Could you name an unsung african american?

[edwardmrko]

Could you name an unsung african american composer that invented a form of music? I need four of them, and i already have: Francis Johnson (inventor of cotillion music) and Scott Joplin (creator of ragtime), but i need two more. any ideas?

[alberto]

Nathaniel Dett (1882-1943) author of an impressive piano suite "In the Bottom" (LP Philips, coupled to Ives and Griffes) is surely an unsung.
William Grant Still, James P.Johnson (rather "jazzy"), Hershy Kay may we consider sung? I would say no (even if the first two have some recordings).

[eschiss1]

While not a new form (but then I'm not sure the Dett qualifies as a new form either, exactly ), José-Silvestre White's concerto in F-sharp minor (1863?) for violin may have been among the first violin concertos from the Americas (not sure?).

[Lionel Harrsion]

This is a tough one.  'Forms' of music tend not to be 'invented' - rather, they 'evolve'.  I don't know that one could really describe ragtime as a form - it's really a style.  If what you're looking for is African American composers who have had an important influence on the development of styles then Harry Burleigh is someone whose story you might usefully look at.  In two different ways, he effectively turned the spiritual into art music: first, he made Antonín Dvořák aware of the potential for using spirituals in a symphonic context; and secondly, his arrangements of spirituals for voice and piano helped to make them popular with concert singers.  Good luck!

[JimL]

Scott Joplin hardly qualifies as "unsung".  In plain fact, he doesn't.  He's probably one of the most "sung" African-American composers there is.  And Jose White was Cuban.  That isn't considered African-American.  Sorry, but if it's "unsung" according to our definition you'd have to take them both off the list.

[Delicious Manager]

William Grant Still (1895-1978) was the first black composer in the USA to have an opera performed (Haiti) and he was also one of the first to conduct an American orchestra (and definitely the first in the 'Deep South').

His works have won critical acclaim on their own merits (not just because they happened to be composed by a non-white composer) for many years. The CD in Naxos's American Classics series is an excellent taster for his music and includes In Memoriam, the symphonic poem Africa and probably his best-known piece, the Afro-American Symphony.

[eschiss1]

actually, it seems the 1937-41 Still opera is called Troubled Island. It was premiered in 1949, though, which does put it several decades ahead of the first full staging of (as opposed to read-through, etc., of) Treemonisha, for example. Hadn't known that- thanks.

[violinconcerto]

If you check out this site you will find dozens of African-American composers:

http://testaae.greenwood.com/doc_print.aspx?fileID=GR9826&chapterID=GR9826-365&path=encyclopedias/greenwood

Best,
Tobias

[chill319]

As Lionel Harrison says, the great contributions of African Americans to music have tended to evolve through group processes (as folk music). But if it's okay to say that Joplin "invented" ragtime, then I think it's also okay to say that Harry Burleigh "invented" the solo voice settings (as opposed to choral settings) of sorrow songs (aka spirituals), that Nathaniel Dett invented the high-art blend of anthem and sorrow song (The Chariot Jubilee) and of cantata and sorrow song (The Ordering of Moses). that Mary Lou Williams was the first to write a jazz mass and to record as self-contained pieces the free-form atonal music she played either solo or in duets under the rubric 'A Fungus Amungus.'

[dhibbard]

Yes Dett is amoung those that are unsung as a composer. 

The 1913 piece In the Bottoms contains one of his most played movements, "Dance Juba". Fannie Bloomfield Zeisler performed the work at the Chicago Music Hall. Soon after this Dett became the first black director of music at the Hampton Institute in Virginia, where he maintained the position from 1913 to 1932. During this near twenty-year period, he founded the Hampton Choral Union, Musical Arts Society, Hampton Institute Choir and its School of Music. He encouraged his Hampton student, soprano Dorothy Maynor, to pursue a career as a concert artist; she followed his advice to become one of the leading concert artists in the nation.   (from Wiki)

[eschiss1]

the second half of what you ask, "invented a form of music", is harder; it's difficult to name any composer who's both unsung and invented a form of music- -generally- the latter gives some form of name recognition (but indeed, not always.)

[Jimfin]

This is very specific: one ethnicity within one country (I think "African American" only means the usa and not the rest of the Americas), having invented a form of music while being unsung. I am sceptical that anyone can truly be found who fits that definition.

[Joachim Raff]

Yes, what do we mean by African American? Someone born in Africa then lived in America? Or maybe someone born in America but has African roots? Or something different

[Alan Howe]

This would be a standard definition:

<<African Americans (also referred to as Black Americans or Afro-Americans) are an ethnic group of Americans with total or partial ancestry from any of the black racial groups of Africa. The term African American generally denotes descendants of enslaved black people who are from the United States, while some recent black immigrants or their children may also come to identify as African-American or may identify differently.>>

[TerraEpon]

Incidently, regarding the OP, Scott Joplin was hardly 'the creator of ragtime' any more than, say, Haydn was 'the creator of the Symphony'.
That said there's certainly a number of unsung black composers that wrote ragtime around the early 1900s. For starters, Luckey Roberts would probably count, and maybe even for the OP as he helped develop Stride. I doubt the need for 'inventor of a form of music' is needed nine years later though, heh.