Tag Archives: music

Charlie Parker

Posted on February 15, 2023 | Leave a comment

Charlie Parker (originally Charles Christopher): (1920-1955) U.S. saxophonist and composer, one of the originators of bebop and among the greatest improvisers in jazz. Born in Kansas City, Parker played with Jay McShann’s big band (1940-42) and those or Earl Hines (1942-44) and Billy Eckstine (1944) before leading his own small groups in New York. (A nickname acquired in the early 1940s, Yardbird, was shortened to Bird and used throughout his career.) Parker frequently worked with Dizzy Gillespie in the mid-1940s, making a series of small-group recordings that heralded the arrival of bebop as a mature outgrowth of the improvisation of the late swing era. His direct, cutting tone and unprecedented dexterity on the alto saxophone made rapid tempos and fast flurries of notes trademarks of bebop, and his complex, subtle harmonic understanding brought and altogether new sound to the music. Easily the most influential jazz musician of his generation, his chronic drug addiction and early death contributed to making him a tragic legend.

Excerpted/Adapted from: Stevens, Mark A., Ed. Merriam Webster’s Collegiate Encyclopedia. Springfield, Massachusetts: Merriam-Webster, 2000.

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The Weekly Text, 24 February 2023, Black History Month 2023 Week IV: A Reading and Comprehension Worksheet on Miles Davis

Posted on February 15, 2023 | Leave a comment

For the final Friday of Black History Month 2023, here is a reading on Miles Davis along with its accompanying vocabulary-building and comprehension worksheet. I don’t know what more I need to say about Miles–but that’s because I assume that most people know who he is.

If you find typos in this document, I would appreciate a notification. And, as always, if you find this material useful in your practice, I would be grateful to hear what you think of it. I seek your peer review.

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The Great Migration in American Culture, Politics, and Society

Posted on February 3, 2023 | Leave a comment

“Toni Morrison’s parents migrated from Alabama to Lorraine, Ohio. Diana Ross’s mother migrated from Bessemer, Alabama to Detroit, her father from Bluefield, West Virginia. Aretha Franklin’s father migrated from Mississippi to Detroit. Jesse Owens’s parents migrated from Oakville, Alabama, to Cleveland when he was nine. Joe Louis’s mother migrated with him from Lafayette, Alabama to Detroit. Jackie Robinson’s family migrated from Cairo, Georgia, to Pasadena, California. Bill Cosby’s father migrated from Schuyler, Virginia to Philadelphia, where Cosby was born. Nat King Cole, as a young boy, migrated with his family from Montgomery, Alabama to Chicago. Condoleeza Rice’s family migrated from Birmingham, Alabama to Denver, Colorado, when she was twelve. Thelonious Monk’s parents brought him from Rocky Mount, North Carolina, to Harlem when he was five. Berry Gordy’s parents migrated from rural Georgia to Detroit, where Gordy was born. Oprah Winfrey’s mother migrated from Koscisusko, Mississippi, to Milwaukee, where Winfrey went to live as a young girl. Mae Jemison’s parents migrated from Decatur, Alabama, to Chicago when she was three years old. Romare Bearden’s parents carried him from Charlotte, North Carolina, to New York City. Jimi Hendrix’s maternal grandparents migrated from Virginia to Seattle. Michael Jackson’s mother was taken as a toddler from Barbour County by her parents to East Chicago, Indiana; his father migrated as a young man from Fountain Hill, Arkansas, to Chicago, just west of Gary, Indiana, where all the Jackson children were born. Prince’s father migrated from Louisiana to Minneapolis. Sean “P. Diddy” Combs’s grandmother migrated from Hollyhill, South Carolina, to Harlem. Whitney Houston’s grandparents migrated from Georgia to Newark, New Jersey. The family of Mary J. Blige migrated from Savannah, Georgia, to Yonkers, New York. Queen Latifah’s grandfather migrated from Birmingham, Alabama, to Brooklyn. August Wilson’s mother migrated from North Carolina to Pittsburgh, following her own mother, who, as the playwright told it, walked most of the way.”

Excerpted/Adapted from: Wilkerson, Isabel. The Warmth of Other Suns: The Epic Story of America’s Great Migration. New York: Vintage, 2011.

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The Weekly Text, Friday 27 January 2023: History of Hip-Hop Lesson 8, James Brown Brings the Funk

Posted on January 27, 2023 | Leave a comment

This week’s Text is the eighth lesson plan of the History of Hip-Hop Unit. I’ve begun this lesson with this Cultural Literacy worksheet on the Civil Rights Movement. This is a full-page document with a paragraph-length reading (seven sentences, to be exact) and six comprehension questions, so depending on your idea of a do-now exercise, this one might exceed proper length. Fortunately, like nearly everything else on Mark’s Text Terminal, this document is formatted in Microsoft Word, so you can edit, adapt, and revise freely.

The main part of this lesson is this reading on James Brown and its accompanying worksheet with seven comprehension questions. Finally, here are the the lyrics to “Say It Loud, I”m Black and I’m Proud,” one of the many great songs James Brown recorded. My version of this lesson includes playing the song.

If you find typos in these documents, I would appreciate a notification. And, as always, if you find this material useful in your practice, I would be grateful to hear what you think of it. I seek your peer review.

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The Weekly Text, Friday 20 January 2023: History of Hip-Hop Lesson 7, Muddy Waters Invents Electricity: The Electric Blues after World War II

Posted on January 20, 2023 | Leave a comment

Here is the seventh lesson plan of the History of Hip-Hop. I begin this lesson with this Cultural Literacy worksheet on de facto segregation.

The mainstay of this lesson is this reading on Muddy Waters and its accompanying comprehension questions worksheet and organizer. As this lesson involves listening to some of Muddy Waters’ music, here is a document with the lyrics for two songs: the first is “I’m a Man,” a blues chestnut and proto-civil rights anthem, which Muddy apparently co-wrote with Elias McDaniel, aka Bo Diddley; the second is “Who Do You Love?”, one of Bo Diddley’s hits and one of the baddest, in my not even remotely humble opinion, rock-and-roll songs ever written or recorded (and it has been covered extensively). Finally, here is a worksheet with analytical questions for these lyrics.

If you find typos in these documents, I would appreciate a notification. And, as always, if you find this material useful in your practice, I would be grateful to hear what you think of it. I seek your peer review.

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The Weekly Text, Friday 6 January 2023: History of Hip-Hop Lesson 5, The Emigre Griots: The Birth of the Blues in the Southern United States

Posted on January 6, 2023 | Leave a comment

Happy New Year!

Let’s move right along to the fifth lesson plan of the History of Hip-Hop unit, this one on the birth of the blues in the southern United States, with a particular emphasis on a huge figure in global culture, the blues artist nonpareil Robert Johnson. I open this lesson with this Cultural Literacy worksheet on the Deep South. The main work of this lesson is this reading on Robert Johnson along with its accompanying comprehension worksheet. Finally, here are the lyrics to one of his most famous songs, “Sweet Home Chicago,” now a blues standard, which I play for students during the lesson.

If you find typos in these documents, I would appreciate a notification. And, as always, if you find this material useful in your practice, I would be grateful to hear what you think of it. I seek your peer review.

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The Weekly Text, Friday 30 December 2022: History of Hip-Hop Lesson 4, The Griot in African Culture

Posted on December 21, 2022 | Leave a comment

Moving right along with this big unit on Hip-Hop, here is the fourth lesson plan, on the West African griot tradition (which should not be confused with the Haitian dish of the same name). This is a key lesson in this process. I open this lesson with this context clues worksheet on the noun griot.

Because this lesson includes a viewing of the video for the song, here are lyrics to the Afropop song “Shaking the Tree,” a collaboration between British rock star Peter Gabriel and the Senegalese griot (he descends from a family of griots) Youssou N’Dour. Finally, at the center of this lesson is this reading and comprehension worksheet, which is also meant to spur discussion, on the griot tradition in Africa.

If you find typos in these documents, I would appreciate a notification. And, as always, if you find this material useful in your practice, I would be grateful to hear what you think of it. I seek your peer review.

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The Weekly Text, Friday 23 December 2022: History of Hip-Hop Lesson 3, The Medieval Troubadour

Posted on December 21, 2022 | Leave a comment

If there is a lesson that can be omitted from this unit–and I realized this the minute I began its preparation–it is this third lesson, on the Medieval Troubadours. Yes they are part of the global oral tradition, but in a highly peculiar way. For instance, they used the Occitan language, which is now endangered. Their songs were born of the chivalric tradition and celebrate courtly love. This is a long way of saying that this material may not be of surpassing interest to teenagers.

In any event, I open this lesson with this Cultural Literacy worksheet on the concept of a capella singing. Here is the reading and questions on the troubadours themselves, which is the principal work of this lesson.

If you find typos in these documents, I would appreciate a notification. And, as always, if you find this material useful in your practice, I would be grateful to hear what you think of it. I seek your peer review.

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Cultural Literacy: Lyric

Posted on December 16, 2022 | Leave a comment

Here is a Cultural Literacy worksheet on the lyric as a form in poetry–and by extension, then, lyrics in music. This is a half-page document with a reading of three short sentences followed by three comprehension questions. A short, symmetrical introduction to the lyric form and nothing more.

If you find typos in this document, I would appreciate a notification. And, as always, if you find this material useful in your practice, I would be grateful to hear what you think of it. I seek your peer review.

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The Weekly Text, Friday 16 December 2022: History of Hip-Hop Lesson 2, Homer–History’s First Hip-Hop Songwriter

Posted on December 16, 2022 | Leave a comment

Here is the second lesson plan from the History of Hip-Hop Unit. This lesson posits, proceeding from the previous two, that Home’s Odyssey and Iliad, composed to be read aloud and to glorify Greece, that these ancient epics are two of the world’s first Hip-Hop songs. I open this lesson with this Cultural Literacy worksheet on the Muses so that students understand the reference in the first stanza of the Iliad. Here is the worksheet with reading and comprehension questions that is the centerpiece of this lesson.

If you find typos in these documents, I would appreciate a notification. And, as always, if you find this material useful in your practice, I would be grateful to hear what you think of it. I seek your peer review.

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