Etta James once said, “A lot of people think the blues is depressing…When I’m singing blues, I’m singing life.” The blues is among the most misunderstood music genres, often associated with being “outa luck,” a self-pitying statement of a hapless victim of fate. More than a century ago, the marketing strategies by publishers of sheet music and record companies added to the confusion.
Drawing on cutting-edge research, we explore these strategies, untangle key terminology, and reveal something of the vast stylistic diversity of vocal and instrumental music that the term encompasses, ranging from its folk origins, to jazz, popular music and the concert hall.
- Week 1: The myth of melancholy and climbing aboard a train
- Week 2: Revisiting the Mississippi Delta
- Week 3: Wild women don’t have the blues
- Week 4: From boogie-woogie to Rock‘n’Roll
- Week 5: Blues classics by Louis Armstrong, Duke Ellington, Miles Davis, Thelonious Monk and others
- Week 6: A Gershwin trifecta and its larger context: Rhapsody In Blue, Concerto in F and An American In Paris
Facilitator: Joshua Berrett
Joshua Berrett earned a BA from the University of Cape Town in South Africa, an MA from Columbia University and a PhD from the University of Michigan. He has also studied at the Manhattan School of Music, Juilliard and the Tanglewood Music Center. He is a Professor Emeritus at Mercy College, a freelance violinist and the author of many publications on music. He has appeared on NPR, made presentations nationally and abroad. With his wife, Lynne, he is co-founder of the non-profit Ageless Mind Project, Inc.