Foghat

Lena Horne is one of the most popular African-American jazz legend singers. She was born in 1917 Lena Mary Calhoun Horne in New York City. She performed with the greatest jazz musicians such as Duke Ellington and Artie Shaw. She lives in New York City today and does not appear in the public eye anymore. Lena is most famous for the movie Stormy Weather, in which she sung the title song, in the 1940′s. Contrary to how music careers usually begin, Lena grew up in an elite family. She lived in a black bourgeois area in Brooklyn, New York.

Her father Edwin Horne left them when she was three-years-old. Her mother Edna Scottron, daughter of an inventor, was an actress with a black theater group and traveled a lot. Lena’s grandparents raised her. Though, she was said to have been a part of the Black elite, racial discrimination still existed. Lena Horne and her friend Paul Robeson embarked on a lifelong effort to fight for Civil Rights.

In fact, she took the civil rights movement so seriously to the point of rejecting the offer to perform to a segregated audience or to an audience where the black people were there only to serve white people. Lena Horne was apart of the March on Washington just for the purpose of receiving well-deserved treatment equal to the privileged white people. In addition, Lena Horne committed herself to speaking along with performing for the NAACP, National Council For Negro Women and to assist former first lady Eleanor Roosevelt in passing the anti-lynching law in America’s Congress.

Even with all those serious concerns she still found time to become one of the most memorable Jazz singers in history. She performed at the caf society, a club imitating the European cabarets to show the talent of undiscovered African American which led to the success of Lena Horne, Paul Robeson, Big Joe Turner, Ella Fitzgerald, Lester Young, Hazel Scott, Sarah Vaughn, Josh White, Pete Johnson and Mary Lou Williams.

From 1947 to 1971 Lena Horne remarried again to a Jewish man Lennie Hayton a musical conductor and arranger for MGM studios later to admit in her autobiography titled “Lena” by author Richard Schickel that she married him to help her career. Nevertheless, the interracial couple as always had to face pressures same race couples do not, but she stayed with him until he passed away. Lena Horne was in several Broadway musicals, and won a 1958 award for her performance in the calypso titled “Jamaica”. Lena Horne won a Tony Award For her one woman show titled “Lena Horne: The Lady and Her Music”.

In her success, she has to her credit one of the longest solo performances in history to run more than the usual record time. Lena Horne in great modesty did not accept a lot of musical projects, yet agreed upon a recording with Frank Sinatra and Quincy Jones as producer which did not happen. However, Lena Horne worked on a solo recording that featured duets with Sammy Davis, and Joe Williams titled “The Men In My Life” in the year 1988. The next year she won a Grammy Life Time Achievement Award to add to her list of credits of success she mastered in her career. In her eighties she continued to record albums titled 1994 “We’ll Be Together Again”, 1995 Live album that won her a Grammy for the Best Vocal Jazz Album. 1998″Being Myself”. Finally, she had the chance to sing on an album with Frank Sinatra to the song “Embraceable You”.

In 2000 she recorded another album to lend her voice to a “Classic Ellington” recording. Lena Horne is a member of the sorority Delta Sigma Theta and has been on the label Blue Note Records since 1995.

In 2005 ,Oprah Winfrey stated that she may to ask singer/musician Alicia Keys to play the part of Lena Horne in a movie.

The beginning career of jazz music legend Art Blakey was amazing. He took piano lessons at school. When he was in the seventh grade he played music full-time and was leading a popular band. Not too long after, he started playing drums in the style of such players as Ray Bauduc, Chick Webb and Sid Catlett. He taught himself how to play.
He played with Mary Lou Williams at Kelly’s Stable in 1942. Next, with Fletcher Henderson for the next two years, and he toured with. Art then went to Boston to lead a big band, then joined Billy Eckstine’s band in St. Louis. Art stayed with that band from 1944-1947.

Art was considered to be among jazz music’s finest musicians such as Fats Navarro, Miles Davis and Dexter Gordon. In 1947 when Eckstine’s band broke up, Art started the Seventeen Messengers. He would go on to have several other groups with this same name. He then went to Africa to learn all about Islamic people for over a year. By the 1950′s he performed with Clifford Brown, Miles Davis, Charlie Parker and Horace Silver.

After they performed together many times, he started another group with Horace which included Kenny Dorham, Hank Mobley with the name Jazz Messengers. Horace left a year later. He was the known leader of the band. The Jazz Messengers played hard-bop jazz music. The roots of which were blues music. Hard bop is a mixture of bebop with gospel and soul music. An example of this is his album Moanin’ recorded on Blue Note Records in 1958. They fought hard to keep black people interested in jazz, when the ballroom jazz music disappeared. Many young musicians during the years have been influenced by this style. Jazz musicians such as Keith Jarrett, JoAnne Brackcen, Woody Shaw , Donald Byrd, Delfeayo, Branford and Wynton Marsalis.

In 1971 to 1972, Art world toured with the biggest names in jazz music such as Kai Winding, Dizzy Gillespie and Thelonious Monk. He also performed a lot at the Newport Jazz Festival. The best performance was when he was in a battling performance with Buddy Rich, Max Roach and Elvin Jones in 1974. Art continued to tour nonstop with help from Donald Harrison and Terence Blanchard, along with younger musicians such as Benny Green.

Art never thought of his music as similar to African style, although he did use some of their techniques such as using his elbow on the tom-tom to alter pitch. His trademark, the forced closing of the hi-hat on each second and fourth beat was created in 1950-1951, which many jazz musicians copied.

A major jazz musician and innovative in his drum style, he was unique and performed with power. The way he played was loud and aggressive. The jazz critics basically ignored what he did in the 1960′s. American audiences left him behind in the 1970′s when rock music took over the scene.

He always made time for young jazz musicians, listening to them, and helping them with their jazz music careers.