African American composers and arrangers, circa 1930

Item Overview

Title

African American composers and arrangers, circa 1930

Alternative title

Leading African American Composers and Arrangers

Date Created

[circa 1930

Date

1930

Collection

Miriam Matthews Photograph Collection
OpenUCLA Collections

Notes

Description

Harry Lawrence Freeman was a composer, conductor, impresario and teacher. He was the first African-American to write an opera (Epthalia, 1891) that was successfully produced. Freeman founded the Freeman School of Music and the Freeman School of Grand Opera, as well as several short-lived opera companies which gave first performances of his own compositions. He was married to actress and singer, Charlotte (Carlotta) Louise Thomas.
Group portrait of African American composers. Front row, from left left: William Grant Still, H. Lawrence Freeman, W. C. Handy, J. Rosamond Johnson, and Will H. Vodery. Back row: Charles Cooke (3rd from left), and Noble Sissle (5th from left).
William Grant Still was an American composer, who composed more than 150 works, including five symphonies and eight operas. [Wikipedia]
J. Rosamond Johnson was one of the most successful of the early African American composers. His work, Lift Every Voice and Sing (1900), is the best known. The song was so popular that the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) dubbed it The Negro National Anthem.
Will Vodery was an African-American composer, conductor, orchestrator, and arranger, and one of the few black Americans of his time to make a name for himself as a composer on Broadway, working largely for Florenz Ziegfeld. At one time he was arranger and musical director for Fox Films in Hollywood.
William Christopher Handy was a composer and musician, known as the Father of the Blues. An African American, Handy was one of the most influential songwriters in the United States.
Charles L. Cooke, known as Doc Cook, was a jazz bandleader and arranger. Cook was awarded the degree of Doctor of Music by the Chicago Musical College in 1926. A proponent of ragtime, he also worked frequently with Eubie Blake, supplying the arrangements for the 1952 revival of "Shuffle Along."
Noble Lee Sissle was an African-American jazz composer, lyricist, bandleader, singer, and playwright, best known for the Broadway musical "Shuffle Along" (1921), and its hit song I'm Just Wild About Harry.

Caption

Written on back of photo: Leading Afro-American Composers and arrangers: Front Row, left to right: William Grant Still, H. Lawrence Freeman, W.C. Handy, Rosamund [sic.] Johnson, Will Vodery. Third from left in back row: Charles Cooke. Fifth from left in back row: Noble Sissle.

Physical Description

Extent

1 photograph

Keywords

Genre

group portraits

Names

Vodery, Will H.
Cook, Doc, 1881-1958
Sissle, Noble, 1889-1975
Johnson, J. Rosamond (John Rosamond), 1873-1954
Handy, W. C. (William Christopher), 1873-1958
Freeman, H. Lawrence (Harry Lawrence), 1869-1954
Still, William Grant, 1895-1978

Resource type

still image

Subjects

African American composers
Arrangers (Musicians)
Conductors (Music)