Research > Guides > American Music Traditions: African American Music
American Music Traditions:
African American Music: Other Sources
A selection of websites, including digital archives, of African American music.
- African American Art
Song Alliance
Founded in 1997, this is the home of interchange between performers and scholars interested in art song by African American composers. See also: http://www.youtube.com/user/ArtSongAlliance - African
American Sheet Music 1850-1920
This collection consists of 1,305 pieces of African American sheet music dating from 1850 through 1920. - Afrocentric Voices in “Classical” Music
Afrocentric Voices focuses on African American performers and composers and on the vocal music forms they influenced, especially opera, art songs and Negro spirituals composed for concert performance. - Archives of African American Music
and Culture - Indiana University
Established in 1991, the Archives of African American Music and Culture (AAAMC) is a repository of materials covering a range of African American musical idioms and cultural expressions from the post-World War II era. Our collections highlight popular, religious, and classical music, with genres ranging from blues and gospel to R&B and contemporary hip hop. The AAAMC also houses extensive materials related to the documentation of black radio. - Duke Ellington
The Official Web Site of Duke Ellington is an informational Web site intended to honor the life, the legend, and the career of Duke Ellington. - Explore Jazz History through one photograph
Group photograph of jazz musicians in New York, on 126th street in Harlem at 10am, photographed by Art Kane, Esquire Magazine. - Harlem 1900-1940: An African American
Community
Harlem 1900-1940: An African American Community , is a history education portfolio that has been produced by the Educational Programs unit of the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, the New York Public Library. - Louis Armstrong Archives
The mission of the Louis Armstrong House & Archives is to preserve and promote the cultural legacy of Louis Armstrong. This includes making the materials in the archives available to everyone, serving as a reference source for researchers, presenting concerts and educational programs about his life, and operating his home as a historic house museum. - The Nathaniel C.
Standifer Video Archive of Oral History: Black American Musicians
This collection was begun in 1968, and it contains approximately 150 videotaped interviews. It concentrates primarily on interviews with black musicians who have made highly significant contributions to musical genres of African American origin or influence. - "Now What a
Time": Blues, Gospel, and the Fort Valley Music Festivals, 1938-1943
Sound recordings, primarily blues and gospel songs, and related documentation from the folk festival at Fort Valley State College (now Fort Valley State University), Fort Valley, Georgia. The documentation was created by John Wesley Work III in 1941 and by Lewis Jones and Willis Laurence James in March, June, and July 1943. Also included are recordings made in Tennessee and Alabama (including six Sacred Harp songs) by John Work between September 1938 and 1941. These recording projects were supported by the Library of Congress's Archive of American Folk Song (now the Archive of Folk Culture, American Folklife Center). - The Red Hot Jazz Archive
A history of jazz before 1930. - Robert Johnson
Notebooks
The goal of this site is to highlight the power of Robert Johnson's words, still resonant in contemporary America. - Scott Joplin International Ragtime
Foundation
The Scott Joplin International Ragtime Foundation is a nonprofit organization whose mission is to promote an understanding and appreciation of Joplin's contribution to ragtime music. - Shall
We Gather At The River: African American Sacred Music from the Florida
Folklife Collection
Produced by the Florida Folklife Commission, this collection highlights Florida's African American religious music traditions. Listen to music featuring both nationally recognized acts and previously unknown local artists, including the Dixie Hummingbirds, the Georgia Sea Island, the Versiteers, and the Amigo Male Singers. Download the disc as an MP3 file or contact the State Archives of Florida to request a complimentary CD. - Sweet Chariot: the Story of the Spirituals
Produced by The Spirituals Project; a broad-based initiative to explore the many, varied dimensions of African American spirituals as art form, tradition and tool; and to invite all people to experience the joy and power of this dynamic music and gift from African Americans to the world. - W.C. Handy: Father of the
Blues
W.C. Handy has been called "the Father of the Blues" having single-handedly introduced a new style of music to the world. He acknowledged that he did not invent the blues but merely transcribed them and presented them to a worldwide audience. - William Grant
Still
Biography and works of American composer William Grant Still, who wrote over 150 compositions, including operas, ballets, symphonies, chamber works, and arrangements of folk themes, instrumental, choral and solo vocal works. - Theolonious Monk Institute
The Thelonious Monk Institute of Jazz, a nonprofit education organization, was founded in 1986 by the Monk family along with the late Maria Fisher, an opera singer and lifelong devotee of music. Its mission is to offer the world's most promising young musicians college level training by America's jazz masters and to present public school-based jazz education programs for young people around the world.
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