Jazz Concert History

Jazz has been in the white house almost as long as it has existed, but on national jazz day, which is April 30th, President Obama hosted a jazz concert. This concert featured a wide variety of artists including Chick Corea, Robert Glasper, Esperanza Spalding, Aretha Franklin, Wayne Shorter, and many others. During this performance, there are thirteen different “groups” or different artists that sung at the white house for jazz day. The first performance after president Obama spoke was Aretha Franklin. Franklin performed with Herbie Hancock during the song “A Song for You” at 3:06. Originally this song was recorded by a rock singer and pianist Leon Russell. She released this piece in the year 1974 in the genre classical soul. Morgan Freeman was the host for the concert
James Infirmary” with New Orleans’ own Rebirth Brass Band at 10:21. This song has many different versions, it is played with four beats per measure, at an andante tempo which is a slow, walking pace. The last three songs were “Sister Moon” by Sting, Pat Metheny, Herbie Hancock at 1:08:17, “Meet me in Chicago” by Buddy Guy, Kurt Elling at 1:13:16, and lastly, “Imagine” was sung by everybody at 1:19:25. The song perform by Sting, “Sister Moon” has a modernly slow tempo of 66 beats per minute, and has a monophonic texture because there is one melodic line, that includes the drums, bass guitar, and the piano. “Meet me in Chicago” has an upbeat tempo of about 97 beats per minute, which would be played in an andante (walking pace) in the key of D. In this piece, you can point out some specific instruments when listening to it, such as you hear the drums, trombone and the bass guitars, the texture of this song would be homophonic, because there are at least two or more parts moving together in the