1. Context and Creativity: William Grant Still in Los Angeles
By Jacqueline Cogdell DjeDje
Supplementary Material
Jacqueline Cogdell DjeDje explores how Los Angeles (as context) affected the creativity of composer William Grant Still. Although Still experienced many challenges in his personal and professional life, Los Angeles not only became a balm that provided solace and satisfaction, he believed the city gave him the freedom to be musically creative. Read more...
2. Prince Modupe: An African in Early Hollywood
By Karin Patterson
Supplementary Material
Karin Patterson discusses the life of a West African Hollywood producer of music and performance, giving special attention to his 1930s stage production, Zungaroo. At a time when Africans were stereotyped as "savages" without culture, Prince Modupe was wheeling and dealing with power brokers in the entertainment industry and defining blackness on his own terms. Read more...
3. Clifford Brown in Los Angeles
By Eddie S. Meadows
Supplementary Material
Eddie Meadows’ discussion of jazz trumpeter Clifford Brown demonstrates how circumstances can impact the trajectory of a person’s life. Learning about Brown’s life and music from the perspective of his widow provides a more nuanced and insightful understanding of the music scene in Los Angeles in the mid-1950s. In addition, we learn about the California-based musicians who played a role in Brown’s performance and recording career. Read more...
4. Seeking John Carter and Bobby Bradford: Free Jazz and Community in Los Angeles
By Charles Sharp
Supplementary Material
Charles Sharp examines the careers of two musicians, John Carter and Bobby Bradford, including their collaborations in the New Art Jazz Ensemble, a Los Angeles-based group active from the late 1960s to the mid 1970s. In focusing on these musicians, Sharp draws attention to the experimental jazz scene in Los Angeles. Read more...
5. Talking Drums in Los Angeles: Brokering Culture in an American Metropolis
By Jesse Ruskin
Supplementary Material
Nigerian-born Francis Awe arrived in Los Angeles during the 1980s, about fifty years after Prince Modupe settled in the City of Angels (see essay by Karin Patterson). Awe's experience further illustrates what it means to be an African musician in America. In his essay, Jesse Ruskin uses the concept of the culture broker to highlight Awe's role as a culture bearer and cultural mediator. Read more...
6. Back to the Heart of Worship: Praise and Worship Music in a Los Angeles African-American Megachurch
By Birgitta J. Johnson
Supplementary Material
“Back to the Heart of Worship: Praise and Worship Music in a Los Angeles African American Megachurch” by Birgitta J. Johnson, explores music making in the context of an urban African American megachurch that holds weekly worship services in a sports arena. The author provides historical overviews of black megachurches in Los Angeles and information on the origins of praise and worship and the megachurch phenomenon in the United States. Read more...
7. “Something 2 Dance 2”: Electro Hop in 1980s Los Angeles and Its Afrofuturist Link
By Gabriela Jiménez
Supplementary Material
Gabriela Jiménez examines electro hop (or, techno hop), a subgenre of hip hop cultivated almost exclusively in Los Angeles during the 1980s. She provides insight on electro hop's development, particularly its role as a precursor to gangsta rap and its connections with Afrofuturism. Read more...
8. Building “Zyon” in Babylon: Holy Hip Hop and Geographies of Conversion
By Christina Zanfagna
Supplementary Material
Christina Zanfagna explores the world of holy hip hop (i.e. gospel rap), a genre, like other types of contemporary gospel music, which blurs the "secular" and "sacred." Using three gospel rap performances, Zanfagna examines how holy hip hoppers use music and the city to create sites for conversion and worship. Read more...
9. African-American Voices of Traditional Sacred Music in Twentieth-Century and Twenty-first Century Los Angeles
By Hansonia L. Caldwell
Supplementary Material
Hansonia L. Caldwell reports on the activities of a special performance and archiving program at California State University, Dominguez Hills, which is devoted to documenting and preserving African American sacred music in Los Angeles. Using materials from the Georgia and Nolan Payton Archive and annual Living Legends Festival, she highlights the careers and contributions of six artists: Jester Hairston, Albert McNeil, Jacqueline Butler Hairston, J. David Bowick, Celestine Shambrey and her Shambrey Chorale, and Don Lee White. Read more...
10. Jazz in Los Angeles: The Black Experience
By Dwight Dickerson
Supplementary Material
Is jazz in Los Angeles an art form or entertainment? This is one of the central questions that Dwight Dickerson, a professional jazz musician who has personal experience working in Los Angeles, raises in his essay. Among other issues, he discusses the impact of pop culture and Hollywood on jazz, the reasons jazz musicians leave Los Angeles for New York City, and the lack of support for jazz in Los Angeles. Read more...
By Jacqueline Cogdell DjeDje
Supplementary Material
Jacqueline Cogdell DjeDje explores how Los Angeles (as context) affected the creativity of composer William Grant Still. Although Still experienced many challenges in his personal and professional life, Los Angeles not only became a balm that provided solace and satisfaction, he believed the city gave him the freedom to be musically creative. Read more...
2. Prince Modupe: An African in Early Hollywood
By Karin Patterson
Supplementary Material
Karin Patterson discusses the life of a West African Hollywood producer of music and performance, giving special attention to his 1930s stage production, Zungaroo. At a time when Africans were stereotyped as "savages" without culture, Prince Modupe was wheeling and dealing with power brokers in the entertainment industry and defining blackness on his own terms. Read more...
3. Clifford Brown in Los Angeles
By Eddie S. Meadows
Supplementary Material
Eddie Meadows’ discussion of jazz trumpeter Clifford Brown demonstrates how circumstances can impact the trajectory of a person’s life. Learning about Brown’s life and music from the perspective of his widow provides a more nuanced and insightful understanding of the music scene in Los Angeles in the mid-1950s. In addition, we learn about the California-based musicians who played a role in Brown’s performance and recording career. Read more...
4. Seeking John Carter and Bobby Bradford: Free Jazz and Community in Los Angeles
By Charles Sharp
Supplementary Material
Charles Sharp examines the careers of two musicians, John Carter and Bobby Bradford, including their collaborations in the New Art Jazz Ensemble, a Los Angeles-based group active from the late 1960s to the mid 1970s. In focusing on these musicians, Sharp draws attention to the experimental jazz scene in Los Angeles. Read more...
5. Talking Drums in Los Angeles: Brokering Culture in an American Metropolis
By Jesse Ruskin
Supplementary Material
Nigerian-born Francis Awe arrived in Los Angeles during the 1980s, about fifty years after Prince Modupe settled in the City of Angels (see essay by Karin Patterson). Awe's experience further illustrates what it means to be an African musician in America. In his essay, Jesse Ruskin uses the concept of the culture broker to highlight Awe's role as a culture bearer and cultural mediator. Read more...
6. Back to the Heart of Worship: Praise and Worship Music in a Los Angeles African-American Megachurch
By Birgitta J. Johnson
Supplementary Material
“Back to the Heart of Worship: Praise and Worship Music in a Los Angeles African American Megachurch” by Birgitta J. Johnson, explores music making in the context of an urban African American megachurch that holds weekly worship services in a sports arena. The author provides historical overviews of black megachurches in Los Angeles and information on the origins of praise and worship and the megachurch phenomenon in the United States. Read more...
7. “Something 2 Dance 2”: Electro Hop in 1980s Los Angeles and Its Afrofuturist Link
By Gabriela Jiménez
Supplementary Material
Gabriela Jiménez examines electro hop (or, techno hop), a subgenre of hip hop cultivated almost exclusively in Los Angeles during the 1980s. She provides insight on electro hop's development, particularly its role as a precursor to gangsta rap and its connections with Afrofuturism. Read more...
8. Building “Zyon” in Babylon: Holy Hip Hop and Geographies of Conversion
By Christina Zanfagna
Supplementary Material
Christina Zanfagna explores the world of holy hip hop (i.e. gospel rap), a genre, like other types of contemporary gospel music, which blurs the "secular" and "sacred." Using three gospel rap performances, Zanfagna examines how holy hip hoppers use music and the city to create sites for conversion and worship. Read more...
9. African-American Voices of Traditional Sacred Music in Twentieth-Century and Twenty-first Century Los Angeles
By Hansonia L. Caldwell
Supplementary Material
Hansonia L. Caldwell reports on the activities of a special performance and archiving program at California State University, Dominguez Hills, which is devoted to documenting and preserving African American sacred music in Los Angeles. Using materials from the Georgia and Nolan Payton Archive and annual Living Legends Festival, she highlights the careers and contributions of six artists: Jester Hairston, Albert McNeil, Jacqueline Butler Hairston, J. David Bowick, Celestine Shambrey and her Shambrey Chorale, and Don Lee White. Read more...
10. Jazz in Los Angeles: The Black Experience
By Dwight Dickerson
Supplementary Material
Is jazz in Los Angeles an art form or entertainment? This is one of the central questions that Dwight Dickerson, a professional jazz musician who has personal experience working in Los Angeles, raises in his essay. Among other issues, he discusses the impact of pop culture and Hollywood on jazz, the reasons jazz musicians leave Los Angeles for New York City, and the lack of support for jazz in Los Angeles. Read more...
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