Charles “Cholly” Atkins was a tap dancing star before the bottom dropped out for the genre in the 1940s.
In 1953 he was hired to coach the Cadillacs on their stage presentation, and he was so successful that he was given a steady job at Motown Records in the early 1960s; he went on to coach and choreograph for their top groups, including The Supremes, The Temptations, and Gladys Knight and the Pips, almost single-handedly keeping much of American vernacular dance alive for a new generation.
This according to “‘Let the punishment fit the crime’: The vocal choreography of Cholly Atkins” by Jacqui Malone (Dance research journal XX/1 [summer 1988] pp. 11–18).
Today is Atkins’s 100th birthday! Below, rehearsing with The Temptations in 1986.
BONUS: The celebrated duo Coles & Atkins (Atkins is on the right).
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The book’s articles discuss Viennese composers from the 17th through the 19th centuries who were also theorists; future publications will cover other topics in Viennese music theory and interpretation.
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The 1725 account in Mercure de France of two Native Americans dancing at a Paris theater provides a detailed link between the large corpus of earlier European descriptions of New World music and the composition of Rameau’s harpsichord piece Les sauvages.
The account and the composition constitute a significant episode in the prehistory of ethnomusicology. Rameau’s detailed characterization of the Indians’ performance in the piece develops initiatives by 17th-century French musicians, and his later operatic use of Les sauvages in LesIndes galantes mirrors the ambiguities of Europe’s response to the Americas in the 18th century.
This according to “Rameau’s American dancers” by Roger Savage (Early music XI/4 [October 1983] pp. 441–52).
Today is Rameau’s 330th birthday! Above, the 1760 bust of the composer by Jean-Jacques Caffieri (click to enlarge); below, his Rondeau des Indes Galantes, which is based onLes sauvages.
Even as she evoked a utopian vision of classicism, Isadora Duncan was creating a new image of the stage dancer as a noble-spirited woman, bold yet pliant, freely using her imagination and her body as she wished.
Duncan emphasized nature and the connectedness of body and soul, countering the effects of the Industrial Revolution and Victorian prudery; she championed simplicity and organic design in the face of the public’s taste for elaboration in both design and decorum; and she made herself into an emblem of freedom from conventions, particularly those of dance and femininity.
This according to “Images of Isadora: The search for motion” by Deborah Jowitt (Dance research journal XVII–XVIII [fall–spring 1985–86] pp. 21–29. Below, a reconstruction of one of Duncan’s dances.
“I recently—well, three years ago or somethlng—played in Billings, Montana for the installation of the Shriners’ Grand Potentate. And the Shriners were all out there sitting at round tables; it was all black tie and tuxedo and gowns, and I’m up on the stage playing. Well, there’s this one table of Shriners that must have stopped somewhere else on their way to the dinner, because they were a little bit out of control; they were laughing and joking and slapping each other on the back…and I’m playing the piano, and these guys are a distraction. “
“So…I could see the Grand Potentate sitting there, and he was obviously concerned with these guys, so I decided, well…. See, something in the piano business is that, whenever someone like this appears on the scene, all the customers want…they want to see someone handle the situation. They don’t want to themselves; they’re too timid. So I realized a long time ago, it’s the job of the piano player—deal with it! So I have never been afraid to deal with these people on any level. “
“So what I did was, I was up on a stage, and they were over there, and I had a cordless mic. So, I stood up after playing this tune, and they’re all over here, ‘Wah-ha-ha, Ha haw haw…’ going on like this; they’re standing up.”
“So I took the mike, and I said ‘Ladies and gentlemen, the next tune that I’m going to play for you is the St. Louis Rag. It was written by Tom Turpin, who owned the Rosebud Bar in St. Louis; from 1900 to 1908, Scott Joplin hung out in the bar.’”
“And as I was saying this, I was walking over to this corner of the stage—there are little stairs going down—and I said, ‘The Rosebud Bar was an Institution in St. Louis, because people would come up the rivers, down the rivers…people would all go to the Rosebud’—and by now I was standing next to these guys—and I said [getting louder on each word until he is shouting] ‘They would go to the Rosebud, where they would all SIT DOWN, SHUT UP, AND LISTEN TO RAGTIME!’”
“They sat down and shut up. The Potentate almost fell over backward in his chair laughing, and I just went back up on the stage and continued. But to me, that’s just business as normal!”
This according to “‘Sit down, shut up, and listen to ragtime’: Bob Milne and the occupational folklore of the traveling piano player” by Jennifer Cutting and Stephen Winick (Folklife Center news XXIX/1–2 [winter–spring 2007] pp. 15–17). Above and below, Mr. Milne plies his trade.
The extraordinary popularity of Hank Williams’s songs in the late 1940s and early 1950s played a crucial role in transforming country music from a regional and class-bound genre to a staple of mass popular culture.
Yet Williams’s narratives exuded a fatalism and despair about personal relationships, resisted romantic optimism, and avoided the kinds of closure and transcendence historically associated with male subjectivity.
His refusal to embrace dominant cultural narratives gave an individual voice to collective fears and hopes about the body, romance, gender roles, and the family.
This according to “‘Everybody’s lonesome for somebody’: Age, the body and experience in the music of Hank Williams” by Richard D. Leppert and George Lipsitz (Popular music IX/3 [October 1990] pp. 259–274).
Today is Williams’s 90th birthday! Below, a live recording of his classic expression of male vulnerability.
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Margaret Rosezarian Harris (1943–2000) was the first black woman to conduct the orchestras of Chicago, Detroit, Los Angeles, and 12 other U.S. cities.
Harris played solo piano recitals in the U.S. and abroad, and served as musical director for the Broadway production of Hair. She was a composer of ballets, concertos, and an opera, and served as an American cultural specialist for a production of Gershwin’s Porgy and Bess in Uzbekistan in 1995.
This according to “Margaret Rosezarian Harris, musician and educator, 56” by Anthony Tommasini, an obituary published by the New York times on 22 March 2000. The full text is here.
Today is Harris’s 70th birthday! Below, her second piano concerto.
The journal aims to reflect the range of music played, studied, and researched in Ireland, providing a regional forum for scholars. While PDFs of the articles are open-access, enhanced versions with links to sound and video illustrations are only available to members of ICTM Ireland.
“My selection process was mostly earplay…I didn’t want it to be an ethnography specifically of the area, I wanted it to be a popular work.”
“I would listen to them over and over…in different environments, on the beach, in the house, in the car….I would listen in the morning, the afternoon, and the evening, and the selection revealed itself to me.”
This according to “Opening up the ‘Oz of archives’: Mickey Hart and the Endangered Music Project” by James McKee (Folklife Center news XV/1 [winter 1993] pp. 3–7).
Today is Hart’s 70th birthday! Below, a brief documentary about The spirit cries.
Two experiments explored the effects of specific sound stimuli on laying hens.
The first measured heterophil to lymphocyte ratio and tonic immobility duration in 216 36-week-old hens exposed to specific noise stimuli of 65 dB (background chicken vocalizations and fans, control) or 90 dB (background noises plus truck, train, and aircraft noises) for 60 minutes. The measurements showed that the hens exposed to 90 dB noise were more stressed and fearful than control hens.
The second experiment measured heterophil to lymphocyte ratio and tonic immobility duration in 108 36-week-old hens exposed to background noises (65 dB) or to classical music plus background noises (75 dB) between 9.00 and 14.00 for three days. The measurements showed that the hens exposed to classical music were more fearful than control hens.
Overall, the results indicate that loud noise causes stress and fear in laying hens, and classical music influences their fearfulness.
The main entrance to the New York Public Library for the Performing Arts’s exhibition Lou Reed: Caught between the twisted stars opens up on Lincoln Plaza, directly adjacent to the The Metropolitan Opera house. On a sunny day, the Met’s … Continue reading →
Seven strings/Сім струн (dedicated to Uncle Michael)* For thee, O Ukraine, O our mother unfortunate, bound, The first string I touch is for thee. The string will vibrate with a quiet yet deep solemn sound, The song from my heart … Continue reading →
Introduction: Dr. Philip Ewell, Associate Professor of Music at Hunter College and the Graduate Center of the City University of New York, posted a series of daily tweets during Black History Month (February 2021) providing information on some under-researched Black … Continue reading →
For it [the Walkman] permits the possibility…of imposing your soundscape on the surrounding aural environment and thereby domesticating the external world: for a moment, it can all be brought under the STOP/START, FAST FOWARD, PAUSE and REWIND buttons. –Iain Chambers, “The … Continue reading →
