Early Jazz Singers

The uniquely American music and art form, jazz, is one of America's great contributions to world culture. Now you can learn the basics of jazz and its history in a course as free-flowing and original as jazz itself. Taught by Professor Bill Messenger of the Peabody Institute, the lectures in this course are a must for music lovers. They will have you reaching deep into your own music collection and going straight out to a music store to add to it.

In the spring of 1959, when Louis Armstrong took the stage in Belgium to play the concert captured on this DVD, he had much to smile about. The irrepressible trumpeter and singer had cut his first records with King Oliver’s Creole Jazz Band some thirty-six years earlier. In the interim, he had completely redefined the possibilities of both instrumental jazz and popular singing. His concept of what it meant to swing had become the very essence of jazz rhythm, and his ceaseless ability to create coherent melodic improvisations over a given set of chord changes had reconstructed the very nature of the jazz ensemble.

Jazz Icons: Sarah Vaughan features the “Divine One” in her prime, wrapping her sultry voice around jazz standards such as “Lover Man”, “Misty” and “I Got Rhythm” and soaring on popular showtunes such as “Over The Rainbow” and “Maria”. One of the greatest voices of the 20th Century, her renditions of songs by Harold Arlen, Leonard Bernstein, Johnny Burke, the Gershwins and Stephen Sondheim are pure diva magic. These three performances demonstrate why Sarah Vaughan is invariably mentioned in the same breath as Ella Fitzgerald and Billie Holiday.

TTC Video - Elements of Jazz: From Cakewalks to Fusion

The uniquely American music and art form, jazz, is one of America's great contributions to world culture.
Now you can learn the basics of jazz and its history in a course as free-flowing and original as jazz itself.
Taught by Professor Bill Messenger of the Peabody Institute, the lectures in this course are a must for music lovers. They will have you reaching deep into your own music collection and going straight out to a music store to add to it.

The great American musical invention of the 20th century, jazz is an ever-youthful, still evolving music of beauty, sensitivity, and brilliance that has produced (and been produced by) an extraordinary progression of talented artists. JAZZ: The Smithsonian Anthology traces the turning points in its history through its legendary innovators among them Armstrong, Ellington, Basie, Parker, Gillespie, Davis, Hancock, Corea, Marsalis and notable styles, from early ragtime to
international modernism and every major movement in between.