Words and Songs of Bessie Smith, Billie Holiday, and Nina Simone: Sound Motion, Blues Spirit, and African Memory

by Melanie E. Bratcher

Overview

This book explores the relationship between three African American women's dance-art-music sensibilities within the context of a Pan African aesthetic. Its purpose is three-fold: to show commonalities between Bessie Smith, Billie Holiday and Nina Simone's lives and original compositions; to codify, examine and evaluate their selected song performances in accordance with the Pan African aesthetic "Nzuri theory/model;" and to illuminate the vast sources of transformational values that aesthetic analysis of African American song performance can foster.

Following concordant procedures and principles of Afrocentricity, the study focuses on Smith, Holiday and Simone's performances as part of a whole African artistic and cultural value system. The goal of the Afrocentric methodological structure is to locate relevant African dynamics in songs and to promote knowledge for cultural transformation and continuity. Its use in this study provides meta-criteria for analyzing African American music, which the author has used to uniquely argue connections between African cultural memory and African-derived cultural expression.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781135861438
Publisher:	Taylor & Francis
Publication date:	11/21/2007
Series:	Studies in African American History and Culture
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	278
File size:	514 KB

About the Author

Melanie E. Bratcher is a native of Oklahoma and descendent of parents who experienced sharecropping, she is the first in her family to graduate college. As a singer, dancer and scholar, her most relevant publication entitled "Tribute" was performed at the University of Oklahoma where she is Assistant Professor of African & African American Studies.

Table of Contents

1. Introduction 2. Catching the Blues Spirit 3. Musing African Memory 4. 3 Women 5. Sound Motion and Spirit 6. Summary and Conclusion. Appendix 1: Discography. Appendix 2: Life Profile Matrix. Appendix 3: Life Profile Matrix: Analytical Categories Quantified per Singer. Appendix 4: Life Profile Matrix: Analytical Categories Thematically Qualified. Appendix 5: Life Profile/Song Matrices. Appendix 6: Discography of Selected Song Performances on CD. Appendix Seven: Selected Songs/Prevalent Themes Matrices. Appendix Eight: Explanation of Nzuri Model Contexts. Appendix Nine: Application of Nzuri to Selected Song Performances