Music
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The Virtuous Black XXVI: Ella Fitzgerald
Ella Fitzgerald, born Ella Jane Fitzgerald, on April 25 1917 in Newport News, Virginia, U.S.A., is the jazz singer who became world famous for the wide range and rare sweetness of her voice. She became an international legend during a career that spanned some six decades. As a child, Fitzgerald wanted to be a dancer,…
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The Virtuous Black XXV: Louis Armstrong
Louis Armstrong, born August 4 1901, in New Orleans, Louisiana, U.S.A., was leading trumpeter and one of the most influential artists in jazz history. He grew up in dire poverty in New Orleans, Louisiana, when jazz was very young. As a child he worked at odd jobs and sang in a boys’ quartet. In 1913…
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The Life You Give: Renata Scotto *1934
Renata Scotto’s long and successful operatic career was marked by a rare combination of dramatic intensity and vocal flexibility, which allowed her to traverse a wide variety of styles. She believed strongly in the theatrical elements of performing and always focused her energies on the meaning of a text. She also felt much of the…
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The Virtuous Black XXIII: Wynton Marsalis
The most famous musician in contemporary jazz, Wynton Marsalis had a major impact almost from the start. In the early ’80s, it was major news that a young and talented Black musician would choose to make a living playing acoustic jazz rather than fusion, funk, or R&B. Marsalis’ arrival on the scene started the “Young…
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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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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…
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The Virtuous Black XIX: Billie Holiday
Billie Holiday, born Elinore Harris on April 7 1915, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, U.S.A., was one the greatest jazz singers from the 1930s to the ’50s. Eleanora (her preferred spelling) Harris was the daughter of Clarence Holiday, a professional musician who for a time played guitar with the Fletcher Henderson band. She and her mother used…
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The Virtuous Black XVI: Mahalia Jackson
Mahalia Jackson, born October 26 1911, New Orleans, Louisiana, U.S.A., was the gospel music singer, known as the “Queen of Gospel Song.” Jackson was brought up in a strict religious atmosphere. Her father’s family included several entertainers, but she was forced to confine her own musical activities to singing in the church choir and listening—surreptitiously—to…
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The Virtuous Black XV: William Grant Still
William Grant Still, born May 11 1895, in Woodville, Mississippi, U.S.A., was composer and conductor, and the first African American to conduct a professional symphony orchestra in the United States. Though a prolific composer of operas, ballets, symphonies, and other works, he was best known for his Afro-American Symphony (1931). Still was brought up by…
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The Virtuous Black XIV: Duke Ellington
Duke Ellington, born Edward Kennedy Ellington, April 29 1899, in Washington, D.C., U.S.A., is the pianist who was the greatest jazz composer and bandleader of his time. One of the originators of big-band jazz, Ellington led his band for more than half a century, composed thousands of scores, and created one of the most distinctive…
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The Virtuous Black XIII: Prince
Prince, born Prince Rogers Nelson, on June 7 1958, in Minneapolis, Minnesota, U.S.A., is the singer, guitarist, songwriter, producer, dancer, and performer on keyboards, drums, and bass who was among the most talented American musicians of his generation. Like Stevie Wonder, he was a rare composer who could perform at a professional level on virtually…
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“Whenever Leontyne Price sang, it was an event.”
“Whenever Leontyne Price sang, it was an event.” Peter Clark, Met’s Director of Archives
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The Life You Give: Alban Berg *1885
Alban Berg, born Alban Maria Johannes Berg, on February 9 1885, in Vienna, Austria, is the composer who wrote atonal and 12-tone compositions that remained true to late 19th-century Romanticism. He composed orchestral music (including Five Orchestral Songs, 1912), chamber music, songs, and two groundbreaking operas, Wozzeck (1925) and Lulu (1937). Apart from a few…
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The Virtuous Black VIII: Miles Davis
Miles Davis, born Miles Dewey Davis III on May 26 1926, in Alton, Illinois, U.S.A., is the jazz musician, and great trumpeter who as a bandleader and composer was one of the major influences on the art from the late 1940s. Davis grew up in East St. Louis, Illinois, where his father was a prosperous…
Sila Blume 