The Co-Evolution of Black Journalism and music from 1880 to 1920

Black journalism and music co-developed in the four decades that followed the end of Reconstruction. The vehicles for this synergy were the hundreds of African American newspapers that sprung up during this period. These publications resisted the growing threat of Jim Crow laws and this resistance underpinned the coverage of music. Journalists boosted racial pride by supporting Black musicians. 

Indeed, a supportive network of Black weekly newspapers quickly rose after the establishment of the National Colored Press Association in 1881. Several of these weeklies were located in large cities with thriving music scenes enriched by Black musicians.    

These musicians received attention from the succession of influential African American newspapers founded from 1880 to 1920. These included:

1882: The Washington Bee

1883: The Cleveland Gazette

1887: The New York Age

1895: The Broad Ax (relocated to Chicago in 1899)

1905: The Chicago Defender

1907: The Pittsburgh Courier

Journalists at these weeklies regularly reported on Black artists and genres.

These writers had plenty to write about. From 1880 to 1920, African American musicians distinguished themselves in orchestral music and opera, as well as popular music styles like spirituals, ragtime, Broadway music, blues, and the first sounds of jazz. 

During this period, Black musicians set the stage for 20th-century popular music, from jazz to rhythm and blues to rock to hip hop and beyond. Black journalists documented the stories behind the music. Some writers described what they heard in illuminatory prose. Others critiqued. And others interpreted what the music meant for Black progress.   

African American Music, 1880-1920

African American music in the early 1880s was diverse. During the past century, as slavery yielded to emancipation, Black folks’ music expressed the joys and miseries of that journey. Spirituals, work songs, dance music, and folk songs animated everyday life.  

This music entered the mainstream during the 19th century through minstrel shows, followed by concerts by Black a capella groups like the Fisk Jubilee Singers beginning in the 1870s. These ensembles inspired smaller groups that harmonized on spirituals, folk songs, and popular songs.      

And then, four advancements revolutionized Black music from 1880 to 1920:

1. Ragtime: The music originated in Missouri as an improvised form of syncopated dance music by African Americans. Ragtime became a craze from the 1890s to the 1910s thanks to composers like Scott Joplin.
2. Black Broadway musicals: In 1898, African American composers Will Marion Cook and Bob Cole produced the first all-Black musical comedy on Broadway. Others musicals soon followed.
3. Black classical composers and conductors: In 1911, classical music and ragtime came together in Joplin’s revolutionary opera, Treemonisha. By then, African Americans also distinguished themselves in orchestral music. Bandleaders formed all-Black orchestras and music schools, giving the post-emancipation generation more musical opportunities.   
4. Jazz: After originating in the late 1890s by African American musicians, jazz became an international craze in the 1910s.

In summary, evolutionary changes in the Black press from 1880 to 1920 occurred reciprocally with revolutionary changes in African American music. As you’ll see, the first Black music journalism emerged from this powerful synergy.    

The Valorization of traditional African American Music

Black journalists validated the worth of traditional African American music at a time when minstrels and others caricatured it. Although Black writers decried this grotesque misrepresentation, they celebrated Black vernacular songs as quintessential American music. 

African American writers experienced this music in everyday life and understood its social meanings. They had engaged in the rousing call-and-response between ministers and their congregations in Black churches, heard the songs of sharecroppers enduring another day’s work, and heard their grandparents sing the songs of the slavery period.

This lived experience gave Black journalists an edge over White writers, who, even if they appreciated traditional Black music, never fully understood it. Indeed, this would always be an advantage for Black music journalists, from Amiri Baraka to Greg Tate.

Black journalists wrote about this connection between music and life. This can be seen in the article “Some Negro Characteristics” from an 1886 Washington Bee. The uncredited writer extolled the homespun virtues of African Americans, including how they tolerated low-pay labor:

[The Black worker looks forward] to the frolic, corn shucking, or other coming events, when, amid the weird plantation songs and the dulcet banjo plinkings and the inspiring reels, and local quadrilles, he can lose himself temporarily in the maze of such desperate fun with a conscience void of offense.[ii] 

“Desperate fun,” is there a more fitting description of music as a form of resistance?

However, another genre of traditional African American music commanded the most interest of Black journalists: the spiritual. Starting before the Civil War, “Negro spirituals” drew the interest of appreciative White writers, as I wrote about in previous posts.[iii]

By the 1890s, African American choral groups and orchestras took spirituals to a new height. And a new generation of Black journalists documented the results.  

A School of American Music

The cultural capital of Black spirituals soared in December 1893 when Czech composer Antonín Dvořák premiered the New World Symphony.

Dvorak wrote about how African American spirituals influenced the symphony:  

I am convinced that the future music of this country must be founded on what are called Negro melodies. These can be the foundation of a serious and original school of composition, to be developed in the United States. These beautiful and varied themes are the product of the soil. They are the folk songs of America, and your composers must turn to them.[iv]

Dvorak’s notion of an “American School of Music,” influenced by Black vernacular melodies, received widespread attention when President Theodore Roosevelt hosted students of the Manassas Colored Industrial Institute at the White House in February 1906.

He spoke of a recent conversation with a “great French literary man,” who impressed upon him the significance of Black spirituals. Roosevelt said to the Black students:

I want all of you to realize the importance and dignity of your musical work, of the development of music and song among your students. I feel that there is a very strong chance that gradually out of the capacity for melody that your race has, we shall develop some school of American Music. It is going to come through you originally.[v] 

Roosevelt suggested that the “school of American music” include “popular street songs,” which were “more expressive of American life than any other music.” These songs offered a suitable basis for “the melodic structure of future symphonies.”[vi]

Eight days later, the New York Age published “Roosevelt on Spirituals: Plantation Melodies Basis of American School of Music.” The article shows how the Black press reported on African American music as a source of community pride:

President Roosevelt rendered a valuable service to music when he called attention, with the impressive emphasis which his high office lends all his utterances, to the rich fields as yet uncultivated and almost unexplored, comprising the old plantation melodies or “Negro spirituals.”[vii]

Ragtime Music is a Crime

While spirituals experienced a renaissance, ragtime underwent a harsh interrogation in Black newspapers.

Ragtime, commonly played in bars and brothels, garnered a reputation as a low-class type of Black music. In 1901, the Chicago Federation of Musicians called for a ban on ragtime music, calling it “immoral, obscene, degrading and unworthy of production.”[viii] Many Black leaders felt the same.

The Broad Ax attacked Black musicians who let themselves be exploited:

We are unalterably opposed to minstrel shows and cakewalks … because they’re both denigrating, and they unmistakably tend to lower every negro in the estimation of the opposite race. They serve as a means of amusement to the vicious and immoral of other races who are rather inclined to encourage negroes to make monkeys of themselves …

We hate with all the intensity of our being all negroes who will, for the sake of acquiring money, permit themselves to be exhibited by their white managers for the special purpose of furnishing ludicrous amusement for the gaping white and to the debasement of our of the race.

They seem to lose sight of the fact that they are placed in a club in the hands of the vile and vicious whites and their newspaper editors to beat all self-respecting negroes over the head.

The negro race can never expect to progress or raise themselves in the estimation of the Anglo-Saxon race as long as they participate or lend their presence or countenance to these performances, which are worse than barbarous.[ix]

The writer called out the “negro hating sheets” like the Salt Lake Tribune, who “use the word darky or coon or spell negro with a double g.” [x]

Black newspapers’ attacks on ragtime were just warming up.  

devilment and monkeyshines

Rag-time music and cakewalks. The two above-named pastimes are disgusting—ridiculously disgusting! … Why mothers of refinement and proper training allow their young, pliable, easily impressed daughters to indulge in any such devilment and monkeyshines is a mystery to the writer, who would far prefer washing her daughter’s face and following her to the cemetery to see her go into hell, to dancing cakewalks, indulging in ragtime music, and other such deviltry.[xi]

Smack dab on the front page of the Broad Ax, the uncredited writer held nothing back.

Broad Ax editors attacked minstrel shows in articles like this because because they “unmistakably tend to lower every negro in the estimation of the opposite race.” [xii]

Lester Walton

Other Black writers agreed. Music and theater critic Lester Walton of the New York Age wrote:

Years ago, the minstrel shows – white and colored – sought to portray to the public the real Negro, portraying him as a person of very sable hue, with a cavernous mouth, using the language of a field hand long before the war, and cutting up monkeyshines that would do a circus clown credit … [As a result] many of our white critics and fellow citizens, not keeping abreast with the race’s progress and advancement, regard us all in too light and frivolous vein.[xiii]   

Walton referred specifically to White theater critics who attacked the Black musical The Red Moon after its New York debut in the spring of 1909. Ironically, these critics criticized the actors for not acting Black enough. One complained that only a few of the characters “stuck to the traditions of the real Negro” in their “accent and intonation.” Walton thus asked, “What is the real Negro from a white man’s standpoint of view?”

His answer: a stereotype created through minstrelsy. 

Walton combated this misrepresentation through his column “Music and the Stage.” It was the first significant column to address music in an African American newspaper. 

Music and Stage

From February 1908 to July 1912, Walton authored “Music and the Stage.” In it, he covered historically significant performances by Black artists in New York City. Walton aimed to educate readers about the performing arts and provide a platform for a respectful and knowledgeable discussion of African American music and theater.

Walton wrote his column during the formative years of the Black musical. He reviewed milestone shows. For instance, in his first “Music and the Stage,” Walton reviewed the groundbreaking Black musical Bandanna Land, produced by Bert Williams and George Walker:

Bandanna Land is some show. There are certain times in my life when I experience a thrill of pleasure and feel proud that I’m identified with the Negro race, and such occasions are always superinduced by something mysterious I have seen a member or members of the race do … If all the colored patrons were inspired as was the writer after seeing Williams and Walker’s new show, they will strive the harder to succeed in their particular avenue of endeavor.[xiv]

Walton said he intended to “look at the show with a critical eye” and then “tear it into pieces from my standpoint …”[xv] Instead, despite a few minor quibbles, he praised the show.  

The Apostle of Ragtime

Access to Broadway allowed Black composers to restore ragtime’s tarnished image in their community and society. Walton helped to make this happen by supporting ragtime composer Scott Joplin.

Joplin worked on an ambitious project at the time, a ragtime-influenced opera called Treemonisha. In a spring 1911 “Music and the Stage,” Walton wrote:

Since syncopated music, better known as ragtime, has been in vogue, many Negro writers have gained considerable fame as composers of that style of music … Music circles have been stirred recently by the announcement that Scott Joplin, known as the apostle of ragtime, is composing scores for grand opera …

From ragtime to grand opera is certainly a big jump. About as great a jump as from the American theater to the Manhattan and Metropolitan Opera houses. Yet we believe that the time is not far off when America will produce several S. Coleridge-Taylors who will prove to the public that the black man can compose other than ragtime music.[xvi]

Walton referred to bi-racial British composer Samuel Coleridge-Taylor.

Upon Its Own Merits  

Coleridge-Taylor became well-known after he wrote three cantatas based on the poem “The Song of Hiawatha” by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. The composer’s parents named him after the English poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge.

When Coleridge-Taylor passed away in the fall of 1912, Walton collected accolades from White newspapers and published them as a remembrance of the composer. This highlights the importance Walton placed on endorsements of Black musicians by White critics.

The quotes focus on Coleridge-Taylor’s ethnicity and express the theme of racial pride that animated all of Walton’s writings. For example, he quoted a London Times critic:

His mixed descent cannot be forgotten in any study of his music since it makes his work an interesting example to all who are concerned with the appearance of racial characteristics in music.[xvii]      

This is an early example of the racialization of music by White critics that would become a common theme in jazz criticism decades later. In contrast, a reviewer for the Philadelphia Inquirer wrote: 

There is nothing specifically African about his music. Nor does he need any special consideration by readers of his race … his music has stood and will stand exclusively upon its own merits …[xviii]

Walton argued that racism limited Black musicians’ career opportunities and alienated them from their musical traditions:

… the barrier of race has kept colored musicians, with one or two exceptions, in the music hall and has made them ashamed of their best heritage, the folk music of the plantations. [xix]   

Walton provided an example of a composer who struggled with racist barriers, Will Marion Cook.  

Where They Are Not Wanted

Will Marion Cook played for royalty. In 1919, the Black composer brought his Southern Syncopated Orchestra to England and performed before King George V.

Cook studied under Antonín Dvořák. However, he turned to musical theater because of racial segregation in classical music. Cook went on to compose some of the first major Broadway musicals to showcase Black performers and producers, such as Clorindy and In Dahomey.

To note how Black composers went unrecognized by the White establishment, Walton quoted an article about Cook that appeared in the New York Evening Post. The writer said that most of Cook’s compositions “remained unprinted and lacked the stamp of approval from authoritative white people that would have raised them above the level of mediocrity in which they flowered.”[xx]

Cook’s Letter

Walton continued to cover Cook in his column. He understood the battle the composer fought for equality in the music industry. When Cook wrote a letter to the New York Age’s editor, Walton published it in his column.

Cook began,

A recent experience with a music publishing concern inspires me to comment on the treatment colored composers and artists receive from some of these firms.[xxi]

Cook wrote that when his Black colleagues visited his White publishing house, the manager, “after expressing disapproval of many of these visits by sour looks and evidence of lack of courtesy to my visitors, finally, blankly informed me ‘that entirely too many spades come into the office.’”

Cook ended his letter with a question: “Should the colored composer and performer go where they are not wanted?”

Walton’s response: “No!”

Walton went on to ask Black musicians to “sever all business relations with those who discriminate.” He noted that White music publishers didn’t advertise in the Age even though it was “more widely read than any theatrical weekly.” 

He also clarified:

For the benefit of those who are not familiar with the expressions of slang used in Tin Pan Alley, reference made to “spades” relates to colored composers and performers.

His Beat is Graceful yet Decided

In a fortuitous act of fate, when jazz became a national pastime in the mid-1910s, an established Black press stood ready to remind its readers, and the world, of its African American roots.

As a result, Black journalists at the New York Age and elsewhere produced some of the first writings about jazz and its precursors. Some of these writers had already written about Black orchestras and the irresistible power of brass and reed sections playing to syncopated rhythms.

The Age covered the rise of syncopated orchestras and supported one visionary bandleader in particular who led the way to jazz:

Mr. James Reese Europe is a Washingtonian of considerable musical ability who will assume the position of musical director with Messrs Cole and Johnson’s musical comedy the “Shoo Fly Regiment … [He] has a very commanding presence as he holds the baton and his beat is graceful yet decided.

These qualifications together with an inner musicological grasp of the best effects to be obtained from his forces will no doubt be a great achievement for him and demonstrate again that we have in the race the material necessary for artistic success in all lines of musical endeavor.”[xxii]

James Reese Europe

This 1906 article, likely written by Lester Walton, introduces one of the most consequential figures in early 20th-century American music. Four years later, Europe assembled a 125-member  African American band, the Clef Club Orchestra. The group included many stringed instruments, including guitars, mandolins, and banjos. Many of the members played by ear.

The band played music for popular dance styles like the fox trot. They were essential in bringing an African American influence into mainstream dance music. As jazz historian Ted Gioia points out, while the Clef Club Orchestra wasn’t a jazz band, it was “indicative of an important change in American taste. And one that anticipated the later revolution of big band jazz.”[xxiii] 

“There is Really Some Class to the Clef Club“

Walton wrote regularly about the Clef Club Orchestra. In a 1911 column, he called the band “one of the most unique musical organizations in the world,” adding that his statement wouldn’t be taken seriously “until the white press makes a similar assertion.”[xxiv] Walton wrote:

Every time I attend a performance of the Clef Club Symphony Orchestra, I leave Manhattan Casino more deeply impressed with the idea that someday the organization is going to make the devotees of music in New York sit up and take notice, irrespective of whether they be colored or white. For there is really some class to the Clef Club. [xxv]

That day came two years later.  On May 12, 1912, the Clef Club Orchestra debuted at Carnegie Hall. Walton attended and wrote a remarkable column about the show, which I detailed in my post, “Lester Walton’s Remarkable Evening in Carnegie Hall.”[xxvi]

He wrote:

It has long been my wish that local colored musicians appear in a concert at one of the leading music halls of the city and give the white citizens an opportunity to hear music written and played by colored people … It was not until Thursday evening at Carnegie Hall that my wish was gratified.[xxvii]

No Color Line was Drawn in Any Part of the House

Inside Carnegie Hall, Walton watched the audience attentively and compared the different reactions of Blacks and Whites: 

… I spent most of my time watching the white auditors [attendees], as I was particularly anxious to know just what they thought of the concert.

It is extremely unfortunate … that color prejudice, with its inconsistencies and un-American spirit … is running riotously rampant in this country … So when a golden opportunity is afforded us to show that we are no different from other human beings … it was a source of great pleasure to [witness the concert] Thursday evening at Carnegie Hall.

… No color line was drawn in any part of the house, both white and colored occupied boxes. Carnegie Hall was packed to the doors with members of both races, and hundreds were turned away. Yet no calamity occurred because the colored citizens were not segregated in certain parts of the house, as some of our theater managers think it is necessary to do, despite laws forbidding discrimination. [xxviii]

In a remarkable passage, Walton noted the effect of a ragtime song on White patrons: 

Many white composers and writers do their best to disparage syncopated music … known as ragtime and do their utmost to show that this brand of music does not even merit passing consideration. Yet I noticed that not until the Clef Club had played [the ragtime song] “Panama” did the audience evince more than ordinary interest. White men and women then looked at each other and smiled while one lady seated in a prominent box began to beat time industriously with her right hand, which was covered with many costly gems. [xxix]

Syncopation is a Native Product

After watching the Carnegie patron keeping time with her jewel-encrusted hand, Walton had a revelation:

It was then that after a brief mental soliloquy, I was forced to conclude that despite the adverse criticism of many who are unable to play it that syncopation is truly a native product – a style of music of which the Negro is the originator, but which is generally popular with all Americans. [xxx]

African American musicians also originated another new genre – jazz. In New Orleans’s Black communities, syncopated dance bands and marching bands formed, and began touring. These musicians called their music jass, or jazz.

White musicians began playing the music and brought it to a mainstream audience. When a White group, the Original Dixieland Jass Band, began releasing records in 1917, jazz became the most popular music in America. Meanwhile, Black geniuses like Louis Armstrong played in brothels and bars while developing their chops.    

Thus, when journalists at African American newspapers began covering jazz, they reminded readers of the music’s Black origins. In 1917, an uncredited writer in the Age proclaimed,

A musical authority has proclaimed that the term “jass,” variously spelled jas, jass, jazz, jasy, and jascz, is African in origin. It means to speed things up and applied to music of a rudimentary syncopated type.[xxxi]

Jazz Debates in the Black community

But all Black journalists weren’t having the new sound. One wrote:

It takes a good deal of straining of one’s aesthetic sense to apply the word music to the resultant concussion … The performers have no score before them; indeed, all of them are playing by ear,  so their art isn’t tied down to any mere earthly notes, and they go soaring. Consequently, the melody that they are ostensibly playing dies an untimely death from drowning.[xxxii]

However, a 1918 article in the Washington Bee proclaimed, “Everybody Loves a Jazz Band”:

This music is said to have originated in Louisiana, where a colored boy on a sugar plantation was a most proficient dancer. He entertained his fellow workers at the noon hour with his dancing pranks and played his own accompaniment on a mouth harp.

This young lad’s nickname was Jazz, and the popular style of melody he extracted from his mouth harp soon had everyone around the plantation swaying to its most fascinating rhythm. The syncopation was named Jazz after its originator, and it has taken the country by storm.[xxxiii]

Even the ragtime-hating Broad Ax touted a pioneering Chicago jazz club:

Less than two years ago, the Dreamland Café … threw its doors open to the public and from that time to the present it has been one of the most pleasant places of amusement on the South Side. At the present time, it has the best ragtime band in Chicago, accompanied by Bertha Hall,  Alberta Hunter and Mr. Tom Mills, the most popular entertainers.[xxxiv]

Harlem Hellfighters

During the First World War, James Reese Europe popularized jazz when he toured France. His regiment, the 369th Infantry Regiment (the “Harlem Hellfighters”) fought with the French Army. Europe directed the regimental band, which toured France. They planted the seeds for French critics’ tremendous interest in jazz that came later, in the 1920s and 30s.

African American newspapers energetically covered French jazzmania. “Jazz Music Makes Hit with French Officials” read one 1918 headline in the Age: 

High officials in France are said to be exceedingly fond of the jazz music furnished by the colored bands.[xxxv]

Similar articles ran in the Richmond Planet and many Black papers. Lester Walton penned a lengthy piece called “French Now Want Colored Musicians from United States”:

Colored American musicians are now in demand in Paris, France, as the French have cultivated a taste for ragtime and jazz music. Having fallen willing victims to the melody dispensed by race military bands, the music-loving public of the French capital is eager to hear a colored orchestra from the United States …[xxxvi]

This started a trend. Until the end of segregation in the 1960s, European audiences received African American jazz musicians more warmly than American audiences and venues. French bohemian society thrilled to jazz by Black artists. These musicians found refuge from their home country’s racism and segregation laws.

Wild About Jazz Music

As jazz took off in America, Black newspapers used it as a chance to remind readers of the music’s African American origins. This can be seen in the New York Age article “Jazz music is Now All the Rage Throughout the United States”:

Since the return of colored military bands from France to these shores, the country simply has gone wild about jazz music …

Lovers of syncopation are indebted to the Negro for what is known as ragtime, and despite the false claims of some white writers, the Negro musician is primarily responsible for the introduction of jazz music …[xxxvii]

The article quoted famed ballroom dance instructor Vernon Castle:

“Let me try to define jazz as I understand it. The colored bands jazz a tune. That is to say, they slur the notes they syncopate, and each instrument puts in a world of little fancy depths of its own. The dominating feature is brass. In the United States, everyone dances to jazz music, but there are no fixed steps.”[xxxviii]

Vernon and Irene Castle played a significant role in reviving modern dancing in the early 20th century. They promoted Victor Records and Victrolas and released records by the Castle House Orchestra, led by James Reese Europe.

Articles like this in the New York Age and other Black newspapers provided a counterweight to the coverage of jazz in mainstream publications, which focused on White musicians like Paul Whiteman, the self-proclaimed “King of Jazz.” African American journalists foresaw the future of jazz from inside the world of Black entertainment.

Epilogue

In 1919, Lester Walton proudly announced to his readers that “Negro music is winning more recognition than ever before.”[xl] On the same page, he published “Montgomery Folk Song Festival Big Success.” The fest occurred in the capital of Alabama, the former capital of the Confederacy. Organizers held the event in the segregated city auditorium, hosted by the Dexter Avenue Baptist Church. Thirty-five years later, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. became the church’s pastor and sparked the civil rights movement by helping to organize the Montgomery bus boycott.  

But back in 1919, civil rights laws were a long way away. In an audience containing Black dignitaries like the wife of Tuskegee Institute founder Booker T. Washington, Walton found hope in what he heard and saw:

Not since … years ago have colored people been permitted to use the auditorium by the City Commission … Half of the parquet was filled with white people … The program included numbers by colored writers [composers] which were well rendered. Many encores were necessary …[xli]

Walton heard the same “folk songs” sung generations later by King’s followers in Selma and Washington. These songs were valorized by the community of Black journalists who legitimized African American music during a crucial period in the history of American music.

Conclusion

From 1880 to 1920, Black journalists played an essential role in legitimizing African American music during a crucial period of co-development between Black journalism and music.

In the 1880s, genres like spirituals, plantation songs, and ragtime were in danger of becoming grotesque caricatures in the hands of minstrels and racist vaudeville acts. Black musicians lacked opportunities in classical music and Broadway musicals despite the rise of college-educated and musically trained performers. Career opportunities disappeared across the South and elsewhere under the new Jim Crow laws that criminalized racial inter-mixing and made touring hazardous.

Despite these challenges, musicians ushered in a Golden Age of African American music. Black musicians revolutionized the nation’s music, from James Reese Europe to Scott Joplin to Duke Ellington. And if it weren’t for journalists like Lester Walton, this transformation would have gone unnoticed or framed entirely from a White perspective.

The body of music writings by Black journalists from 1880 to 1920 is an irreplaceable trove of historical facts. Yet, this work meant more in its own time because it catalyzed genres and movements like the Black musical theater that continue to shape American music today.   

As the 1910s came to a close, an uncredited Washington Bee writer saw the future of jazz:

Last Monday evening, Odd Fellows’ Hall, on M Street, was beautifully decorated for a novelty dance given by the clerks and messengers of the various government buildings. An excellent crowd was in attendance to greet Duke Ellington’s Jazz Band.[xxxix]

Ellington would revolutionize popular music for the next half-century. The White press ignored the visionary bandleader during his formative years. But, journalists at Black newspapers documented Ellington’s climb to fame in real time. That’s a story for another time.

Notes

[i] Lester A. Walton, “Colored Attractions Winning O.K. of Broadway,” New York Age, Mar 22, 1919: 6.

[ii] Uncredited, “Some Negro Characteristics,” Washington Bee, September 25, 1886: 1.

[iii] See: https://don-armstrong.com/2024/02/22/the-revealing-music-journalism-of-the-civil-war-years/, https://don-armstrong.com/2024/02/27/music-journalism-in-the-post-civil-war-years/, and https://don-armstrong.com/2024/02/15/the-revolutionary-music-journalism-of-the-redemption-era/.

[iv] Peter Gutmann, “Dvorak’s “New World” Symphony,. Classical Classics, webpage, retrieved July 30, 2024: http://www.classicalnotes.net/columns/newworld.html.

[v] Uncredited, “Negro Melodies May Become Classical,” Scrap Book, April 1906: 213. 

[vi] Uncredited, “Negro Melodies May Become Classical,” Scrap Book, April 1906: 212-13. 

[vii] Uncredited, “Future of Plantation Melodies, New York Age, Feb. 22, 1906: 4.

[viii] Kalamazoo Gazette-News, 13 November 1901.

[ix] Uncredited, “Black Patti,” Broad Ax, April 2, 1898: 1.

[x] Uncredited, “Black Patti,” Broad Ax, April 2, 1898: 1.

[xi] Uncredited, “Rag-Time and Cake Walks,” Broad Ax, Jan. 20, 1900: 1.

[xii] Uncredited, “Black Patti,” Broad Ax, April 2, 1898: 1.

[xiii] Lester A. Walton, “The Awakening,” New York Age, May 6, 1909: 6.

[xiv] Lester A. Walton, “Music and the Stage,” New York Age, Feb. 6, 1908.

[xv] Lester A. Walton, “Music and the Stage,” New York Age, Feb. 6, 1908.

[xvi] Lester A. Walton, “Music and the Stage,” New York Age, March 5, 1911: 6.

[xvii] Lester A. Walton, “Music and the Stage,” New York Age, Oct. 10, 1912.

[xviii] Lester A. Walton, “Music and the Stage,” New York Age, Oct. 10, 1912.

[xix] Lester A. Walton, “Music and the Stage,” New York Age, Oct. 10, 1912.

[xx] Lester A. Walton, “Music and the Stage,” New York Age, Oct. 10, 1912.

[xxi] Lester A. Walton, “Music and the Stage,” New York Age, Feb. 9, 1911: 6.

[xxii] Uncredited, New York Age, July 26, 1906: 6

[xxiii] Ted Gioia, The History of Jazz (Oxford University Press, 2011): 101.

[xxiv] Lester A. Walton, “Music and the Stage,” New York Age, Nov. 16, 1911: 6.

[xxv] Lester A. Walton, “Music and the Stage,” New York Age, Nov. 16, 1911: 6.

[xxvi] Don Armstrong, “Lester Walton’s Evening at Carnegie Hall,” webpage: https://don-armstrong.com/2024/01/13/thursday-evening-at-carnegie-hall-lester-walton-and-the-new-york-age/.

[xxvii] Lester A. Walton, “Music and the Stage,” New York Age, May 9, 1912: 6.

[xxviii] Lester A. Walton, “Music and the Stage,” New York Age, May 9, 1912: 6.

[xxix] Lester A. Walton, “Music and the Stage,” New York Age, May 9, 1912: 6.

[xxx] Lester A. Walton, “Music and the Stage,” New York Age, May 9, 1912: 6.

[xxxi] Uncredited, Untitled, New York Age, Aug 9, 1917: 4.

[xxxii] Uncredited, “More About Jazz,” New York Age, Nov 8, 1917: 6.

[xxxiii] Uncredited, “Everybody Loves a Jazz Band,” Washington Bee, Aug 31, 1918: 8

[xxxiv] Uncredited, “The Dreamland Café,” Broad Ax, Sept. 7, 1918: 12.

[xxxv] Uncredited, “Jazz Music Makes Hit with French Officials,” New York Age, Oct 5, 1918: 6.

[xxxvi] Lester A. Walton, “French Now Want Colored Musicians from United States,” New York Age, Feb 8, 1919: 6.

[xxxvii] Uncredited, “Jazz music is Now All the Rage Throughout United States,” New York Age, May 3, 1919: 6.

[xxxviii] Uncredited, “Jazz music is Now All the Rage Throughout United States,” New York Age, May 3, 1919: 6.

[xxxix] Uncredited, “Government Clerks and Messengers Dance,” Washington Bee, Jun 7, 1919: 5.

[xl] Lester A. Walton, “Colored Attractions Winning O.K. of Broadway,” New York Age, Mar 22, 1919: 6.

[xli] Lester A. Walton, “Colored Attractions Winning O.K. of Broadway,” New York Age, Mar 22, 1919: 6.