Musician+16

Bessie Smith was a violent women and started out as a street musician in Chattanooga. She joined a traveling show as a dancer and singer. In the early 1920s she was one most popular blues singers in vaudeville. She was born in 1895 and died in 1937.

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 * **Duke Ellington brought a level of style and sophistication to Jazz that it hadn't seen before. Although he was a gifted piano player, his orchestra was his principal instrument. His piano technique was influenced by stride piano players like [|James P. Johnson] and [|Willie "The Lion" Smith]. He first visited New York in 1922 playing with [|Wilbur Sweatman], but the trip was unsuccessful.** Duke Ellington started to play professionally in Washington,D.C. In 1917. He was born in 1899 and died in 1974.

||   **Harlem Renaissance** The Harlem Renaissance was a time of cultural renewal among African Americans,  concurrent with the Jazz Age  during the 1920s. Centered on the activities of African- American writers, artists, and musicians in the Harlem district of New York City, the new appreciation for and celebration of black culture spread throughout the United States and around the world. The Harlem Renaissance was shaped by the Great Migration  . Seeking jobs and a better way of life than that offered in the economically stagnant South, African Americans began moving to northern cities during the early 20th century. Migration to urban centers  and an increase in jazz clubs and black publishing ventures were occurring in the Caribbean and Europe as well

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