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Jazz Age


The development of the big band as a jazz medium was strongly influenced by the achievements of Duke Ellington and Fletcher Henderson. "Henderson's arranger, Don Redman, and later Henderson himself, introduced written jazz scores that were widely admired for their effort to capture the quality of improvisation that characterized the music of smaller ensembles." (Encarta).
             Another major part of the Jazz Age was the Harlem Renaissance. During the Harlem Renaissance the idea of the "New Negro" became a popular motif for the young African American culture. "These young people centered their hopes on a new vision of opportunity, social and economic freedom, and a chance to organize and fight fro improving racial conditions." (Alan Locke, page 30) Because of this Harlem doubled in size becoming the most populated black city also known as the "Great Migration". With the beginning of the renaissance growing numbers of black writers began to rise in the dim light of white society. .
             During the period after world war one several black writers began to publish their work that "differed significantly from either the Chesnutt or the Dunbar traditions "in black literature. (Wintz, Page 64) It was very hard at this time to get their writing out since whites ran all the publishing places. .
             During the 1920s, an explosion of literary and artistic innovation, remembered forever after as the Harlem Renaissance, made a neighborhood in Manhattan one of the most important cultural centers in America. Started by African-American intellectuals like Alain Locke, W.E.B. DuBois and James Weldon Johnson, accompanied by the writings of Langston Hughes, Countee Cullen, and Zora Neale Hurston. With art by the James Van der Zee and Aaron Douglas, Harlem became the focal point for a vibrant new life of the mind and spirit of the "New Negro" in those exciting days between World War I and the beginning of the Great Depression.


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