Music Concert Report ( Hayward / Russell City Blues Festival

“Sonny’s Blues” is an emotional story written by an amazing author, James Baldwin, who has come to be one of my favorite writers. This particular piece talks about the troubles of African American freeing themselves from the mental bondages of their surroundings, the ghetto. The title is significant, and helped me to understand the underlining meaning of the story. The title can be divided into two main reasons, the first, “Sonny’s Blues, meaning the music he plays. Second is the reference to his life, his feelings, his style, and most importantly his way of life.

Looking back at the history of Blues music, one can see the influence of the African-American community, tradition, and culture very apparent in it. The Blues music genre came into being from the songs

The blues, a uniquely American art form, was born on the dusty street corners of the Deep South in the late 1800s. An evolution of West African music brought to the United States by slaves, created the blues which was a way for black people in the south

Recordings which were recorded in the city was quite professional than the Delta Blues records because in the Delta records were made in the portable studios. Moreover the cost of studios were cheaper in the Urban. Blues artists easily worked in the professional studios. When the Blues artist started to make more professional recordings, they are realized by white people. Firstly they wanted to introduce blues music to white teens. Before blues move into the North, blues recordings only appealed to Blacks. They thought we should offer the blues to white people. Also they sung in bands which are founded by white people. Due to this well-planned strategy, people understood that the blues is not only made by black people or listened by black people. The blues gain considerable popularity in the whole

Blues started in the South, long ago, when slavery was still socially accepted. Slaves were severely oppressed because they were legally bound to their masters. One way they found emotional freedom was to sing songs, which were called “slave songs.” “It Makes a Long Time Man Feel Bad”, “Hammer, Ring”, “Cornfield Holler”, were just a few of the popular slave songs (“Slavery and the Making of America”, 2004). Slave songs were in various forms such as field hollers, work songs, spirituals, and country string ballads (“The Blues- A History”, 2003). As time passed, these types of songs were starting to become known as the blues. After slavery ended in 1865, blues was not only still present, but became more evident. In the beginning of the 20th century, blues music was on the

On the other hand, Blues were basically from work songs of African Americans slaves at the time. “It is a native American music, the product of the black man in this country, or, to put it more exactly the way I have come to think about it, blues could not exist if the African captives had not become American captives”(pp.17), said Jones and Baraka. In Jazz – A History, Frank Tirro wisely analyzes and explains the relationship between the unique background and

     The Blues musical move was prominent during the 1920s and '30s, a time known as the Harlem Renaissance. Blues music characteristically told the story of

Rhythm and blues, also known today as “R & B”, has been one of the most influential genres of music within the African American Culture, and has evolved over many decades in style and sound. Emerging in the late 1940's rhythm and blues, sometimes called jump blues, became dominant black popular music during and after WWII. Rhythm and blues artists often sung about love, relationships, life troubles, and sometimes focused on segregation and race struggles. Rhythm and blues helped embody what was unique about black American culture and validate it as something distinctive and valuable.

There are several stylistic characteristics of the blues. The first one is the blue notes, which is the "bent" technique for lowering the pitch of third and seventh scale degrees in the major scale(259). The next one is the blue chorus, which is three-line lyrics, and it contains fill which is the instrument response of the call and response between vocal and instrument. The third feature is the blue progression which is the form of the combination between tonic(I), subdominant(IV), and dominant(V) chords. It is usually arranged as: I- / IV- I- / V- I-. Another characteristic is that the timbre of the vocals in blues have a wide varieties. Every single piece of blue music features a different kind of vocal texture. The rhythm in the blues has a characteristic called "swung" which means the long-short pattern of the rhythm. In all three pieces of music, the blue note and the blue chorus are applied to the composition. The "bent" texture of the pitch and the neat separation of the lyrics can be easily notice in the music. The call and response in vocals and instruments, on the other hand, is not so obvious in "Can 't Help Lovin ' Dat Man," but I think, though subtle, it is still there at the end of each line. The rhythm in the "Muleskinner Blues" is more steady instead of the long- short patterned "swung." The "swung" is not so obvious in "Can 't Help Lovin ' Dat Man," either. Overall, there are some standard blue style in all three pieces of music, but we

In contrast, Blues music originated from southern Mississippi and was first recorded in the 1920s. Blues music is further differentiated from Jazz as it was originally played as a solo using a slide guitar. This is not the case today as it has been modified and adapted by practising artists and utilises complex bands.

No black person can escape the blues, because the blues are an inherent part of the black existence in America. To be black is to be blue. The blues tell us about black people’s attempt to carve out a significant existence in a very trying situation. The purpose of the blues is to give structure to black existence in a context where color means rejection and humiliation. Suffering and its relation to blackness is inseparable from the meaning of the blues. Without pain and suffering, and what that meant for black people in Mississippi, Tennessee, and Arkansas, there would have been no blues. The blue mood means sorrow, frustration, despair, and black people’s attempt to take these existential realities upon themselves and not lose their sanity. The blues are not art for art’s sake, music for music’s sake. They are a way of life, a life-style of the black community; and the will for survival. Thus to seek to understand the blues apart from the suffering that created them is to misinterpret them and distort the very creativity that defines them (Cone, 1980).

Nowadays the blues revolve around the meaning of sadness but doesn’t have a true message of fighting for survival or deprivation of freedom. In the process of searching for the modern day blues, it was discovered that the music is compiled by mostly Caucasian artist compared to the past where it was conceived by blacks to prompt their practices and beliefs.

At the heart of jazz, the blues was a creation of former black slaves who adapted their African musical heritage to the American environment. The blues is a 12-bar musical form with a call-and-response format between the singer and his guitar dealing with themes of personal adversity, overcoming hard luck, and other emotional turmoil.

On Sunday, May10 2015, a concert was held in The Broad Stage. The concert was played by Santa Monica College Symphony Orchestra, whose conductor is Dr. James Martin. For this concert, I would identify myself as a referential listener at this concert. I say this because I am not an expert in music, therefore it would be hard for me to be a critical listener. I wouldn’t be able to tell what went wrong with a performance even if some incorrect notes were played. I was more of a referential listener because the music was soothing and brought my mind to peaceful thoughts. This essay will tells my experience of the concert in order to persuade my friend to  attend a classical music concert with you in the future.

2.      The blues first emerged as a distinct type of music in the late-1800s. Spirituals, work songs, seculars, field hollers and arhoolies all had some form of influence on the blues. Early blues were a curious mixture of African cross-rhythms and vocal techniques, Anglo-American melodies and thematic material from fables and folktales, and tales of personal experience on