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Wade In The Water: 5 Jazz Takes On Spirituals

The gospel/folk singer Sister Rosetta Tharpe was accompanied by a jazz orchestra on her debut recording. Chris Ware/Getty Images hide caption

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Chris Ware/Getty Images

A Blog Supreme

Wade In The Water: 5 Jazz Takes On Spirituals

WFIU

The songs were a byproduct of slavery in the U.S. But after being passed along by generations of African-American musicians, they were later embraced by a variety of improvisers, including Sister Rosetta Tharpe, Grant Green and John Coltrane.

Songs Of The Civil Rights Movement

Martin Luther King Jr. waves from the Lincoln Memorial on the Mall in Washington, D.C. during the March on Washington. AFP hide caption

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AFP

Take Five: A Jazz Sampler

Songs Of The Civil Rights Movement

Jazz24

Martin Luther King Jr. opened the 1964 Berlin Jazz Festival with these words: "Jazz speaks for life." The 1960s civil-rights movement inspired blues and jazz songs about the setbacks, hardships and hard-won victories that moved (and that continue to move) America closer to racial equality.

Review

Music Reviews

Green Goes Blue With 'Grant's First Stand'

Fresh Air

Originally released in 1961, electric guitarist Grant Green's first album with Blue Note Records, Grant's First Stand, has been reissued. Green has a solid swinger's knack for skippy, airborne jazz rhythms, but some of his lines wouldn't sound out of place in a Chicago blues bar.

Green Goes Blue With 'Grant's First Stand'

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