This week the Westport Public Library is embarking upon an exploration of the 1920's phenomenon known as the Harlem Renaissance. During this time period, the uptown New York neighborhood witnessed an explosion of Black art, poetry, fiction, drama, and music. It became the cultural capital for Black intellectuals and thinkers as Black writers and poets presented Harlem as a fresh, sophisticated, urban community. The innate, creative energies fostered by musical greats such as Dinah Washington, Duke Ellington, Fats Waller, and Louis Armstrong reverberated beyond the boundaries of this area as recordings and performance opportunities increased for Black composers, singers and songwriters. The emergence of jazz contributed to America's culture as performed in hot spots like the Cotton Club, Small's Paradise and Connie's Inn.
On Wednesday, May 6, 2009 at 7:30 p.m. in the McManus Room, Professor Bill Messenger of The Peabody Institute of Music and narrator with The Teaching Company Great Courses, will discuss the events that created the most fertile era of black music and musicals in American history. Eighty years after songs such as Ain't Misbehavin and Sweet Georgia Brown were written by composers and lyricists of the Harlem Renaissance, they continue to be featured in films, theater and cabaret acts.
