.  From readings and research done on my own time it sounded like a fun time.  The Cotton Club that ruled Harlem and other big cities such as Chicago, seemed to be very important to the musical aspect of the Harlem Renaissance.

"The Cotton Club was the most famous of the city's nightclubs in the 1920s and 1930s, attracting an audience that often included the cream of New York society. Its glittering revenues provided a medium for performances by the most prominent jazz musicians of the day, and the club's activities were brought to a wide audience by frequent broadcasts. The house band, Duke Ellington's orchestra, was engaged and its residency became the most celebrated in the club's history, lasting until 1931. Cab Calloway and his Missourians, who had first appeared with great success in 1931, then took over, and Calloway's time as the Cotton Club's bandleader was to make his reputation."
(http://www.pbs.org/jazz/places/spaces_cotton_club.htm)

How is it that all of a sudden beautiful pieces of music, poetry, and novels were pouring forth from from these minority groups?  Were they there but we just didn't hear their voices?  Why in the 1920s all of a sudden  did these groups shine?  It was change.  The shackles and ghosts of slavery's past had kept many from leaving their home towns (mainly located in the south), but as decades past a new generation born from this shame turned to make the 1920s their own.  The great migration from south to north precipitated by the promise of factory jobs brought many African Americans to the northern states.  A need to outset the Victorian standards of old brought forth the new type of music "jazz" and many famous musicians were able to get their big break in the night clubs of the big cities wooing audiences with their original music.  Such as Cab Callowey in this link I've posted below.

Cab Calloway