#5001 Urban Blues, Race Music, and Rhythm and Blues

# 5001   Urban Blues, Race Music, and Rhythm and Blues 1920-1955

The first urban musicians were African American women vocalists, like Mamie Smith, Ma Rainey, and Bessie Smith, centered in the Harlem area of New York City. The blues singers were often accompanied by ragtime and jazz musicians, including Jelly Roll Morton and Louis Armstrong.  The interaction among blues vocalists and ragtime and jazz musicians resulted in blurring of the lines among these genres which led to a black-white audience for the music that became known as “race records,” recordings that included blues, jazz, and gospel music.

Instructor: Dick Fairley, PhD in Computer Science and Systems Engineering from UCLA.  He worked as an engineer, university professor, consultant, and as a jazz disk jockey at KRCC.

Cost:  Free class, but participants must register online