Vernacular Music Research

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Vernacular Music Research is an archival and historical collection of music. It includes print (books, sheet music, orchestrations), 78' records, and other media featuring American music and dance from the early 19th century to the 1960s. [1] It was founded by jazz historian Thornton Hagert. Jazz.com lists his name as "Tony Hagert" for albums Come & Trip it and Too Much Mustard with trombonist Dave Sager. [2]

Contents

The Archive

The Archive itself consists of about 125,000 items of printed music, 75,000 items of recorded music, 5,500 books and 2,000 periodicals on New World Vernacular music, dance, and related topics. [1]

Services

Research and historical writing has been compiled for has been prepared for The Smithsonian's "An Experiment in Modern Music: Paul Whiteman at Aeolian Hall. Smithsonian Collection recording DMM 2-0518", and the Maryland Historical Society, [3]

The archive has provided sheet music, recorded music, and referenced source material for books and publications including:

"Habaneras, Maxixies & Tangos: The Syncopated Piano Music of Latin America" author Bill Matthiesen made special note of the use of Thornton Hagert's research, sheet music and orchestration. [4]

Ragged but Right by Lynn Abbott features sheet music from the Archive. Printed by University of Mississippi [5]

Come & Trip It "Instrumental Dance Music, 1780s-1920s" Released on New World Records [6] The Release is even currently for sale on Amazon, with reviews included- Come & Trip It [7]

It also received a special thanks from the author of "Black Manhattan", conductor Rick Benjamin. [8] Maintained by Recorded Anthology of American Music, Inc.

Was a contributor to the Eubie Blake Collection with the Maryland Historical Society. They maintain correspondence between Hagert & Eubie Blake. [9]

"Ragtime : its history, composers, and music" by John Edward Hasse and published on Schirmer Books, 1985 also references the archive.

Record Research features research and writing in partnership with Jean C Averty on numerous articles throughout the 1970s and 1980s. [10] Provided Samples of Music for book The Devil's Horn (The Devil's Horn: The Story of the Saxophone, From Noisy Novelty to King of Cool. Farrar, Straus & Giroux. ISBN   0374159386) [11]

Participated in the book Pioneers of Jazz: The Story of the Creole Band by Lawrence Gushee Page 552 [12]

Provided sheet music cover of "Oh you Devil! Rag" for a University of Mississippi book Ragged but Right [5]

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Funk</span> 1960s music genre

Funk is a music genre that originated in Black American communities in the mid-1960s when musicians created a rhythmic, danceable new form of music through a mixture of various music genres that were popular among African Americans in the mid-20th century. It deemphasizes melody and chord progressions and focuses on a strong rhythmic groove of a bassline played by an electric bassist and a drum part played by a percussionist, often at slower tempos than other popular music. Funk typically consists of a complex percussive groove with rhythm instruments playing interlocking grooves that create a "hypnotic" and "danceable" feel. It uses the same richly colored extended chords found in bebop jazz, such as minor chords with added sevenths and elevenths, and dominant seventh chords with altered ninths and thirteenths.

Jazz is a music genre that originated in the African-American communities of New Orleans, Louisiana, in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, with its roots in blues and ragtime. Since the 1920s Jazz Age, it has been recognized as a major form of musical expression in traditional and popular music. Jazz is characterized by swing and blue notes, complex chords, call and response vocals, polyrhythms and improvisation. Jazz has roots in European harmony and African rhythmic rituals.

Ragtime, also spelled rag-time or rag time, is a musical style that had its peak from the 1890s to 1910s. Its cardinal trait is its syncopated or "ragged" rhythm. Ragtime was popularized during the early 20th century by composers such as Scott Joplin, James Scott and Joseph Lamb. Ragtime pieces are typically composed for and performed on piano, though the genre has been adapted for a variety of instruments and styles.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Eubie Blake</span> American jazz pianist (1887–1983)

James Hubert "Eubie" Blake was an American pianist and composer of ragtime, jazz, and popular music. In 1921, he and his long-time collaborator Noble Sissle wrote Shuffle Along, one of the first Broadway musicals written and directed by African Americans. Blake's compositions included such hits as "Bandana Days", "Charleston Rag", "Love Will Find a Way", "Memories of You" and "I'm Just Wild About Harry". The 1978 Broadway musical Eubie! showcased his works; in 1981, President Ronald Reagan awarded Blake the Presidential Medal of Freedom.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Cakewalk</span> Type of dance

The cakewalk was a dance developed from the "prize walks" held in the mid-19th century, generally at get-togethers on Black slave plantations before and after emancipation in the Southern United States. Alternative names for the original form of the dance were "chalkline-walk", and the "walk-around". It was originally a processional partner dance performed with comical formality, and may have developed as a subtle mockery of the mannered dances of white slaveholders.

Latin jazz is a genre of jazz with Latin American rhythms. The two main categories are Afro-Cuban jazz, rhythmically based on Cuban popular dance music, with a rhythm section employing ostinato patterns or a clave, and Afro-Brazilian jazz, which includes samba and bossa nova.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Saint Louis Blues (song)</span> 1914 Song by W. C. Handy

"The Saint Louis Blues" is a popular American song composed by W. C. Handy in the blues style and published in September 1914. It was one of the first blues songs to succeed as a pop song and remains a fundamental part of jazz musicians' repertoire. Benny Goodman, Louis Armstrong, Cab Calloway, Bing Crosby, Bessie Smith, Eartha Kitt, Count Basie, Glenn Miller, Guy Lombardo, Peanuts Hucko, and the Boston Pops Orchestra are among the artists who have recorded it. The song has been called "the jazzman's Hamlet". Composer William Grant Still arranged a version of the song in 1916 while working with Handy.

Danzón is the official musical genre and dance of Cuba. It is also an active musical form in Mexico and Puerto Rico. Written in 2
4
time
, the danzón is a slow, formal partner dance, requiring set footwork around syncopated beats, and incorporating elegant pauses while the couples stand listening to virtuoso instrumental passages, as characteristically played by a charanga or típica ensemble.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Noble Sissle</span> African-American jazz musician (1889–1975)

Noble Lee Sissle was an American jazz composer, lyricist, bandleader, singer, and playwright, best known for the Broadway musical Shuffle Along (1921), and its hit song "I'm Just Wild About Harry".

Afro-Cuban jazz is the earliest form of Latin jazz. It mixes Afro-Cuban clave-based rhythms with jazz harmonies and techniques of improvisation. Afro-Cuban music has deep roots in African ritual and rhythm. The genre emerged in the early 1940s with the Cuban musicians Mario Bauzá and Frank Grillo "Machito" in the band Machito and his Afro-Cubans in New York City. In 1947, the collaborations of bebop trumpeter Dizzy Gillespie and percussionist Chano Pozo brought Afro-Cuban rhythms and instruments, such as the tumbadora and the bongo, into the East Coast jazz scene. Early combinations of jazz with Cuban music, such as "Manteca" and "Mangó Mangüé", were commonly referred to as "Cubop" for Cuban bebop.

Contradanza is the Spanish and Spanish-American version of the contradanse, which was an internationally popular style of music and dance in the 18th century, derived from the English country dance and adopted at the court of France. Contradanza was brought to America and there took on folkloric forms that still exist in Bolivia, Mexico, Venezuela, Colombia, Peru, Panama and Ecuador.

"Memories of You" is a popular song about nostalgia with lyrics written by Andy Razaf and music composed by Eubie Blake and published in 1930.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Paul Oliver</span> English architectural historian and blues music writer (1927–2017)

Paul Hereford Oliver MBE was an English architectural historian and writer on the blues and other forms of African-American music. He was equally distinguished in both fields, although it is likely that aficionados of one of his specialties were not aware of his expertise in the other. He wrote some of the first scholarly studies of blues music, and his commentary and research have been influential.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Vince Giordano</span> American musician

Vince Giordano is an American saxophonist and leader of the New York-based Nighthawks Orchestra. He specializes in jazz of the 1920s and 1930s and his primary instrument is the bass saxophone. Vince Giordano and the Nighthawks have played on television and film soundtracks, including the HBO series Boardwalk Empire and Woody Allen's musical comedy film Everyone Says I Love You.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Is You Is or Is You Ain't My Baby</span> Song written and performed by Louis Jordan

"Is You Is or Is You Ain't My Baby" is a song written by Louis Jordan and Billy Austin. The song's first recording, by Jordan, was made on October 4, 1943. It was released as the B-side of a single with "G.I. Jive" with the title "Is You Is or Is You Ain't ". The song reached No. 1 on the US folk/country charts, number two for three weeks on the pop chart, and number three on the R&B chart.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Music of New Orleans</span> Overview of music traditions in New Orleans

The music of New Orleans assumes various styles of music which have often borrowed from earlier traditions. New Orleans, Louisiana, is especially known for its strong association with jazz music, universally considered to be the birthplace of the genre. The earliest form was dixieland, which has sometimes been called traditional jazz, 'New Orleans', and 'New Orleans jazz'. However, the tradition of jazz in New Orleans has taken on various forms that have either branched out from original dixieland or taken entirely different paths altogether. New Orleans has also been a prominent center of funk, home to some of the earliest funk bands such as The Meters.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Perry Bradford</span> American musician

Perry Bradford was an American composer, songwriter, and vaudeville performer. His most notable songs included "Crazy Blues," "That Thing Called Love," and "You Can't Keep A Good Man Down." He was nicknamed "Mule" because of his stubbornness, and he is credited with finally persuading Okeh Records to work with Mamie Smith leading to her historic blues recording in 1920.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Terry Waldo</span> American pianist and composer (born 1944)

Terry Waldo is an American pianist, composer, and historian of early jazz, blues, and stride music, and is best known for his contribution to ragtime and his role in reviving interest in this form, starting in the 1970s. Says Wynton Marsalis in his introduction to Waldo's book: "He teaches Ragtime, he talks about Ragtime, he plays it, he embodies it, he lives it, and he keeps Ragtime alive." The book, This is Ragtime, published in 1976, grew out of the series of the same title that Waldo produced for NPR in 1974. Waldo is also a theatrical music director, producer, vocalist, and teacher. He is noted for his wit and humor in performance, as "a monologist in the dry, Middle Western tradition." Eubie Blake describes his first impression of Waldo's performance thus: "I died laughing...that's one of the hardest things to do—make people laugh. Terry's ability to do this, combined with his musicianship, actually reminds me of Fats Waller."

Tresillo is a rhythmic pattern used in Latin American music. It is a more basic form of the rhythmic figure known as the habanera.

La Charanga Habanera is a timba ensemble from Havana directed by David Calzado. The band has been nominated for awards including the Latin Grammy in 2003 for the album Live in the U.S.A. In 2005 Charanga Habanera was nominated for "Orgullosamente Latino" awards in three categories: best video, best album, and best group. Furthermore, the group has won numerous awards from Cubadiscos and Lucas.

References

  1. 1 2 "Vernacular Music Research – New World Music 1820s – 1960s". Vernacularmusicresearch.com. Retrieved 8 June 2023.
  2. "Sager, David Jazz.com | Jazz Music Jazz Artists Jazz News". Jazz.com. Retrieved 2014-11-17.
  3. "The American Musical Landscape". Publishing.cdlib.org. Retrieved 2014-11-17.
  4. Matthiesen, B. (2008). Habaneras, Maxixies and Tangos: The Syncopated Piano Music of Latin America. Mel Bay Publications, Incorporated. ISBN   9780786676354 . Retrieved 2014-11-17.
  5. 1 2 "(No Title)". Upress.state.ms.us. Retrieved 2014-11-17.
  6. "COME AND TRIP IT | New World Records 80293 | Instrumental Dance Music 1780s-1920s" (PDF). Newworldrecords.org. 16 July 2002. Retrieved 2014-11-17.
  7. "Come & Trip It: Instrumental Dance Music 1780s-1920s". 2 August 1994 via Amazon.
  8. Rick Benjamin (4 November 2003). "Black Manhattan Notes" (PDF). Newworldrecords.org. Retrieved 2014-11-17.
  9. [ dead link ]
  10. "[Dixielandjazz] Re: Copyright - "Copywrong"?". Ml.islandnet.com. Retrieved 2014-11-17.
  11. "The Devil's Horn: The Story of the Saxophone". Allaboutjazz.com. 11 February 2006. Retrieved 2014-11-17.
  12. "Google Books". Books.google.com. Retrieved 8 June 2023.