Articles and Essays

  • African American Band Stocks There are digitized versions of published music by African-American composers from the opening decades of the 20th century on several Web sites. These compositions are found most often on general Web sites on American music. The American music industry began publishing music by African-American composers immediately following the Civil War. Whether these works are on a general music Web site or on a site…
  • African American Performers on Early Sound Recordings, 1892-1916 Finding music by African Americans on early phonograph records is more difficult than one might surmise. Black artists rarely performed on early recordings. Racial prejudice may only be a contributing factor.
  • Band Stocks Christensen's Ragtime Review Christensen's Ragtime Review: Vol. 1. No. 1 (Chicago: Axel Christensen, December 1914). Performing Arts Reading Room, Library of Congress. The term "ragtime" took on new shades of meaning in the first decades of the 20th century. Originally defined as the "classic rag" style of African-American piano players in the 1880s and 1890s, it described a unique style in which the pianist…
  • Biographies Biographies of composers and performers.