Jazz Music

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White background with black design. Black and white photograph of jazz musician Roscoe Mitchell occupies lower three-quarters of cover, set in black circle, with black concentric rings emanating outward. Upper one-quarter is white with black, blocky stylized lettering: Sound/ Roscoe/ Mitchell, and Sextet perpendicularly.
Laini Abernathy, Black Graphic Designer
Laini (Sylvia) Abernathy (who died in 2010) was an artist, designer, and activist. Cooper Hewitt is collecting album covers designed by this important designer, who contributed to the Black cultural scene in the late 1960s. Abernathy was part of the Black Arts Movement (BAM) in Chicago. BAM, a national movement founded after the assassination of...
Read Time
5 minutes
Posted By
Ellen Lupton
Date
February 10, 2021
The Solitude of Swing
“’Solitude’ I wrote in 20 minutes in Chicago standing up against the glass office enclosure waiting for another band to finish recording.” Duke Ellington’s comment is hard for the musician in me to swallow, because the musical score, with its complex chording and swinging rhythms, sure doesn’t sound like its composition took place in the...
Read Time
4 minutes
Posted By
Jessica Masinter
Date
June 24, 2017
Jazz musician Victor Goines plays the saxophone
The Morse Lecture | Victor Goines
Jazz musician Victor Goines is the featured speaker for this year's Morse Historic Design Lecture Series.
Post Type
Video
Date
May 26, 2017
Image of George Gershwin at piano
Fascinating Rhythms: Music of the Jazz Age
James Stalzman of the Manhattan School of Music discusses the musical pieces he paired with particular objects from The Jazz Age: American Style in the 1920s.
Read Time
10 minutes
Posted By
Pam Horn
Date
May 5, 2017
“It screeched, it bellowed… Raucous? Yes. Crude? Undoubtedly.”
In celebration of Jazz Appreciation Month, Elizabeth Broman discusses selections from the Smithsonian Design Library's collection of jazz sheet music.
Read Time
4 minutes
Posted By
Elizabeth Broman
Date
April 27, 2017