Beschreibung:

Approx. 2-5 pp. each. Decorative color front covers, lyrics and musical notations. Represents a panoramic historical view of African-American related music and evolution of racist stereotypes, with expected Negro dialect lyrics of Black-face minstrel show tunes before the Civil War and grotesque depictions of Black facial features at the height of Jim Crow Southern segregation – but with many rare exceptions from the norm. Includes: Compositions by Black composers, from the little-known Creole composer of a classic Mexican-American War march to early 20th century pieces by W.C.Handy, Will Marion Cook, Maceo Pinkard (Sweet Georgia Brown), Shepard Edmonds, Creamer and Layton, Sissle and Blake, and Clarence Pine-Top Smith (Boogie Woogie), with particularly notable lyrics by Black poets Paul Laurence Dunbar and Langston Hughes Despite the appropriation of some Black music (Bill Bailey, Jelly Roll) by white performers and the willing performance of racist music by the first popular Black performers, the collection includes one of the first Black woman singers pictured on a musical cover (Mattie Wilkes, 1900), and long-forgotten male singers and groups (Harry Brown, Hayward Trio) who struggled to make a name for themselves at the turn of the century in the white-rule entertainment industry, foreshadowing wildly popular Jazz artists of the 1930s like Duke Ellington and Cotton Club Parade productions - of which there are 4 rare and highly-collectible examples in this group After the graphic racial lampooning of Blacks on the covers of “Coon Song” music at the turn of the century, handsome images of Black men and women that began to appear during World War I, and, in the subsequent Jazz Age, striking artistic representations of Black women by New York Jewish artist Sydney “Leff” Lefkowitz