The Street
    The Music Scene: Jazz Culture
      In Anne Petry's novel, The Street, Lutie Johnson tries to break into the Harlem music scene.  During this period, such great musicians as Lena Horne, Bessie Smith, and Billie Holliday were singing right in the neighborhood and all across the nation.  A young and beautiful woman with a powerful voice would have strong models both as her contemporaries and in the earlier period called the Harlem Renaissance--the flowering of African-American culture in the 1920's.

     

    picture from -- http://www.usc.edu/isd/archives/ethnicstudies/harlem_references.html    		 The music you hear is Strange Fruit 
    by Billie Holiday. You may click the controller to play it again.

    A great website where you can find out about Billie Holiday and listen to her singing

    Discography
    Check out this discography to find out about Billie Holiday's music and other singers of the period

    Artists and Musicians of the Harlem Renaissance --This bibliographic guide lists many excellent sources for research on the period

    African-American Mosaic--This Library of Congress site has information on many aspects of Black history and culture, including music.

    Great Day in Harlem--This site focuses on bluesman Lester Young and other musicians who have worked with him, like Count Basie, Coleman Hawkins and Dizzy Gillespie.


    Duke Ellington at the piano and Louis Armstrong on trumpet rehearse Leonard Feather's "Long, Long Journey" during a session at the RCA Victor recording studio in New York Jan. 12, 1946. (AP Photo)

    Negro singers Lena Horne and Paul Robeson look over plans May 15, 1946, for the rally at Madison Square Garden, June 6, on the theme of "Big Three Unity for Colonial Freedom", which is under the auspices of the Council on African Affairs.  One of the topics on the agenda is the generally unknown plight of the famine stricken black millions in the Union of South Africa.  Robeson is chairman of the Council.  (AP Photo)