Sila Blume
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The Virtuous Black XXII: Shirley Verrett
Shirley Verrett (accent on the last syllable, VerrETT) was one of America’s finest opera stars and recital singers, and was one of the remarkable generation of great African-American singers who came to international prominence in the 1950s and 1960s. She studied voice in Los Angeles with Anna Fitziu and Hall Johnson. In 1955, she won…
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The Virtuous Black XXI: Nina Simone
Nina Simone, born Eunice Waymon on February 21, 1933, in Tryon, North Carolina, U.S.A., is the singer who created urgent emotional intensity by singing songs of love, protest, and Black empowerment in a dramatic style, with a rough-edged voice. A precocious child, Simone played piano and organ in girlhood. She became sensitive to racism when…
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Manufaktum
I suspect there is a level of being overwhelmed by the thought of painting on a canvas which leads me to using cameras. Similarly there may be some level of bravery in living life which relaxes me, and persuades me increasingly to write as purely as possible — pure of mind in depth, and pure…
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The Virtuous Black XX: Thelonious Monk
Thelonious Monk, born Thelonious Sphere Monk, on October 10 1917, in Rocky Mount, N.C., U.S.A., is the pianist and composer who was among the first creators of modern jazz. As the pianist in the band at Minton’s Playhouse, a nightclub in New York City, in the early 1940s, Monk had great influence on the other…
Sila Blume 