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Below are current event articles that relate to events, topics, and people found in The Mystery of the Blues.
Watch a Trombone’s Shock Wave
Smithsonian.com
6/2/2011
When I think of a shock wave, I think “explosion,” like the ones on “Mythbusters” (where you can often see the resulting shock wave when the hi-speed video is played back in slow motion). I don’t think of musical instruments. But perhaps I should. In a 1996 paper from the Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, Mico Hirschberg of the Eindhoven University of Technology in the Netherlands and colleagues documented shock waves emanating from trombones played at fortissimo (very loud) levels and predicted that similarly shaped “bright” instruments, like trumpets, that have a segment of cylindrical pipe after the mouthpiece would also produce these shock waves.
Top 10 Unforgettable Editorials
Smithsonian.com
3/16/2011
1. “Yes, Virginia.…” “Is there a Santa Claus?,” 8-year-old Virginia O’Hanlon asked The Sun of New York in a letter to the editor. Francis P. Church’s answer, printed on September 21, 1897, was a masterpiece of decisiveness (“Yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus”) and evasion (“He exists as certainly as love and generosity and devotion exist, and you know that they abound and give to your life its highest beauty and joy.”) Church’s judgment that “a thousand years from now, Virginia, nay, ten times ten thousand years from now, he will continue to make glad the heart of childhood” could also stand for his prose.
The Invisible Line Between Black and White
Smithsonian.com
2/18/2011
For much of their history, Americans dealt with racial differences by drawing a strict line between white people and black people. But Daniel J. Sharfstein, an associate professor of law at Vanderbilt University, notes that even while racial categories were rigidly defined, they were also flexibly understood—and the color line was more porous than it might seem. His new book, The Invisible Line: Three American Families and the Secret Journey from Black to White, traces the experience of three families—the Gibsons, the Spencers and the Walls—beginning in the 17th century. Smithsonian magazine's T.A. Frail spoke with Sharfstein about his new book.
The Smithsonian's Ambassador of Jazz
Smithsonian.com
9/1/2010
The sultry sound of a saxophone floats through a windowless room several floors beneath Washington, D.C.’s rush-hour traffic. John Edward Hasse adjusts his chair in front of a camera, tapping his toes as the big-band tune “Take the ‘A’ Train” plays on a CD.
A Year of Hope for Joplin and Johnson
Smithsonian.com
6/1/2010
On that fourth of July afternoon 100 years ago, the eyes of the world turned to a makeshift wooden arena that had been hastily assembled in Reno, Nevada. Special deputies confiscated firearms, and movie cameras rolled as a crowd estimated at 20,000 filled the stands surrounding a boxing ring. The celebrities at ringside included fight royalty—John L. Sullivan and James “Gentleman Jim” Corbett—and the novelist Jack London. For the first time in U.S. history, two champions—one reigning, the other retired but undefeated—were about to square off to determine the rightful heavyweight king of the world. But more than a title was at stake.
Wayne B. Wheeler: The Man Who Turned Off the Taps
Smithsonian.com
5/1/2010
On the last day before the taps ran dry, the streets of San Francisco were jammed. A frenzy of cars, trucks, wagons and every other imaginable form of conveyance crisscrossed the town and battled its steepest hills.
Jewish Songwriters, American Songs
Smithsonian.com
10/7/2009
By 1926, Cole Porter had already written several Broadway scores, “none of which had, well, scored,” poet and critic David Lehman points out. But one enchanted evening that year, while dining in Venice with Noël Coward, Richard Rodgers and Lorenz Hart, Porter confided that he had finally figured out the secret to writing hits. “I’ll write Jewish tunes,” he said.
Why Music Moves Us
SCIAM.com
7/1/2009
As a recreational vocalist, I have spent some of the most moving moments of my life engaged in song. As a college student, my eyes would often well up with tears during my twice-a-week choir rehearsals. I would feel relaxed and at peace yet excited and joyful, and I occasionally experienced a thrill so powerful that it sent shivers down my spine. I also felt connected with fellow musicians in a way I did not with friends who did not sing with me.
Bone Flute Is Oldest Instrument, Study Says
Nationalgeographic.com
6/24/2009
A vulture-bone flute discovered in a European cave is likely the world's oldest recognizable musical instrument and pushes back humanity's musical roots, a new study says. Found with fragments of mammoth-ivory flutes, the 40,000-year-old artifact also adds to evidence that music may have given the first European modern humans a strategic advantage over Neanderthals, researchers say.
Herman Leonard’s Eye for Jazz
Smithsonian.com
5/7/2009
More than six decades ago, Herman Leonard began photographing icons of jazz in the smoke-filled nightclubs and rehearsal houses where the musicians worked. From jazz singers Ella Fitzgerald and Billie Holiday to the geniuses of bebop—Dizzy Gillespie, Charlie “Bird” Parker and Miles Davis—Leonard captured for posterity a transitional period in the history of jazz.
Benny Goodman's Clarinet
Smithsonian.com
3/26/2009
In the hierarchy of musical instruments, the clarinet tends to get short shrift—at least compared with the violin, cello or piano. But the inauguration of Barack Obama raised the instrument's profile when Anthony McGill, principal clarinetist of the Metropolitan Opera orchestra, performed with cellist Yo-Yo Ma, violinist Itzhak Perlman and pianist Gabriela Montero before a global television audience estimated at a billion viewers.
French wanted what US didn’t: Black Conn. man fought in WWI
www.telegram.com
1/25/2009
Pvt. William Henry Washington wasn’t considered fit to serve under the American flag during World War I because of the color of his skin, but France was only too happy to have him.